Words

Is the meaning of a word simply the object it names?

This seems absurd because then the ‘meaning’ could be moved, destroyed, locked away, etc.

Is the meaning of a word a ‘mental state’?

In this case it seems difficult to imagine how language could have begun, or how communication could be effective.

Are we to go with Wittgenstein, and say that a majority of the time, the meaning of a word coincides with the way it has been or can be actually used?

In this final instance we would still have to account for how a word’s ‘sense’ becomes constructed from non-sensical (absurd, a-signifying) elements…

You are assuming that the word names an object, so is a “concrete noun.” In this case I think it is more sensible to say, as in math, that a word is defined by the set of all instances. For example, the number 1 is essentially defined as the set of all sets that have one element (this is not circular when made precise, because “size” is defined a precise but abstract way. So, maybe in a similar way, we can define the word car to be the set of all cars (would have to make the concept of “car-ness” precise. It would also have to be the set of all cars over all time, in which case destroying all cars at any fixed time does nothing. Also, the word would have an “empty” meaning before the car was invented.
What about abstract concepts?

In some sense the meaning of a word has to be a mental state, in the sense that words map to states of the brain which we interpret as understanding the word.

I am not sure what you mean in the third point, I don’t know about what Wittgenstein said on the issue. But it seems to make some sense to me that the way the word can be used is integral to what we mean by definition. In fact, does it make sense to ask the question: can a word have meaning without being able to be used in a way that make sense? If I make up a word right now, with a meaning assigned to it in my head, but can’t use it in a conversation, does that word actually have a meaning?

Seems that there is a lot we can discuss here, maybe we should pick one of these points and try to get at the heart of some of these issues.

Absolutely Not.

Depends on what you mean by mental state I guess.

Words don’t really MEAN anything. They mean something different to each person and Yes, it is important in the context in which it has been used.

Philosophy of Language is funny in how it very quickly can connect to Philosphy of mind because our idea of ‘mental states’, the mind, the brain, consciousness, etc. has a profound impact on Philosophy of Language.

In general, I was just talking with someone else about words and how they are references of references of references of references of relative observation. Words don’t ‘exist’ in a way. But everybody knows all this crap…

Hey JoeTheMan,

As you rightly suspect, the answer is no.

“If a conquerer burns a city, he does not burn the name of the city; what happens to a thing does not automatically happen to the sign.” Frege, Basic Laws II

The meaning of a word is not identical to a mental state. Words - along with their vague and fluid meanings - are ideas which are generated by mental processes; the workings of which remain a mystery.

I’m generally comfortable with Wittgenstein’s later views on language. The task of language is not to mirror reality, but to express a created surreality (“sur”=“on”). Words only mean what we think they mean in the context that we use them.

Michael

edit: spelling

Words without an observer are further reduced to being useless mystic incantations.

Exactly!

Is this a consensus thing? Again, if I make up a word right now, even if I attach a meaning to it personally, I can’t use it with anyone else. Does this word have a meaning? Or is the meaning of a word - to use mathematical jargon - an ordered pair ( meaning ; set of people who understand it ).

No and Yes

To you it does. And to me it could have a different or similar meaning.

In a way people are agreeing to ASSUME that the word means a similar thing. But that is key: it is a sort of agreement to assume we mean the same thing. It can never be anything more. We have to make the assumption and move on. But we never can escape our own subjectivity. We never really know that the word means the same in other’s minds. I would even go as far to say that we don’t exactly know what a word means to ourselves because our comprehension and use of the word is always being influenced and changed slightly. Words are just references of references and our brain can’t map out every reference because they are always changing and growing.

I am sure I will be burned at the stake for this, but…

A word only has meaning in that it has a referent in which to reference for meaning. My word ‘quizblorg’ has no meaning unless I define it within parameters of reference. Importantly though, the object in reference does not necessarily mean a concrete object but anything that is supposedly concrete… anything not subject in this case would be an object.

A rather awkward way of putting it, but there must be a subjective experience of a word in order for it to have meaning. The word ‘cayenne’ has no meaning outside of a human subjective experience, if there where no congicent people then the word would have no meaning attached to it regardless of whether or not the subject existed.

Wittgenstein actually forwarded the ‘context theory of language’ (a very useful way to remember it) in which the meaning of a word is defined only within the confines of the context used, and is meaningless beyond it. Thus ‘bandage’ has no meaning independant of it’s use, and words with multiple assumed meanings only have one particular meaning within their specific context.

