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Question of the Month

What Are The Most Important Things To Know?

The following answers to this question of wisdom each win a random book.

The most important things to know are the meanings of signs. This is fundamental for linguistic communication, for cooperative behavior, and for survival. In fact, without knowing the meaning of signs, we wouldn’t even be able to know what the question ‘What are the most important things to know, and why?’ means, nor would we be able to decipher any answers to that question. Our failure to know what signs mean would turn our books, articles, text messages, and conversations into, as William James might put it, a ‘blooming, buzzing confusion.’ Or suppose you took ‘What are the most important things to know?’ as meaning ‘your copy of Philosophy Now is going to burst into flames any minute.

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