© Roger M Tagg 2016
Ogden and Richards (O&R) were academics based at Magdalene College, Cambridge. This book originally appeared in 1923, although some of the material had already appeared in certain journals. In its later versions it has been widely used as a textbook in a variety of areas of study.
Ogden was a bit of a maverick; he edited The Cambridge Magazine for many years, which attracted heterodox contributions as well as digests of foreign newspapers - even through World War I. He also started the Heretics Society in Cambridge. He was general editor for five series of books for Kegan Paul. His later work was in promotion of his concept of Basic English - a set of just 850 words for mundane communication between speakers of many languages.
Richards' subject was (English) literary criticism. He earned some fame by introducing the term 'feedforward' - by analogy with 'feedback'. By this is meant the preparation of the reader or listener for the main message that an author or speaker is about to get across. See De Vito's book for more on this. Richards was also a mentor for some more famous writers, notably FR Leavis and Marshall McLuhan.
The book starts with a very full Table of Contents, which I suppose is an early example of feedforward.
There are two interesting 'supplemental' essays. The first is by B Malinowski, an anthropologist who found himself coming to similar conclusions based on a study of the language used by some primitive Melanesians. The second is by FG Crookshank, a senior medical officer, who pointed out the many misunderstandings he experienced in the use of the word 'disease' in the epidemics following the first world war.
If I were to pick out the main messages of the book, I would summarize them as follows:
All the main parts of the book are downloadable in PDF format from this website.
| Chapter | Page | Highlight |
|---|---|---|
| Pref- ace | vii |
"There are some who find difficulty in considering any matter unless they can recognize it as belonging to what is called a 'subject', in which ... Professors give instruction and perhaps Examinations are undergone." [RT: very much my own experience too. It's hard to get published if you stray across established academic boundaries. At least Ogden, as editor of a book series, could overcome this constraint.] |
| iii- viii |
O&R claim their contributions are as follows: "1) an account of interpretation ... ; 2) a discussion of the functions of language into ... the symbolic and the emotive ... . (A lot of problems) derive from confusion between these functions, the same words being used at once to make statements and excite attitudes; 3) a dissection and ventilation of 'meaning' ... ; 4) an examination of what are confusedly known as 'verbal questions' ". | |
| xv-xxi | Here appears the very good table of contents with key points of their argument highlighted. | |
| 1 | 2 | Raymond Postgate says, by way of introduction: "Throughout history ... there have been no questions which have caused more heart searchings, tumults and devastation than questions of the correspondence of words to 'facts'. The mention of words such as 'religion', 'patriotism' and 'property' is sufficient to demonstrate this truth". |
| 8 | "... it is a matter of common courtesy to say something even when there is hardly anything to say." | |
| 9 | "Symbolism is the study of the part played in human affairs by language and symbols of all kinds, and especially their influence on Thought." | |
| "... we have to distinguish between Thoughts and Things." A footnote says that Things are what Thoughts are 'of', or 'referring to'. {RT: I suppose Husserl would say 'intention', but that gets confused with 'intention' meaning 'plan'. | ||
| 9-10 | "Words ... 'mean' nothing by themselves ... It is only when a thinker makes use of them that they stand for anything ... (or) have 'meaning'." | |
| 11 |
O&R's triangle:
Thought or Reference / \ symbolizes refers to / \ [word(s) or sign(s)] Symbol -----stands for----- Referent [thing or event] | |
| The relation 'symbolizes' may or may not be 'correct'; the relation 'refers to' may or may not be 'adequate'; the relation 'stands for' is NOT a direct one, and may or may not be 'true'. All the relations may be complex and 'chained'. | ||
| 12 | The "simplification typified by this once universal theory of direct meaning (between words and things) ... is the source of almost all the difficulties which thought encounters". | |
| 14 | "The root of the trouble will be traced to the superstition that words are in some way parts of things, or always imply things corresponding to them ..." | |
| 15 | "The fundamental ... fallacy is ... that the base of the triangle above is filled in." | |
| "Normally, whenever we hear anything said (,) we spring spontaneously to an immediate conclusion, namely, that the speaker is referring to what we should be referring to were we speaking the words ourselves [RT: my italics]. In some cases this interpretation may be correct ... But in most discussions which attempt greater subtleties than could be handled in a gesture language (,) this will not be so." | ||
