Semantics is about the relation of words to thoughts, but it also about the relation of words to other human concerns. Semantics is about the relation of words to reality - the way that speakers commit themselves to a shared understanding of the truth, and the way their thoughts are anchored to things and situations in the world.

Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker

About Also Anchored Commit Concerns Human Other Reality Relation Semantics Shared Situations Speakers Themselves Things Thoughts Truth Understanding Way Words World

Related Quotes

My opinions about human nature are shared by many psychologists, linguists, and biologists, not to mention philosophers and scholars going back centuries.

— Steven Pinker

AboutBackBiologists

Language is a window into human nature, but it is also a fistula, an open wound through which we're exposed to an infectious world.

— Steven Pinker

AlsoExposedHuman

Words let us say the things we want to say and also things we would be better off not having said. They let us know the things we need to know, and also things we wish we didn't.

— Steven Pinker

AlsoBetterBetter Off

Photography is a kind of virtual reality, and it helps if you can create the illusion of being in an interesting world.

— Steven Pinker

BeingCreateHelps

Human nature is complex. Even if we do have inclinations toward violence, we also have inclination to empathy, to cooperation, to self-control.

— Steven Pinker

AlsoComplexCooperation