Consider the following Harry: When we teach a child the use of certain words we sometimes do it by using the ostensive definition model, that is, by pointing to an object and giving it a name. For example, I say cup, and I then point to the object associated with the the word cup. We may do this a number of times before the child starts to associate the word with the object. However, note that the way we are able to tell if the child has used the word correctly, is if they demonstrate the proper association - word/object. So do they use the word correctly in a particular context? For example, you tell them to get a cup, and they bring the cup. If they brought a pencil, then they would not have used the word correctly. One does not teach the meaning of the word cup first, one teaches the child how to use the word first, meaning comes later.

This would also be seen in primitive man, before the advent of writing. Primitive man may have a sound associated with a particular action, a grunt or some such noise. However, if you don't perform the correct action associated with the sound, then you don't understand how the word is used within a community of language users. It's the community who establishes the correct use of the words, that is, they have established implicit rules associated with the noises they make. Note that there are no dictionaries at this point, they don't come along until much later in history. Moreover, when someone decides to write down meanings, these meanings come from how words are used in a variety of ways and contexts.

Ah. Yeah. That may be right. Turns out I do not have a hard copy of the PI.

Sorry, had to edit out that link. The book is still in copyright, so I'm pretty sure it's illegal to host (and link to, I guess).

Consider the following Harry: When we teach a child the use of certain words we sometimes do it by using the ostensive definition model, that is, by pointing to an object and giving it a name. For example, I say cup, and I then point to the object associated with the the word cup. We may do this a number of times before the child starts to associate the word with the object. However, note that the way we are able to tell if the child has used the word correctly, is if they demonstrate the proper association - word/object. So do they use the word correctly in a particular context? For example, you tell them to get a cup, and they bring the cup. If they brought a pencil, then they would not have used the word correctly. One does not teach the meaning of the word cup first, one teaches the child how to use the word first, meaning comes later. — Sam26

When you say, "Bring me the cup." and all they learned was the action of pointing to the cup when the sound, "cup" is heard, then why don't they just point to the cup, when you say that command? Wouldn't they need to learn the meaning of "bring" and "me"? Doesn't that require different actions and different lessons? Again, what they would be learning is what the words refer to. "Bring" is an action, not an object, and "me" refers to the self speaking the words. Your words refer to an action, which is why the child would perform an action, not recite more words.

This would also be seen in primitive man, before the advent of writing. Primitive man may have a sound associated with a particular action, a grunt or some such noise. However, if you don't perform the correct action associated with the sound, then you don't understand how the word is used within a community of language users. It's the community who establishes the correct use of the words, that is, they have established implicit rules associated with the noises they make. Note that there are no dictionaries at this point, they don't come along until much later in history. Moreover, when someone decides to write down meanings, these meanings come from how words are used in a variety of ways and contexts. — Sam26

To say that an action has to be performed in concert with a spoken sound in order to teach someone what the word means, shows that words mean what it refers to, not it's use. The cup is a perfect example. If you teach child the meaning of "cup", you end up having to show them a cup, not just use the word in a sentence. This shows that the meaning of a word is what it is referring to, not how it is used. If you are showing a child how to use the word, you'd have to use every sentence that the word "cup" can be used in. If you want to show what the word means, you have to show them a cup.

↪creativesoul Sorry, had to edit out that link. The book is still in copyright, so I'm pretty sure it's illegal to host (and link to, I guess). — Michael

It said as much, with exception(s) in the US...

No one that I know of holds to that simplistic notion at face value.

Using words does both shows and attributes meaning.
— creativesoul
It's not the use of words that is meaning... — Harry Hindu

I didn't say it was.

...the same string of words can mean different things. Meaning is tied to the cause of the words being spoken or written, which would be the intent of the speaker or writer.

Indeed. Some of it is. Not all. That's Witt's insight. Not all meaning is attributed in the way that history - at his time - held it to be...

One does not teach the meaning of the word cup first, one teaches the child how to use the word first, meaning comes later. — Sam26

Perhaps we do differ a bit on important matters Sam...

On my view, and I took Witt to be skirting around it as well, teaching the child how to use words teaches them meaning.

How we use words tells us something about what we mean. My point is that it's not dependent on a dictionary or objects. It's dependent on the language-games associated with language users.

What's not dependent on objects? Meaning?

Well, that may be a point of contention. Maybe not. What counts as being dependent on objects?

Existentially dependent?

I would say that, as a matter of complexity, all meaning is existentially contingent upon objects. I would also say that not all meaning is attributed by virtue of naming objects.

Since questions have become apparent in terms of how meaning emerges within language, I've decided to give a more in depth analysis of this idea in terms of how I believe Wittgenstein handles this question.

In Wittgenstein's Tractatus (his early philosophy) meaning is associated with an object, that is, the object for which the word stands is it's meaning. This was the traditional view of language since Augustine, and to be fair the ostensive definition model (associated with certain words) does account for a large class of words, but not all words. Thus, mastering the use of language consisted in learning the names of objects according to many traditionalists. Wittgenstein points out that one seems to be mainly thinking of specific words like chair, pencil, cup, etc, but not words like soon, five, that, this, time etc.

Wittgenstein uses the example of someone going to the store with a note that reads "five red apples." Now we can imagine the objects associated with apple and red (a color chart for e.g.), but no such object appears for the number five. The word five belongs to a different category of words, and although one can associate the objects in terms of apple and red, no such thing emerges in terms of the word five, only how the shopkeeper uses the word. So in terms of the ostensive definition model, what does the word five refer to? I suppose one could have an ontology of numbers that associates number words with abstract objects. Nevertheless, there is a distinction between objects associated with apple, that is, a thing with spatial extension, but nothing like this emerges with the word five, it has no spatial thing associated with it.