| "... gesture languages, whose accuracy within their own limited provinces is far higher than that yet reached by any system of spoken or written symbols ..." That is except, e.g., for "mathematical, scientific and musical notations". | ||
| 16 | An example of the problem is selective and over-literal interpretation of 'Holy Writ' to justify whatever the speaker wants. | |
| 19 | "But a Theory of Definition must follow, not precede, a Theory of Signs ..." | |
| "We should develop our Theory of Signs from observation of other people." | ||
| 20 | One must avoid descent into solipsism (i.e. introspection from one's own viewpoint only) - which "disqualifies the majority of philosophical and psychological discussions of Interpretation". | |
| 21 | Medical symptoms are Signs. "... very many situations which we do not ordinarily regard as Sign-situations are essentially of the same nature." | |
| 22 | "... in all perception - as distinguished from mere 'awareness' - Sign-situations are involved ..." [RT: my punctuation.] | |
| "... even before the interpretation of a word, there is almost automatic interpretation of a group of successive noises - or letters - as a word ..." | ||
| 23 | 'Symbols' includes "words, arrangements of words, images, gestures and such representations as drawings or mimetic sounds ..." | |
| 2 - | 24 | "... the profound influence of superstitions concerning words ..." |
| 25 | JG Frazer: "Superstitions survive because, while they shock the views of enlightened members of the community, they are still in harmony with the thoughts and feelings of others who, though they are drilled by their betters into an appearance of civilization, remain barbarians or savages at heart." | |
| "... the ground beneath our feet is ... honeycombed by unseen forces." | ||
| "Only by plunging daily into those depths ... can we share in the life of the community." | ||
| "... few have, as yet, evolved even the rudiments of a defence." | ||
| "The power of words is the most conservative force in our life." | ||
| 26 | "We are still communicating with a medium developed to meet the needs of arboreal man." | |
| 26-8 | A discussion of taboo and magic words, including names of Gods. [RT: As St John Ch1v1 says "... and the Word was God".] | |
| 28 | "The Divine is rightly so-called." | |
| 29 |
20th century problems are: a) "the peculiar survival of religious apologetic"; b) thoughtlessness about the proper use of semi-technical terms; c) the divorce between symbols in mathematics and related fields, and reality; d) the gulf between the public's and the scientists' thought; and e) "exploitation, for political and commercial purposes, of the printing press by the dissemination and reiteration of clichés". | |
| Hegelian Dialectic involves "elaboration of monstrous symbolic machinery". | ||
| 31 | To earlier writers, "the name of the thing is its soul". | |
| 32 | This leads to Plato's Ideals - "a realm ... in which these name-souls dwell, pure, divine, immortal, intelligible, uniform, indissoluble and unchangeable". | |
| Even "Heracleitus saw in language the most constant thing in a world of ceaseless change, an expression of that common wisdom which is in all men; and for him, the structure of human speech reflects the structure of the world". | ||
| 33 | Plato, in the Cratylus, tried to sort this out, "but he fails to distinguish consistently between symbols and the thought symbolized". | |
| 35 | Even Aristotle was "superstitiously devoted to words" according to Mauthner. But O&R thought that he (Aristotle) tried to look deeper. | |
| 36 | 'Onomancy' means 'word magic'. | |
| 38 | Buddhist writers said of words for 'soul': "For these are merely names, expressions, turns of speech, designations of common use in the world. Of these, he who has truth makes use indeed, but he is not led astray by them". But these writers didn't suggest any 'better' way. | |
| "Yet just before the critical spirit was finally stamped out by Christianity [RT: Google this for plenty of modern examples], notable discussions had taken place in the Graeco-Roman world ..." | ||
| 39 | Religious leaders thought that this [critical spirit] was "like some evil and malignant plague". Indian philosophic verbalism was just as bad or worse. | |
| 40 | "... primitive attitudes towards words are still exploited by the astute ..." e.g. "cynical rhetoricians" in law courts, or "methods of suggestion favoured by repetitive journalism". | |
| "But these same attitudes are universal in childhood, and are so strengthened by the prevailing verbalism that even the most accurate scientific training has often done little to render the adult less subservient to his [a cynical rhetorician's] medium." | ||
| "... a formidable dialectic edifice such as that of scholasticism is constructed, with the object of convincing human reason of the absence of logical inconsistency in the greatest of absurdities. | ||
| 41 | William James: "Divinity has been slowly reduced to a conglomerate of attributes, purely or almost purely verbal." [RT: I suppose, 'wordy statements of what God is like.] | |
| "Verbality has stepped into the place of vision, professionalism into that of life." | ||