And yes, we are to go with this. It seems to make the most sense, especially beyong Aristotle’s and Locke’s viewpoints.[/list]

I agree that such an assumption is a necessary condition for communication.
But, it can’t entirely just be such an “agreement of an assumption.” Because, sometimes, language is used to describe reality, and so different word meanings would not describe the world accurately. I can’t point to a tree and say to you, “That is a pretty mountain.” I am thinking of this as a sort of evolutionary principle: Shared understanding of the meaning of words is a sine qua non of any spoken language.
You raise a very interesting point about the evolution of word meanings, even in our own mind. But I’m not sure I understand what you mean about words being “references of references.”
Finally, I want to ask you about “it can never be anything more.” Is this because of abstract concepts that lack a precise definition?

Hello clr, and welcome to ILP!

Please check out Wittgenstein’s, “Private Language” argument; as well as Kripke’s objections/commentary on it.

I’d disagree with a contention that language accurately describes external reality (although I’m not certain that you meant to imply this). My view is that, at best, language approximately communicates our (individual and collective) perceptions and interpretations of external reality.

Kind regards,
Michael

It doesn’t seem absurd to me because the meaning has merit as long as there is something static about it. An encyclopedia is not only a book for our learning but an authority on fact because we had to agree on something in order to progress.

Philosophers like Jacques Derrida frighten me in their obsession with attacking semantics rather than using their power to attack the prevalant and ethical issues.

I don’t see much difficulty. In order to interact with a linguistic culture effectively, there requires a cipher. A proper mental state synthesized by its cues. Humans obviously took ages to agree on ciphers, as well as passing it down through generations, learned by osmosis. But this feat is only a portion of work compared to evolution, both processes which incite skepticism because of the ultimate result through gradual minimal success. DNA itself is a list of words, requiring the correct cipher to produce the correct “mental state” in cells, which ultimately produce the right being.

Yes, in classical prelogical language. In logic, no. In logic- The meaning must coincide with the most efficient reference for the cue. (The most uses, for the least necessary symbols).

Popularity.

Prelogical language has the convenience of suspending the Ad Populum fallacy. It can gain authority simply because it appealed to a lot of people. The screening process of large companies creating dictionaries helps to prevent it from becoming a chaos without progress.

People make new words and adopt new words because they need them in their daily lives. What I find particularly interesting is that classical language works hard to express emotion rather than specify theorems. Humans struggle to explain (command) how they feel, more than they work to define the large amounts of details.

Thank you for referring me to this piece of Wittgenstein, I am not familiar with his works, I am looking forward to reading this interpretation and the original work closely.

I understand your objection to my post, and I agree generally with your contention about language. The point that I was trying to make is that the practical usefulness of language implies that our collective understanding of certain words must be “close.” I am interested in understanding this connection more, how close is close, what causes these differences in our understanding of words, and particularly the limitations of language.

yes, meaning is a cognitive state/element, not the object a word names. if a tree falls in a forest and there’s nobody around to hear it, does it have a meaning? if nietzsche writes a book and there’s nobody around to read it, does it have meaning? if you say ‘that box’ you don’t mean specifically the position and type of every molecule it comprises. if you say “abstraction” or “running” there is no object that the word refers to.

the meaning of a word is a mental state… or a mental object.

i think the best reductive approximation to the meaning of the meaning of a word is the sum of all the ways it’s ever used.

i’m not sure what you mean with the last question. how is the question left with the final instance but not in the one before it?

i think ‘the object a word refers to’ is a part of the meaning, in words that refer to objects. of course, it can never truly be part of the meaning unless you jam the object into someone’s brain, but it’s a part of it in that the word is associated with the sense perceptions of the object, and i think in some sense or another the meaning is probably partially deferred to the object itself. for example, you say, ‘the box’ referring to a particular and you dont know how big it is, and someone says, ‘the box of what size?’ and you say, ‘whatever size it is’.

Wow, I’m stunned by the depth (and quantity!) of responses here. I don’t think I could do justice to everything that’s been said here; that being so, I’ll try to respond in a general way to the questions raised, interspersing and replying to specific comments as I go.

Michael enunciates Wittgenstein’s position on meaning very well when he writes:

I suppose my question would be: so why does this make sense? Even given a nuanced interpretation of this ‘thesis,’ how do account for the fact that ‘sense’ is subtracted from nonsense? And if we can’t explain how meaning and reason arise from delirium and drift… how could we possibly hope to control it?

So while it doesn’t cover all of language-use, the thesis that ‘meaning is use’ is quite strong, possibly because the idea that words map out ways of ‘languaging’ just feels better intuitively than words actually directly denoting objects or experiences. I think clr is close to this when he questions whether it even makes sense to ask the following sort of question:

This question would appear to be absurd; this is my whole problem. If meaning is use, that is, if we understand language (or ‘sense’) to be a sort of constantly evolving, self-constructing collection of machines, which reproduces itself out of its opposite (silence, nonsense)-- then we cannot account for the primary ordering of the prelinguistic field of (absurd) singularities!

