Throughout
your homepage you have used the term 'mean' or some version of it. Yet, you
claim that a basic rule underlying clear, critical, and analytical thinking is
"No word or symbol has an inherent meaning." I can only reply that
not only do I not know what you mean, but nothing in your homepage means
anything to me.
It
is appropriate, first, that we be aware of the extent to which we have
conditioned responses to words spoken, written, or heard. For example,
aside from the psychologically conditioned "meaning" and associated
implications upon hearing a the word, "pencil," and associating with
it its intended use as a tool for writing, we shall not consider the more
complex philosophical issues of meaning attendant upon abstract words and the
physical condition of the object referred to such as in this
case, if the pencil is handled carelessly, it has the potential for
puncturing an eye, or being sharpened along with a host or other possible events inherent in the existence
of the pencil. We shall, instead concentrate only on the conditioned
conventional meanings attributed to the names of physical objects.
As to your assertion, on the face of it, your response PROVES the rule.
It is important to
distinguish what I suspect you have not considered: that there is a difference
between "what the words of my home page and the rule mean" and "what I mean by
using the words."
If in fact you do not
and cannot know what the former "mean," your inability to know proves
that the words have no inherent meanings; and if symbols
(here, words) do have inherent meanings, as you imply, you would know what
they mean. You would, then, claim that my position regarding meaning is wrong whereupon
it would be incumbent upon you to verify that your claim is true.
Since speaking of words
HAVING meaning is colloquial, that is to say, conventional, use of language, I doubt that the above is
sufficient to convince anyone who believes "words (symbols) have
meaning."
Consequently, I shall
present the evidence for my claim at great, if perhaps unnecessary, length.
Let's review conventional usage, i.e., dictionary reporting of the
use of linguistic symbols, past and present, and particularly the terms, 'word,' 'inherent,' and 'meaning.'
FIRST: According to Webster's New Universal Unabridged
Dictionary:
WORD:
There are so many
uses ("meanings") of the term, 'word' (well over 25) that I shall
offer only a few: speech [i.e., sound] a short speech, affirmation, news, a
group of letters, Logos, [i.e. the word of God] written expression, and too
many more to cite here.
INHERENT: to stick to
or inhere, existing in someone or something as a natural and inseparable part
of something, to be a member, adjunct, or quality of something; to be inherent
or innate. Synonyms: inbred, inborn, innate, natural, inseparable, indwelling.
MEANING, n. 1. that
which exists in the mind, view, or contemplation as a settled aim or purpose;
that which is meant or intended to be done; intent; purpose; aim; object.
[Archaic.]
2. that which is
intended to be, or in fact is, conveyed, denoted, signified, or understood by
acts or language; the sense, signification, or import of words; significance;
force.
3. sense; understanding,
knowledge. [Obs.]
Synonyms:
import,
intention, design, intent, purport, sense, signification.
DICTIONARIES DO NOT
DEFINE WORDS; THEY RECORD USAGE in the past and in the present; there is
little doubt that they will, also, record usage in the future as we add new
words and "attach" our new meanings to old ones.
SECOND: We have a tendency to conflate the term
'definition' with usage of symbols.
Relevant to our issue,
the "definition" of 'definition' is: an explanation or statement
of what a word or phrase means or meant (my italics).
Linguists use special
names for different kinds of definitions, which there is no need to cite here.
No definition can
rightfully be declared to be "wrong" if one explains clearly how it
is being used.
The most one can claim
is that it is not socially acceptable.
That is to say, in
colloquial usage when one says "that word means," one is referring
to conventional usage.
However, even
"conventional" usage "means" different things to different
people, nations, cultures, and professions.
Moreover,
"conventional" usage changes according to the period of time in the
history of man's history, who "invents" the words, and usage by individuals or
special groups or professions.
In the various nations,
cultures, and families throughout the world, from birth, we began hearing
sounds to which we could not yet attach "meanings."
As Bertrand Russell was so concerned to point
out, learning to use language also involved a process or imitation.
Throughout our nurturing
process we were given the "meanings" of those sounds which we later
were taught are words.
Before us, our parents
were told what meanings to give to those words.
And before them, their
parents were told what to mean by the sounds and so on throughout the ancestry
of man.
Consider the
conventional usage of words throughout the world in Biblical times as compared
to today.
Consider the nature of
language (the "giving" of "meaning") at the evolutionary
stage of animalistic "communication" evolving into gestures giving
way to grunts that eventually evolved into WORDS.
Consider how education
(in the proper interpretation of that term) causes us to change the
"meanings" of words.
Consider the lost
languages of extinct cavemen and words now considered obsolete or, like the
term, 'abstract,' used with many different "meanings."
As we became independent
of those who told us what to mean by those words, some of us began to attach
different "meanings" to them and even invented sounds (words) of our
own.
Very often new
"meanings" evolved from our misuse, ignorance, inventiveness, and a
host of other sources.
With the exception of a
vast minority of us, we rarely questioned those "meanings."
Many of us are unable to
attach any "meaning" to the various languages of the world or to the
special jargon of specialized or professional language.
Meaning did not exist
before sentient beings came into existence.
There were no words (or
meanings) floating around in the universe for some unimaginable period of time
after the "Big Bang."
And surely even the
NATURE of "meaning" at its inception, has been
transformed by evolutionary processes.
Meaning
"resides" only in the "mind."
Or, as Einstein declares
in his The Meaning of Relativity (2nd edition),
"The only
justification for our concepts and systems of concepts is that they serve to
represent the complex of our experiences; beyond this they have no
legitimacy."
It is we who
"attach" meanings or, a la Ogden and Richards, referents to our words and symbols.
© 1997 by Pasqual S. Schievella