| Metaphysical terms are "admirably suited both to contain everything that it is desired to include, and to conceal the contradictions and absurdities of the doctrines based on the concepts in question ..." | ||
| 42 | "Ultimately the word completely takes the place of the thought ..." | |
| Berkeley: "When language is once grown familiar, the hearing of the sounds or sight of the characters is often immediately attended with those passions which at first were wont to be produced by the intervention of ideas that are now quite omitted." | ||
| Ribot: "From the symbolic use of words we thus pass to the emotive ... they no longer act as signs but as sounds; they are musical notations at the service of an emotional psychology." | ||
| 43 | Crookshank (in supplement 2) pointed out that 'Disease' doesn't refer to any natural object. | |
| 45 | "A rose by any other name ..."? Not if it was called 'Squashed Skunk". Bergson would agree in respect to culinary dishes. | |
| Words "lead to the creation of bogus entities ...". [RT: i.e. we are tempted to talk about them as if they are actual Things in the physical world.] | ||
| 46-7 | To give up the struggle and just say "it's all a matter of words" is "linguistic nihilism". | |
| 47 | We need to bring in the concept of 'context'. | |
| 3 - | 50 | The authors aim at "the provision of a natural as opposed to an artificial theory of thinking ...". |
| "All experience ... is either enjoyed or interpreted ... or both, and very little of it escapes some degree of interpretation." So, "an account of the processes of Interpretation is thus the key ..." | ||
| 51 | Some other "valuable methods of approach tend to separate the fundamental laws of mental process from that of sign-interpretation, which is unfortunate for Psychology". | |
| O&R are going to give their preliminary account ... using "causal language" - for brevity and intelligibility, but a "fuller statement ... avoids all mention of causes, effect and dependence ...". [RT: I should hope so! BtW, see this page from Jon Mueller regarding whether language is 'causal' or not!] | ||
| 52 | The effects upon the organism [RT: presumably not just humans?] due to any sign - from within or without - depend on the past history of the organism ..." | |
| Past strikings (of a match) "have left, in our organization, engrams, residual traces, which help to determine what our mental process will be". | ||
| 53 | "... when a context has affected us in the past the recurrence of merely a part of the context will cause us to react in the way we reacted before." | |
| "A sign is always a stimulus similar to some part of an original stimulus and sufficient to call up the engram formed by that stimulus." | ||
| "An engram is the residual trace of an adaptation made by the organism to a stimulus. The mental process due to the calling up of the engram is a similar adaptation; so far as it is cognitive [RT: I suppose we consciously think about it], what is adapted to is its referent. | ||
| 54 | "... the mental process which is the expectation is similar to processes which have been caused (by flames in the striking a match example) in the past, and further, it is directed to the future." | |
| 56 | "An interpretation is itself a recurrence." [RT: But couldn't we make use of other people's interpretations as well?] | |
| 58 | Definition of a 'context': "A set of entities (things or events) related in a certain way ..." and similar sets of entities occur "nearly uniformly". | |
| 59 | As regards 'nearly uniformly', "our account has to be in terms of probability". [RT: Good!] | |
| 59-60 | O&R purposely "avoided all mention of images ... in accounts of thinking ... (as) hazardous". | |
| 61 | Images have uses "in certain restricted fields. The artist, the chess player, the mathematician find them convenient ... (but) hunger [RT: as one example] rarely excites taste images ..." | |
| 62 | A reference is 'true' if there is "an event which completes the external context in question ...". Otherwise, it's false. | |
| 64 | "... in all thought processes two tendencies are present, one toward greater definiteness or precision, the other towards wider scope and range." | |
| 65 | To develop a general belief, one needs that a) a number of true interpretations have occurred; and b) no false ones have occurred. b) is more critical. | |
| 67 | References can be compounded. | |
| 70 | "It appears then that a belief may contain other less specific beliefs, and that a compound definite belief is composed of simpler less specific beliefs, united by such relations as will yield the required structure." | |
| 71 | 'A green thing' means "of any sensation similar to certain sensations which have accompanied in the past the occurrences of the sensation taken as a sign". | |
| 72 | A false "reference will be composed of a simple indefinite reference to 'any book' ". [RT: presumably in an example.] | |
| 75 | One may need 'instinctive interpretations'. [RT: like solving intractable differential equations?] Certainly in some cases experimentation is needed. | |
