—Say it, no ideas but in things—
nothing but the blank faces of the houses
and cylindrical trees
bent, forked by preconception and accident—
split, furrowed, creased, mottled, stained—
secret—into the body of the light!
– William Carlos Williams, Paterson

What is an idea? What is a thing? What is poetry that ideas and things can suddenly come together? These are all notions that poets and philosophers have pondered for a few thousands years now. So I don’t expect to shed much more light than they already have.

For a long while analytical philosophers would debate whether words referred to other words or to things. While Continental philosophers would take the opposite tack and ask whether objects, things, or persons actually referred to themselves rather than words. This is an almost infinite exercise in frustration which ultimately hinges on one small but very powerful concept “meaning”. What do we mean when we “mean”?…