It's an interesting point. Heidegger teases out other meanings which is
also other philosophies. I think there's a value in this, until one wants
to deal with contemporary usage, ordinary language, etc., and that's where
it fails. 'homo' and 'humus' seem to have the same roots for example as do
the Hebrew 'adm' and 'admah' - so there's something ground man (hopefully
'human') in the earth. That 'says something' but I wouldn't want to push
it....
- Alan
On Fri, 3 Feb 2006, John Lowther wrote:
On Friday, February 3, 2006, at 03:03 AM, Alan Sondheim wrote:
I think languages change in a sense absolutely; the fact that
'breakfast'
meant 'breaking fast' etc. is probably far more irrelevant than we'd
like
to believe.
happy birthday alan
this caught my eye. i see the opposite assumption grounding many
things and i get suspicious. i'm thinking of work in the vein of
heidegger -- say agamben (who i don't dislike exactly, but...) he often
begins any inquiry by tracing a word back to its very earliest roots
and then building his critique or whatever from that meaning back to
where we are. but as you say of breakfast the older meaning seems
wholly eclipsed/occluded. the word "gay" seems poised to lose its older
meanings entirely as well.
jlo
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