| 75-6 | 'relevance' is also important. | |
| 76 | Something is 'relevant' "when it forms part of the psychological context which links other contexts together in the peculiar fashion in which interpretation so links them". | |
| "... mental processes are not determined purely psychologically but, for example, by blood pressure also." | ||
| "We misinterpret typically when we are asleep or tired." | ||
| 4 - | 77 | "... what we see is not chairs and tables ..." - that's our interpretation of what we see. |
| 79 |
Helmholtz: "Our knowledge takes the form of signs, and those signs we interpret as signifying the unknown relation of things in the external world. The sensations which lie at the basis of all perceptions are subjective signs of external objects. The qualities of sensations are not the qualities of objects. Signs are not pictures of reality. A sign need have no similarity whatever with what it signifies. The relation consists simply in the fact that the same object acting under similar circumstances arouses the same sign, so that different signs correspond always to different sensations." | |
| We get finer knowledge by combining 250,000 optic nerve fibres than we do from 26 letters. | ||
| 81 | "... we only distinguish these nameable components after a long process of interpretation conducted on experimental methods ..." [RT: surely they should add 'and shared interpretations from others'?] | |
| All that is "directly interpreted is a modification of a sense organ ..." We don't need to postulate "immediate knowing". | ||
| 82 | "To make a statement is to symbolize a reference. ... However much we may try, we cannot go beyond reference in the way of knowledge." | |
| "True reference is reference to a set of referents that hang together. False reference is reference to them as being in some other arrangement than that in which they actually hang together." [RT: Is an example of the latter 'Pigs can fly'?] | ||
| "By no manner of make-believe can we discover the what of referents. We can only discover the how." | ||
| Perception proceeds by stages. "... retinal modification by colours" is '1st order', recognition of shapes (e.g. cones) is 2nd order, recognition of 'that's a table' is 3rd order. | ||
| 84 | We re-interpret the elliptical cone of vision of a coin in the hand as a circle at a later stage. | |
| "We must expand the peccant symbol" to interpret our view of a stick that appears bent when partly in water - it's really straight. [RT: like mirages too.] | ||
| 85 | Or, when we push one of our eyeballs and see 2 coins instead of one. | |
| 86 | 'Reality' can be like "the other side of the moon". | |
| 5 - | 87 | Logic should be "the science of the systematization of symbols". |
| 88- 107 |
O&R's 6 'canons of symbolism' are as follows: 1. Singularity: "One symbol stands for one and only one referent" (p 80) 2. Definition: "Symbols which can be substituted one for another symbolize the same referent" (p 92) 3. Expansion: "The referent of a contracted symbol is the referent of that symbol expanded" (p 93) 4. Actuality: "A symbol refers to what it is actually used to refer to - not necessarily to what it ought in good usage, or is intended by an interpreter, or is intended by the user [RT: speaker, author] to refer to" (p 103) 5. Compatibility: "No complex symbol may contain constituent symbols which claim the same 'place' " (p 105) 6. Individuality: "All possible referents form an order, such that every referent has one place only in that order". (p 106) [RT: I am not exactly sure what O&R mean by 'order' and 'place'. Are they thinking of some ontology like Frolio?] | |
| 88 | "This one referent may be, and in most cases is, complex." | |
| "... pure mathematics is abstract ... it does not mention anything at all." | ||
| "The study of ... non-symbolic structural elements of symbols (e.g. 'the', 'which') is the business of Grammar." | ||
| 90 | "... a reference ... is a set of external and psychological contexts linking a mental process to a referent." | |
| 91 | 'Top (mountain)' counts as a different symbol to 'top (spinning)'. [RT: is that because the contexts are different?] | |
| 92 | "The King of England" and "the owner of Buckingham Palace" have the same referent, but "they do not symbolize the same reference". That situation could be called 'connotation', but O&R say that's a dangerous term. | |
| 93 | "Hamlet was mad" is a contracted symbol of "Hamlet was mad on stage". | |
| Philosophy essentially infringes Canon 3 [!]. | ||
| "... when we refer to 'that animal', and then later, after a further study of the footprints perhaps, to 'that Lynx', our reference will be to the same referent but at different levels of interpretation ..." | ||
| 94 | "All our usual discussion of subjects of general interest suffers from the uncertainty, difficult even to state, as to the levels of interpretation, of reference, at which we are symbolizing." | |
| "... a contracted symbol does not make plain the 'place' of its referent ..." | ||
| Footnote: "... we only know for certain what is said when we know why it is said, though we must not include motives in the 'why'." | ||
