Try this -

Not all meaning is representation.
All symbolism is representation
Therefore not all meaning is symbolism.

Same premiss. Still false.

That Phosphorus and Hesperus are the same is a better example for your purposes. But again, when we find out that Hesperus is Phosphorus, did we really find out something more than a novel use for the words "Hesperus" and "Phosphorus"?

That is, is sense any more than use? — Banno

I hope not? Use is what we expect here, so I'm not sure why that's a problem.

To start with expressions: "my" and "car" have senses, but not until you combine them into "my car" do you also have a reference, namely the car I own, the object. The senses of "my" and "car" determine what the expression "my car" will refer to.

With a sentence, the sense is the thought expressed by the sentence, and for Frege this is completely objective, public, shared. Reference for sentences is just truth-value. We don't go around just telling each other "True" and "False."

So yes, the sense of a word is its use.

Sweet. So, how does representation differ from symbolism?

Depends on what you mean by "represent" doesn't it? In one sense of the term only icons represent what they symbolize, insofar as they bear some visual resemblance to it. In another sense, all symbols represent, insofar as they stand for what they symbolize.

the sense is the thought expressed by the sentence, and for Frege this is completely objective, public, shared. — Srap Tasmaner

How can a thought be shared?

Now, a use - we could share that. But a thought? You are not able to see the beetle in my box.

If meaning is prior to language, then any such example would need to consist in/of something other than language. Obviously, we have to report upon such examples by virtue of using language. That is the problem which Witt though insurmountable. He was wrong. There are many many things in this world which do not require language in order to exist. Prelinguistic meaning is but one.

Representation and symbolism differ in their necessary elemental constituents.

Indeed. It is often thought/believed that a symbol stands for what it represents. The problem with this focus, and indeed... most discussion thus far... is that we're already actively engaged in metacognition. That is, we're reporting upon thought/belief. Prelinguistic meaning does not - cannot - consist of metacognition. It consists of the symbol, the symbolized, and an agent capable of drawing mental correlation(s) between the two. Notice here there is no need for intent, whereas representation requires it.

Exactly. Frege argues that what you happen to have in mind, your ideas, associations, and so on, cannot be the meaning of what you say, because that's non-transferable. He calls whatever it is that is transferable, the thought. You could call it semantic content. Whatever. But he argues at length that there is something transferable and that it cannot be just reference.

That is the problem which Witt though insurmountable. — creativesoul

Hm. I think, rather, that he solved it by pointing to the basis of language in following, not stating, a rule.

How?

I'm not clear what point you are attempting to make here. Symbols are taken by convention to stand for what they symbolize. I don't think the idea of a "pre-linguistic symbol" makes any sense. A pre-linguistic icon or sign, sure, but not a symbol.

If symbols are taken by convention to stand for what they symbolize, then convention is presupposing intent where none is warranted... in some cases that is.

For example...

My cat has drawn mental correlations between the sound of certain plastic bags and treats, much like Pavlov's dog with the bell and food. The symbol is the sound, the treats are the symbolized, my cat is the agent capable of drawing correlations between the two. The sound has meaning to the cat, via the cat's own attribution by virtue of drawing correlations. The sound of the bag cannot be said to stand in for the food...

It only makes sense to say that a symbol stands in for the symbolized when the candidate in question is being used to do so... That is, when intent is present.

We've talked past one another my friend... Following a rule rather than stating it says nothing at all about what's 'beneath' language. Whereof....

Unless I've missed something?

There's something mysterious about the notion of something being transferred - why think along those lines?

Why not just suppose that we learn the use?

Following a rule rather than stating it says nothing at all about what's 'beneath' language. — creativesoul

But it does. There is a way of understanding language that is not stated in philosophy forums, but shown in the ordinary act of talking.

The rope Wayfarer mentioned.

My cat has drawn mental correlations between the sound of certain plastic bags and treats, much like Pavlov's dog with the bell and food. The symbol is the sound, the treats are the symbolized, my cat is the agent capable of drawing correlations between the two. The sound has meaning to the cat, via the cat's own attribution by virtue of drawing correlations. The sound of the bag cannot be said to stand in for the food... — creativesoul

Here you are blurring the perfectly good distinction between sign and symbol. I would say the sound does not have meaning for the cat; meaning is proper to symbols, and perhaps icons. It's more appropriate to say that the sound has significance for the cat; thus it is a sign.

