Citing Sources and Quoting Quotes

The quote below, from a blog by Wittgensteinian philosopher Reshef Agam-Segal, struck me as particularly interesting since it goes to the crux of many of our arguments here and in the past. Often when someone cites a claim or argument from another (a philosopher like Searle or Dennett or, needless to say, Wittgenstein) the response is something like 'prove that's what he said or didn't say, or prove that's what he meant or didn't mean.' It's as if the person posing that demand wants to say that there is a clear-cut received opinion concerning so and so's ideas about this which is clearly accessible to us in black and white if we just go read what he says. . . .

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