| 95 | "Classes are now recognized as symbolic fictions ... and ... universals are an analogous convenience." | |
| "... our symbolic machinery (similarity etc) becomes more valuable and more comprehensible when these dessicated archetypes have faded away." | ||
| 96 | "In all cases, even in this case of similarity, the invention of non-existent entities in order to account for the systematic use of symbols is an illegitimate procedure." | |
| 98 | "But language, though often spoken of as a medium of communication, is best regarded as an instrument; and all instruments are extensions, or refinements, of our sense organs." | |
| "... language is full of elements with no representative or symbolic function, due solely to its manipulation; these are similarly misinterpreted or exploited by metaphysicians and their friends so as greatly to exercise one another - and such of the laity as are prepared to listen to them." | ||
| 99 | "... so-called fictions are often indistinguishable from hypotheses, which are simply unverified references." | |
| "... imaginative creations such as 'Don Juan' or 'the Übermensch' may some day find their referents. Hamlet ... (is) dated and placed where History has no room for them ..." | ||
| "The use of the term 'concept' is particularly misleading in linguistic analysis." | ||
| 101 | "... alternatives are open to us in describing any referent, e.g. nouns and adjectives ([alias] substantives and attributes); events and objects; or 'place' and 'referent'." | |
| 102 | "A true symbol is one which correctly records an adequate reference." It's usually a "proposition or sentence". It's adequate if the receiver (interpreter) makes the same reference. "It is false when it records an inadequate reference". | |
| 106 | "There is no difference between a referent and a 'place'." 'Place' was "introduced as a convenience for describing those imperfections in reference which constitute falsity." | |
| 108 | "These Canons control the System of Symbols known as Prose." | |
| 6 - | 110 | Defining words (by another set of words) is very different from defining things (by properties that distinguish them). |
| 111 | In the former case 'the word' is understood. It's not "chien means dog" but "the word chien means the same animal as the word dog". | |
| A term is often "taken outside the universe of discourse for which it has been defined", and so becomes a metaphor. | ||
| 112 | "An intensive or connotative definition will be one which involves no change in those characters of a referent in virtue of which it forms a context with its original sign. In an extensive definition there may be such change." | |
| "An external relation is any relation other than a defining relation." | ||
| 113 | "We shall cease then to assume that people are referring to what they 'ought' to have referred to, and consider only what they actually do refer to." | |
| To clear things up, we should first find "a set of referents which is certainly common to all concerned, about which agreement can be secured, and (then) locate the required referent through its connection with these". Such a set is usually small in number - most people can't manage a lot anyhow. | ||
| 114 | "We must be careful to introduce our starting-points in such a way that they do not raise fresh problems on their own account." | |
| "... we must select them with reference to the particular universe of discourse in which our definienda fall." | ||
| 115 | O&R's starting-point rules are: 1) "the starting-point must be familiar"; 2) to get stricter definitions "we shall always require starting-points taken outside the speech situation - things, that is, which we can point to or experience ...". [RT: like using gestures, I suppose.] | |
| 116 | 'Relations' are not "part of the stuff of nature - they are 'tools', using " which does not involve actual referents corresponding to them ...". | |
| Directness or indirectness of relationships is not the same as simple or complex. 'Interpolated' implies indirect. | ||
| 117 -120 |
O&R's classification scheme for relations is as follows: [RT: can
compare this with Frolio. I'm not keen on all this 'causation' though.] 1. Symbolization, e.g. names, defines, represents 2. Similarity, e.g. is like 3. Spatial, e.g. is above, is in front of, is to left of 4. Temporal, e.g. is before, is after, is concurrent with 5. Causation (physical) 6. Causation (psychological) 7. Causation (psycho-physical) 8. Being the object of a mental state, e.g. desires, wills, feels 9. Common complex, e.g. is usable for (7+8), imitates (2+7), implies (1+8) 10. Legal, e.g. belongs to, is subject of | |
| 121 | Multiple relations (i.e. with more than 2 things related) are no problem. Example: A gives B to C. | |
| 122 | "In aesthetics, politics, psychology and so forth, the stage of systematic symbolization with its fixed and unalterable definitions has not been reached" - unlike with Maths and most Sciences. So it's not a good idea to expect it. | |
| "... 'faith', 'beautiful', 'freedom', 'good', 'belief', energy', 'justice', 'the State' ... are used with no distinct reference ..." | ||
