For this weekly check-in, read the fifth chapter, “The Meaning of Words,” on pp. 38-46 in your book What Does It All Mean? by Thomas Nagel.

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    At the end of this chapter, Nagel says:

    The problem is to explain how this is possible: How does anything we say or write mean anything — including all the words in this book?

    For your original thread, do your best to answer his question. What does “meaning” amount to? How is language “connected to” reality? How do words represent the things they refer to? If you are not sure at this point, think back to what you must have assumed about meaning before you read this chapter. How do you think you would have defined “meaning” if you had been asked to do so then?

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