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Apr 26, 2022
This week’s theme
There’s a word for it

This week’s words
typomania
epistemology
yestereve
marcescence
aggiornamento

epistemology
“But surely you agree that truth can be created by the repetition of a lie.”
Cartoon: Dan Piraro

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

epistemology

PRONUNCIATION:
(i-pis-tuh-MOL-uh-jee)

MEANING:
noun: The study of knowledge, especially its nature, origin, limits, validity, etc.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Greek episteme (knowledge) + -logy (study). Earliest documented use: 1847.

USAGE:
“Freud’s misogyny, his reification of Victorian shibboleth, his because-I-said-so epistemology -- all of these have been justly relegated to the dustbin of psychology.”
Gary Greenberg; The War on Unhappiness; Harper’s (New York); Sep 2010.

“A professor of philosophy, Teddy, returns to London after six years in America to introduce his wife, Ruth, to his father, a butcher named Max, to his uncle Sam, a chauffeur, and to his brothers ... Teddy, a professional maker of meanings, insists, ‘I’m the one who can see. That’s why I can write my critical works.’ Ruth, however, has a physicality that overrides Teddy’s epistemology.”
John Lahr; Demolition Man; The New Yorker; Dec 24, 2007.

See more usage examples of epistemology in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
Everyday language is a part of the human organism and is no less complicated than it. -Ludwig Wittgenstein, philosopher (26 Apr 1889-1951)

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