| 123 | To claim in those cases "the matter is surely self-evident" is a bad idea. | |
| "Lack of practice, literary fetishes concerning elegance of diction, reluctance to appear pedantic, defensive mimicry and other protective uses of language all contribute", even where "greater explicitness" should be expected, to misunderstanding. And this is not to mention the use of 'word magic'. | ||
| "It is never safe to assume that it" (full communication with agreement on meaning of terms) "has been secured unless both the starting-points and the rules of definition, whereby the referents of at least a majority of the symbols employed have been reached, are known". | ||
| But ... "in actual discussion terms are used at least as much for the sake of their suasory and emotive effects as for their strictly symbolic value". | ||
| 124 | "... it is often ... impossible to decide" which use (symbolic or emotive) applies. | |
| "Terms of abuse and endearment" are special cases of 'emotive' use. | ||
| "The peculiarity of scientific statement (a new development) is its restriction to the symbolic function." | ||
| 125 | In "a good bed, a good kick, a good baby, a good God" the uses of 'good' "have no common characteristic; 'good' isn't "a unique, unanalyzable concept". It's usually non-symbolic, for emotion purposes; many other words are similar. | |
| 126 | "Purpose affects vocabulary" - e.g. a tourist guide's, versus a scientist's, description of Brocken Spectres. | |
| "Complete synonyms ... probably do not occur." | ||
| 127 | Psittacists (people who copy phrases they hear) "respond to words much as they might respond to the first notes of a tune" - unlike those for whom every word is important. | |
| 128 | "... where there is reason to suppose that a slippery term is being employed, it is a wise policy to collect as wide a range of uses as possible." ... "The next step is to order these uses". | |
| 129 | "... there is no reason to expect that any word at all rich in context will always be borrowed [as a metaphor] on the strength of the same similarity or overlap." | |
| 130 | " ... 'beauty', 'meaning' or 'truth' are actually not single words at all, but sets of superficially indistinguishable - yet utterly discrepant - symbols." | |
| 131 | "We suffer from a scarcity of terms" - there are too few to distinguish lots of different meanings." | |
| 132 | Schopenhauer said that it would be good if each of his 38 'tricks' in argument had a different name. | |
| 133-4 | O&R describe 3 "subterfuges", i.e. traps for misunderstanding meaning: 1) phonetic - 'sounds like'; 2) hypostatic - underspecified, too 'contracted'; and 3) utraquistic - 'either/or', leaving alternative meanings. | |
| 133 | Phonetic example: in 'desirable' the '-ble' doesn't mean the same as in 'visible'. | |
| 134 | Hypostatic examples: "Virtue, Liberty, Democracy, Peace, ... Religion, Glory". | |
| Utraquistic examples: Perception (physical, or mental?); Knowledge (knowing, or what's known?); Beauty (quality of object, or emotional effect?). Ambiguity is the commonest problem. | ||
| 135-7 | Some more slippery words: Phenomenon, Sublime, Real (135). Soul, Spirit, Fatigue, Unrest (136). Appearance, Reality (137). | |
| 137 | O&R's names for some of these dodgy words: Irritants, Degenerates, Mendicants, Nomads. | |
| Locke: "Men take the words they find in use among their neighbours." | ||
| 7 - | 139 | Regarding word definitions, Hume said " 'tis not reason which gains the prize, but eloquence". |
| This chapter aims to test O&R's ideas using the word Beauty. | ||
| 140 | There may be no "common quality" here. | |
| 142-3 |
The list of alternative definitions goes as follows. It's beautiful if
it ... A 1 - possess the simple Quality of beauty (they call this the "magical efficiency" of a name) 2 - has a specified Form [RT: who specifies it?] B 3 - is an imitation of Nature 4 - results from the successful exploitation of a Medium 5 - is the work of Genius 6 - reveals (one of) 6.1 Truth; 6.2 the Spirit of Nature; 6.3 the Ideal; 6.4 the Universal; 6.5 the Typical 7 - produces Illusion 8 - leads to desirable Social effects 9 - is an Expression C 10 - causes Pleasure 11 - excites Emotions 12 - promotes a Specific emotion 13 - involves the processes of Empathy 14 - heightens Vitality 15 - brings us into touch with exceptional Personalities 16 - induces Synaesthesis. | |
| 144 | 'Great' is another slippery word. | |
| 145 | The starting-points (terms with initial capital letters in the list above) may also need attention to their definitions. | |
| 147 | "If ... terms such as Beauty are used ... for their emotive value, confusion will inevitably result unless it is constantly realized that words so used are undefinable ..." | |
| 149 | For many words, the use is only to evoke Emotion, so we can't apply rules for symbolic adequacy. | |
| 151 | Some minds struggle to separate the two uses; maybe they want to have it both ways. [RT: if we like the emotion, we may accept the dodgily-reasoned argument.] | |
| 152 | Vendryes: "Except for technical languages, notably the scientific languages, which are by definition outside life [RT: !], the expression of an idea is never exempt from a nuance of sentiment." [RT: some scientific writers don't manage to keep sentiment out!] | |
