{"id":7022,"date":"2015-07-19T05:01:55","date_gmt":"2015-07-19T05:01:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2015\/07\/19\/why-write-3\/"},"modified":"2015-07-19T05:01:55","modified_gmt":"2015-07-19T05:01:55","slug":"why-write-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2015\/07\/19\/why-write-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Write?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\">A reader sends me the following quotation from a Richard Mitchell:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\">I have never yet written anything, long or short, that did not surprise me. That is, for me at least, the greatest worth of writing, which is only incidentally a way of telling others what you think. Its first use is for the making of what you think, for the discovery of understanding, an act that happens only in language.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\">I surmise that the Richard Mitchell in question is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sourcetext.com\/grammarian\/index.html\" target=\"_self\">The Underground Grammarian<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\"> <a class=\"asset-img-link\" href=\"http:\/\/maverickphilosopher.typepad.com\/.a\/6a010535ce1cf6970c01bb0854eb25970d-pi\" style=\"float: left;\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Underground Grammarian, Richard Miller\" class=\"asset  asset-image at-xid-6a010535ce1cf6970c01bb0854eb25970d img-responsive\" src=\"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.typepad.com\/.a\/6a010535ce1cf6970c01bb0854eb25970d-120wi\" style=\"margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;\" title=\"Underground Grammarian, Richard Miller\" \/><\/a>I agree with Mitchell&#39;s thought subject to a minor qualification.&#0160; The achievement of understanding is not possible without language, but it does not, in every instance, require writing, or even speech.&#0160; Nevertheless, the perfection of (discursive) understanding is possible only by writing.&#0160; <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: georgia,palatino;\">Second to the careful articulation of one&#39;s thought in written language comes that rare event called &#39;dialogue,&#39; in which two sympathetic minds use each other to arrive at a truth that transcends both.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A reader sends me the following quotation from a Richard Mitchell: I have never yet written anything, long or short, that did not surprise me. That is, for me at least, the greatest worth of writing, which is only incidentally a way of telling others what you think. Its first use is for the making &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2015\/07\/19\/why-write-3\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Why Write?&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[109,6,290,299],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogging","category-language-matters","category-life-of-the-mind","category-studiousness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7022\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}