p 11; this was originally listed here in a somewhat misleading form combining it with another statement on the interpretations of dreams on p. 14: No language exists that cannot be misused … Every Interpretation is hypothetical, for it is a mere attempt to read an unfamiliar text.
Modern Man in Search of a Soul (1933)
Context: It is imperative that we should not pare down the meaning of a dream to fit some narrow doctrine. … No language exists that cannot be misused. It is hard to realize how badly we are fooled by the abuse of ideas, it even seems as if the unconscious had a way of strangling the physician in the coils of his own theory.
“Without a constant misuse of language, there cannot be any discovery, any progress.”
pg. 27.
Against Method (1975)
Source: Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge
Source: Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science (2005), Chapter 3, “Words Scientists Don’t Use: At Least Not the Way You Do” (p. 58)
Source: The Limits of Evolution, and Other Essays, Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Ideaalism (1905), The Right Relation of Reason to Religion, p.260
“It is evident that Feyerabend is misusing the term 'meaning.'”
He is not alone in such misuse: in the last thirty years, misusing the term 'meaning' has been one of the most common, if least successful, ways of 'establishing' philosophical propositions. But how did this distressing state of affairs come to be? The blame must be placed squarely upon the Logical Positivists. The 'Verifiability Theory of Meaning' ('the meaning of a sentence is its method of verification') was, from the first, nothing but a persuasive redefinition. If to call metaphysical propositions 'meaningless' were only to assert that these propositions are empirically untestable, it would be harmless (the metaphysicians always said that their assertions were neither empirically testable nor tautologies); but, of course, it is not harmless, because the Positivist hopes that we will accept his redefinition of the term 'meaning,' while retaining the pejorative connotations of being 'meaningless' in the customary {linguistic) sense, i.e. being literally without sense.
"How not to talk about meaning" (1965)
Philosophical Papers Volume 2: Mind, Language and Reality (1975)
“It is not the misuse of power that is evil; the very existence of power is an evil.”
Source: The Greening of America (1970), Chapter V : Anatomy Of The Corporate State, p. 125
Udny v. Udny (1869), L. R. 1 Sc. & Div. Ap. Ca. 454.
Speech to a London Labour Party rally in the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden (5 May 1946), quoted in The Times (6 May 1946), p. 3
Prime Minister
Foreword
A Night of Serious Drinking (1938)
Letter published in The Tribune (25 December 1929) http://naxalrevolution.wordpress.com/2007/03/23/bhagat-singh-on-the-slogan-of-‘long-live-revolution’/
Context: One should not interpret the word “Revolution” in its literal sense. Various meanings and significances are attributed to this word, according to the interests of those who use or misuse it. For the established agencies of exploitation it conjures up a feeling of blood stained horror. To the revolutionaries it is a sacred phrase.
Letter X
The Nemesis of Faith (1849)