| 153 | Some more slippery terms: Intuition, Emotion, Freedom, Logic, Immediacy, Élan Vital, 'purely logical analysis'. [RT: Don't we have to own up as to which Language Game we are playing, or admit that we are mixing uses?] | |
| 154 | There are dangers in getting too mystical. 'Virtual Knowledge', as in Bergson, is probably a good example. | |
| 155 | But it may be true that too "precise, discriminatory" and analytic speech or writing may "whittle down our connection to what we are attending to". | |
| 158 | Poetry doesn't aim to give 'knowledge'. | |
| "... religions have so definitely exploited the confusion of function ..." | ||
| "What it (religion) does, or should do, is to induce a fitting attitude to experience." | ||
| 159 | But 'fitting' is slippery, and "those who care most for poetry ... tend to resent such language as unworthy of its subject". | |
| 8 - | 160- 184 |
This whole chapter is concerned with what various philosophers have said relating to the issues addressed in the book. [RT: I have not attempted detailed highlights.] |
| 161 | Schiller: "Meaning is essentially personal ..." | |
| 162 | Sidgwick: "Meaning depends on consequences ..." | |
| 177 | Broad: "A thing has meaning when acquaintance with or knowledge about it either enables one to infer - or causes one by association to think of - something else." | |
| 9 - | 185 | "A study of the utterances of Philosophers suggests that they are not to be trusted in their dealings with Meaning." |
| 186-7 |
As they did for Beauty, O&R now offer a list of alternative meanings of
Meaning: A 1 - an Intrinsic property [RT: it's self-explanatory?] 2 - a unique unanalyzable Relation to other things B 3 - the other words attached to a word in a Dictionary 4 - the Connotation of a word 5 - an Essence 6 - an activity Projected into an object 7 - a) an event Intended; b) a Volition [RT: like Sherlock Holmes' "I mean to burgle Milverton's house tonight"?] 8 - the Place of anything in a system 9 - the Practical Consequences of a thing in our future experience 10 - the Theoretical consequences involved in or implied by a statement 11 - Emotion aroused by anything C 12 - that which is Actually related to a sign by a chosen relation 13 - a) the Mnemic effects of a stimulus; Associations acquired; b) some other occurrence to which the mnemic effects of any occurrence are Appropriate c) that which a sign is Interpreted as being of d) what anything Suggests 14 - that to which the user of a symbol Ought to be referring 15 - that to which the user of a symbol Believes himself to be referring 16 - that to which the Interpreter of a symbol a) refers; b) believes himself to be referring; c) believes the user [speaker, author] to be referring. | |
| 193 | "The meaning of any sentence is what the speaker intends to be understood from it by the listener." But 'understand' is vague. | |
| 194 | A listener who 'sees through' a dodgy speaker is like a batsman [cricket] who correctly plays a googly. | |
| There is also such a thing as self-deception. | ||
| 196 | 'Meaning' sometimes means 'significance'. | |
| The term 'purposeless' can mean 'devoid of meaning'. [RT: and vice versa?] | ||
| 197 | People might not get the full meaning of 'war' or 'unemployment', because they don't appreciate all the consequences. | |
| The term 'Light Years' is sometimes said to be 'without meaning'. | ||
| 198 | 'means' as 'logically implies' is used in Mathematics. | |
| 199 | "The words 'God', 'love', 'liberty' have a real emotional connotation, leave a trail of affective meaning ..." | |
| 200 | We talk about the "meaning of dreams". | |
| 201 | "... more accurate knowledge of psychological laws will enable relations such as meaning, knowing, being the object of, awareness and cognition to be treated as linguistic phantoms also, their place being taken by observable correlations." | |
| "Introspective judgments ... are interpretations." | ||
| 202 | "Immediate conviction" is dodgy and varies with time and circumstances. | |
| 203 | "It is because non-verbal sensations and images which accompany reference are such unreliable signs that symbols are so important. But "all the available symbols can [yet] be felt to be inappropriate" [RT: to symbolize certain complex things?]. | |
| 206 | It's difficult to observe psychological events, so "the methods employed in testing whether communication has or has not taken place are indirect". | |
| 207 | "The dictionary is a list of substitute symbols." [RT: what about Roget's Thesaurus?] | |
| 208 | "... the reference made by a hearer will often be quite unlike that made by the speaker." So maybe meaning #16 "is perhaps the richest of all in opportunities of misunderstanding". | |
| 10 - | 209on | "The Context Theory of Interpretation ... consider first the hearer's side ..." |
| 209- 214 |
Interpretation is multi-level. Detecting sounds is the most basic; then to words etc - "we require a context consisting of the sign and other past sign-sensations more and less similar". | |