Again, if meaning is use, then the singular affect of language is to evoke an impulse to order. We should think this as literally as possible: language is molecular, and words have momentum. So significance is firmly rooted in pre-signifying (or even a-signifying) assemblages of enunciation: we can here think of the analogously complex arrangement of (biological) machines needed to produce a human voice.

So the question is: does the doctrine of the subject make any sense any more? There’s no identity, not even in difference: the observer creates a universe by severing a space in two, by invoking it to order. In fact, Joker, I don’t think we separate these two uses of language, that is, demarcating flows (unfolding the space of an observer) and magical evocation (unfolding the meta-space of observation):

I think one of the things I’m curious about is that language always seems to operate on both these levels at once, telling and acting. There are many, probably too many examples, but sticking with the thesis that meaning is use, let’s consider authority. Authority is a kind of paradox related to language. How? Authority only really exists to the degree it is virtual; that is, it maintains its integrity precisely to the degree it doesn’t actualize itself, that it remains only a possibility, a threat.

What if you don’t go by the accepted meanings? What if you scramble all the codes? Well, if you lose it too much, we’ll probably lock you up. Consensus thus has a direct political and material meaning. But nonsense is also valuable, it is the veritable source of creativity. It is the source of humor. If we’re right that language is use, then meaning is built up from non-meaning, sense built from non-sense. But who does it? There’s not really a good answer, except… all of us and none of us.

This connects us with another issue many of you were raising. Consensus: who actualizes our voice, who speaks for us, who speaks for the group? From which unseen blindspot does the ‘group voice’ emanate? This is probably the best way to approach the idea of a ‘molecular assemblage of enunciation’.

The voice doesn’t emerge from any particular part of the organism, of the group. It is a transversal dimension across all of them. We cannot approach this ‘de-totalized’ meaning except in its pure potential. We cannot set a limit, materially or conceptually, to the potential of a human group, its existence as a meaning, an identity, a process. As such, a meaning (unlike a group) is actualized only to the degree another can interpret it sensibly. But we are not always sensitive to new ways of organizing information, especially if the expressed meaning itself is unfamiliar.

In such cases, it is hard to ascribe ‘use’ to meanings whose time, as it were, has not yet come. Further, it’s difficult to say whether something which appears to be nonsense is actually so: being good subjectivists, we then leave it up to others to interpret its meaning, leaving it ‘safe’ for us to enjoy. But I think this is really irresponsible: it keeps us from having to deal with the traumatic energy contained in all processes which lead to growth and self-development.

So that’s ultimately the kind of problem I see in the ‘meaning is use’ thesis. Basicaly, we may not always see the use or sense in certain kinds of expressions, but this doesn’t mean they lack either-- if we’re concerned legitimately with the origin of linguistic structure, we must ask how it arises from the abyssal depths and joyous heights of nonsense.

Some wonderful responses here from some people that seem to know what they are talking about, (or at least seem to have thought about language a little bit)

This particular thread has sent my mind racing this week about how much we really know about what is going on in other’s minds. Thoughts about the fact that I don’t really know what you think each word you use means. I don’t really even know exactly what each word I use means to me!

I know that everybody’s perspective is different, but this week it was like I gained a whole new level of understanding that the world that other people live in (my wife, my brother, friends, etc.) is likely FAR more different that I previously assumed. When you realize this, it REALLY helps in arguments and stupid bickering. If you realize how imperfect language is and how messy and lost communication is, you no longer care to ‘fight back’ at someone because the heart of almost every arguement and fight has a big root in people having different understanding and interpretation of words and events. [b]They assume that the other person means what they mean, or sees how they see, or thinks how they think… but they’re wrong.

We really don’t have the slightest idea about what is going on in other people’s heads![/b] :-s

Sorry about off subject rant, but it was caused by this thread. :sunglasses:

I like that rant. It’s really important.

i guess the next step would be to try to understand other peoples worlds
it would be like how we understand what people mean and intend already
only on a deeper level of reality and hence interaction.

Thanks inhahe. :slight_smile: We shoud take joy in our attempts at communication outside our own mind and laugh as we crash and burn in our attempts at understanding what others think, and even understanding what we ourselves think. :sunglasses:

We must always take very seriously, not taking ourselves too seriously! :laughing:

Language is fluid. Context is important, including the conditions under which a word is heard. Hence the same words said the same way can mean different things at different times and to different people. To say ‘such and such is the real meaning of xyz’ is to overlook this.