讲授三种意义理论.pdfVIP

Elasticity & Precision We normally use language when we think. But do we need language to think? Scientific opinion differs on this. What is clear, however, is that when we reason, particularly when we try to communicate reasoning to others, we usually need language to do so. Given how flexible and elastic language is – given how open to interpretation language can be – it is not easy to be confident that we will be understood in the way we intend. How can we use language to say what we mean? How can we accura y reflect our thought in words? [Mandarin vs most European languages] There are no guarantees that others will hear us say or mean what we have said and meant. But we can try to bring to our language a certain precision. And today’s lecture is about some of the challenges we face when we try to do so. Three theories of meaning Usually it is not difficult to ex in what a particular word or sentence means. But the nature of meaning itself is puzzling. How do words get their meanings? And how do meanings change? Is the meaning that words have different from the meaning of sentences? These are questions that have challenged linguists, philosophers, writers – and journalists – nturies. And they will continue to do so. We will not resolve them today. What we will do, today, however, is to exam hree different ways of understanding meaning in language. They are: • the Reference Theory of Meaning; • the Idea Theory of Meaning, and; • the Meaning-as-Use Theory. Reference Theory of Meaning The first is the view that the meaning of a word consists in what it refers to. This approach holds that the word ‘table’ refers to all tables in the world, so it seems usible to hold that the meaning of ‘table’ is all tables in the world. Thus the meaning of a word consists of the class of objects to which that word refers