| 211 | A lot is unconscious, but people can still fail at the 'sounds' level. | |
| 212 | One higher level is to distinguish proper names from descriptive phrases. | |
| 213 | The we need to recognize abstract concepts - 'relatives' is the example given. | |
| 213-4 | We have to distinguish multi-purpose terms, e.g. 'sea side' from 'sea of troubles'. | |
| 215 | "For the listener the word is the sign, and without it the reference does not occur." | |
| "With most thinkers" (on the speaker side) "the symbol seems to be less essential". | ||
| 216-7 | For people who are 'word-dependent, "to talk differently is to think differently". | |
| 217 | Too much word-independence might suggest a low power of discrimination between references. | |
| But "nonsense-speech, verbiage, psittacism or whatever we may elect to call the devastating disease from which so much of the communicative activity of man suffers, are quite different for the two conditions". [RT: I assume they mean word-dependence versus -independence.] | ||
| 220 | "All discursive symbolization involves the weaving together of contexts into higher contexts ..." | |
| 221 | "Grammar tends to confine itself to a verbal analysis of How the King Talks." | |
| 223 | "... in speaking a sentence we are giving rise to, as in hearing it we are confronted by, at least two sign-situations." 1) symbols —>reference—>referent and 2) "from verbal signs to the attitude, mood, interest, purpose, desire and so forth of the speaker and thence to the situation, circumstances and conditions in which the utterance is made". | |
| 224-7 | O&R distinguish 5 functions of [RT: issues with?] language: 1) strict symbolization; 2) speaker's attitude to listener; 3) speaker's attitude to referent; 4) intention, "promotion of effects" and 5) ease or difficulty of reference. | |
| 226 | "... plasticity of speech material ... is less than the plasticity of human attributes, ends and endeavours ..." | |
| One should consider "the sentence in the paragraph, the paragraph in the chapter" etc. | ||
| 227 | Footnote: 'surplussage' is usually undesirable, but some people advocate some element of it in order to maintain style. | |
| 228 | 'Literary art' is very difficult to translate - but less of a problem with Shakespeare (more ordinary life, less pure poetry). | |
| 231 | The word 'expression' has a "narcotic effect". It's as bad a 'embody' and 'meaning'. [RT: and 'empower'!] | |
| Language ought to be such that "understanding could be attempted by at least one other individual (Dittrich, 1900). | ||
| 233 | The reference of a symbol ... is only one of a number of terms which are relevant to the form of a symbol. | |
| 234 | As an example of the above, amity to listener, disgust towards referent will cause modification of the symbol used. [RT: including tone of voice?] | |
| "Most writing or speech ... will take its form as the result of compromise." | ||
| Some speech is merely phatic [RT: like 'have a nice day', 'how are you']. | ||
| 235 | The balance is very different between prose and poetry. | |
| 236 | Similarly, Art can evoke a mix of two attitudes: 1) overall effect and 2) particular features, symbolized and interpreted. | |
| 237 | Is photography really so different from mainstream Art? [RT: what about music, too? - see Phil's 'Music's Meanings'] | |
| 238 | We are meant to suspend 'normal' interpretation of Shelley's line "Bird thou never wert". | |
| 241 | "The words Truth (symbolic) and Truth (evocative) are totally distinct as symbols ..." | |
| 242 | The "Science of Symbolism" should be included in "a new educational technique". | |
| Supp1 | By Malinowski. I haven't written it up at all - it was interesting but very different. You can download it, with comments from Rasmus Rebane of U Tartu, Estonia from this website. | |
| Supp2 | 337 | The author of this, Dr FG Crookshank, took the view that Medicine isn't much of an exact science these days. |
| 339 | "... in no current text-book is any attempt made to define what is meant by 'a disease'." | |
| 342 | Teachers of Medicine assume all medical knowledge is formed into a certain number of categories. [RT: these could be specialties, major subject divisions - but whatever, the boundaries are assumed to be clearer than they really are.] | |
| "In reality, for these gentlemen, 'diseases' are Platonic realities, universals ante rem." | ||
| 343on | In 1918 they had big arguments about what counted as Flu, Infantile Paralysis / Polio Myelitis, Polio Encephalitis, Encephalitis Lethargica etc. Symbolization was inconsistent, including between countries. The UK Ministry of Health tried to set a classification in stone. [RT: I came across ICD (International Classification of Diseases) in my IT consulting days.] | |
| 351 | Diseases "mimicked each other". | |
| 354 | Crookshank "attempted to expound the distinction between Names, Notions and Happenings" - analogous to O&R's Words, Thoughts and Things. |
Reading this book was very hard work. But I think it gives a sound basis for how we should talk about 'meaning'.
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This version updated on 29th June 2016