The problem of course is that certain words cause a kind of "mental cramp," we feel that there must be some thing directly associated with these words - something we can point to. For example, "what is truth," "what is beauty," and "what is time," and thus we come up against the source of philosophical bewilderment, as Wittgenstein pointed out.

The tendency is to want to lump all words into the same category, that is, something exterior to the word, as if all words get their life from something external. Of course it's not just that we want to associate words with some objective thing, sometimes we are tempted to associate words or propositions with internal mental events, which is just as incorrect.

Words have a variety of uses in a variety of contexts, thus we understand them by understanding this multiplicity. We should think of language as an activity of uses, like tools in a tool box which have a variety of uses.

It's not that use necessarily drives meaning, because one can always use a word incorrectly. It's use coupled with language-games within and amongst language-users, and the implicit and sometimes explicit use of rules associated with such use.

The other problem of course is our need for precision, which is why philosophers and others are always trying to find definitions that add precision to a word or theory. Again, it's true of some words that there are very precise definitions, triangle for example, but not true of words like perfect, exact, game, etc. There are so many philosophical problems that could be eliminated if one simply understood how language works. Most or many of the philosophical problems in these threads are related to misunderstandings of language.

Perfect, then we we agree that meaning has to do with causation. A cause can be an intent, or some other cause, like the growth of a tree throughout the year causing tree rings. The tree rings mean the age of the tree, just as a spoken or written word is caused by the intent of the speaker or writer and mean what the speaker intends.

Meaning is related to causation, but it is not absent thought/belief. In other words, when there is no thought/belief there can be no meaning. Meaning is attributed.



Nice post Sam. Taken the the beginning of the PI, particularly the part I posted and what immediately followed(five red apples)... I find no disagreement. Still wondering what I've written(aside from using the terms "sign" and "symbol" in a different sense than Witt) that you find incompatible with what Witt was getting at?

There is no meaning without something external to thought. So, if consciousness consists of thought, then there is no consciousness without something external to it. — creativesoul

I'm not sure I agree with this. I guess it depends on what you mean by external to thought. Let's consider a thought experiment. Let's suppose that there are a group of us existing as brains in a vat, and let's further suppose that the reality we are experiencing is fed into us via electrodes. Thus, everything we experience is within the mind/brain, all of us could be linked into a reality that we perceive to be independent of us, but actually all of it is happening within our minds. All of us can communicate via language, thus the meaning we attach to the words would have the same impact as any language, but it would be all internal, even though we believe we are seeing real things, objective things, it wouldn't really be external to what we thought. It would appear to our senses to be external, it would feel like we could move from place to place, but it would be a kind of illusion based on what our brains were fed via the electrodes.

Thus according to this thought experiment meaning wouldn't be external to what we thought, that is, we would derive all meaning based on the illusion of reality, the illusion of an objective reality.

Meaning is related to causation, but it is not absent thought/belief. In other words, when there is no thought/belief there can be no meaning. Meaning is attributed. — creativesoul

So, if there wasn't anyone looking at the tree rings, then the tree rings don't mean the age of the tree? What you are saying is that there isn't any cause and effect relationship independent of a mind. What you are arguing for is solipsism.

So, if there wasn't anyone looking at the tree rings, then the tree rings don't mean the age of the tree? — Harry Hindu

Tree rings become meaningful by virtue of an agent making a connection between them and an other thing or things. In this case, tree rings have been connected to the tree's age. Until that connection is drawn/made, the rings have no meaning.

What you are saying is that there isn't any cause and effect relationship independent of a mind. What you are arguing for is solipsism.

That's neither what I'm saying nor a consequence of what I'm saying.

Let's consider a thought experiment. Let's suppose that there are a group of us existing as brains in a vat, and let's further suppose that the reality we are experiencing is fed into us via electrodes. Thus, everything we experience is within the mind/brain, all of us could be linked into a reality that we perceive to be independent of us, but actually all of it is happening within our minds. All of us can communicate via language, thus the meaning we attach to the words would have the same impact as any language, but it would be all internal, even though we believe we are seeing real things, objective things, it wouldn't really be external to what we thought. It would appear to our senses to be external, it would feel like we could move from place to place, but it would be a kind of illusion based on what our brains were fed via the electrodes.

Thus according to this thought experiment meaning wouldn't be external to what we thought, that is, we would derive all meaning based on the illusion of reality, the illusion of an objective reality. — Sam26

Even in this absurd case, the electrodes are external to the thought/belief.

The point is to show that your awareness can be completely internal. One could even imagine, without contradiction, everything completely generated by a mind or minds, without external stimulus at all. All reality could be generated by a mind.

One cannot imagine, without contradiction, that everything is completely generated by a mind/minds. The position itself requires thinking about thought/belief. That requires language. Language... shared meaning. Shared meaning... a plurality of minds. A plurality of minds... well...

Witt's beetle in a box applies here... no?

I'm not talking about one mind. I'm talking about minds (plural) sharing a reality, as in the thought experiment above. By the way, thinking or thought does not require language. Are you saying that primitive man before the advent of language couldn't think, or didn't have thoughts? Wittgenstein also mentions this in On Certainty. Animals show their beliefs, by what they do, and so do we. You can observe someone's belief through the way they act, so beliefs aren't dependent on language.

Thinking about one's own thought/belief requires language.

A plurality of minds presupposes something external to thought/belief.

Well, I mean you can keep repeating yourself, but that doesn't mean you're correct.

I agree. Repetition of 'X' does not make 'X' true.

Logical possibility alone constitutes neither adequate justification nor warrant. Brain in vat arguments aren't at all compelling to me for that reason.

You and I can have differences in what we believe Sam. No problem. I simply do not see how Witt's writing(later years) causes an issue with/for my own. That's all I was getting at.