{"id":2857,"date":"2010-08-30T16:25:00","date_gmt":"2010-08-30T16:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/08\/clifford-on-language-as-social-heirloom\/"},"modified":"2010-08-30T16:25:00","modified_gmt":"2010-08-30T16:25:00","slug":"clifford-on-language-as-social-heirloom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/08\/clifford-on-language-as-social-heirloom.html","title":{"rendered":"Clifford on Language as Social Heirloom"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I could have called this a \u201cQuote of the Day.\u201d One of the readings for the next meeting of the freshman class I am teaching this semester is W. K. Clifford\u2019s \u201cThe Ethics of Belief.\u201d<\/a> It is a philosophical classic, and the whole thing is worth reading\u00a0again and again. But this particular paragraph leapt out at me more than it had on previous occasions when I read the essay:<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd no one man\u2019s belief is in any case a private matter which concerns himself alone. Our lives our guided by that general conception of the course of things which has been created by society for social purposes. Our words, our phrases, our forms and processes and modes of thought, are common property, fashioned and perfected from age to age; an heirloom which every succeeding generation inherits as a precious deposit and a sacred trust to be handled on to the next one, not unchanged but enlarged and purified, with some clear marks of its proper handiwork. Into this, for good or ill, is woven every belief of every man who has speech of his fellows. An awful privilege, and an awful responsibility, that we should help to create the world in which posterity will live.\u201d <\/span><\/div>\n
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I could have called this a \u201cQuote of the Day.\u201d One of the readings for the next meeting of the freshman class I am teaching this semester is W. K. Clifford\u2019s \u201cThe Ethics of Belief.\u201d It is a philosophical classic, and the whole thing is worth reading\u00a0again and again. But this particular paragraph leapt out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nClifford on Language as Social Heirloom<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I could have called this a "Quote of the Day." One of the readings for the next meeting of the freshman class I am teaching this semester is W. 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