Indeed. There is most certainly a way of understanding language(and of showing that much) by way of using it. I fail to see the relevance that that has to whether or not some symbolism and thus some meaning is prior to language.

That claim requires justification. Care to elaborate upon both, the proper distinction between sign and symbol, and then show the relevance?

Indeed. There is most certainly a way of understanding language(and of showing that much) by way of using it. I fail to see the relevance that that has to whether or not some symbolism and thus some meaning is prior to language. — creativesoul

Employing a symbol is already using language.

A distinction that makes no difference. Either way, the cat has drawn mental correlations between the sound and treats. The sound is meaningful. The sound has significance. What's the difference again? Two ways to say the same thing, unless...

If you're saying that intent is necessary for meaning but not for significance, then I'll note that you're simply begging the question... affirming the consequent. Arguing by fiat. If significance is meaning without intent then...

They both consist of(are existentially contingent upon) mental correlations drawn between sign/symbol and signified/symbolized.

Indeed Banno. Employing a symbol is already using language... Note here that intent is required. That was not the case with my cat. I do not make sounds with plastic bags in order to alter her behaviour, and yet there are certain bags which make sounds that are so similar to her treat bag that she forms false belief. Those sounds are meaningful to her, and yet she's not using them, nor am I... at least in those cases.

It's very basic. For example, clouds may be a sign of rain, but they do not symbolize rain. There are countless examples like this in nature. Nothing symbolizes anything without some established convention.

Presuming this is addressed to me; I'll say it again; you are losing a perfectly coherent distinction between sign and symbol; a distinction that certainly does make a difference.

Fair enough John. It would follow then that signs aren't meaningful.

"Meaningful' is not monosemous, though. Significance is a kind of meaning, and symbolization is another kind, the former may be pre-linguistic, and the latter cannot, I would say. So, re your OP pre-linguistic meaning may certainly be prior to language, both temporally and in terms of dependence; that is to say, I believe no language could ever get started if there were no pre-linguistic signs and icons.

You've just contradicted yourself. Earlier you said that the sound did not have meaning to my cat, but was instead significant(had significance to her). You've now claimed that significance is a kind of meaning...

So, while I may agree that there's a (purely conventional)distinction between what counts as "signification" and what counts as "symbolism", your pointing that much out makes no difference to the thrust of my argument... the sound is meaningful to the cat. Yet that's what you initially objected to...

There is a way of understanding language that is not stated in philosophy forums, but shown in the ordinary act of talking.

The rope Wayfarer mentioned. — Banno

I ought to expand on that a little. I think that Wittgenstein was generally opposed to any species of metaphysical idealism - this is in large part what he meant by his celebrated remark about 'that of which we cannot speak...'. The Vienna Circle seized on that and tried to use it in support of positivism. But I don't really think that Wittgenstein was positivist at all. Rather he was recommending a kind of circumspection, something much nearer to the original intent of scepticism, rather than to declare that only what can be stated is useful, or real.

So in search of a rope to hang that idea off, I googled 'Wittgenstein and Positivism', and found a rather splendid short essay on same on the Philosophy Now website (and not paywalled, or at least not for me), which included this observation:

....the key paragraph 6.522 in the Tractatus:

“There are indeed things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical.”

In other words, there is a categorically different kind of truth from that which we can state in empirically or logically verifiable propositions. These different truths fall on the other side of the demarcation line of the principle of verification.

Wittgenstein’s intention in asserting this is precisely to protect matters of value from being disparaged or debunked by scientifically-minded people such as the Logical Positivists of the Vienna Circle. He put his view beyond doubt in this sequence of paragraphs:

“6.41 The sense of the world must lie outside the world. In the world everything is as it is and happens as it does happen. In it there is no value – and if there were, it would be of no value. If there is value which is of value, it must lie outside of all happening and being-so. For all happening and being-so is accidental. What makes it non-accidental cannot lie in the world, for otherwise this would again be accidental. It must lie outside the world.”

In other words, all worldly actions and events are contingent (‘accidental’), but matters of value are necessarily so, for they are ‘higher’ or too important to be accidental, and so must be outside the world of empirical propositions:

“6.42 Hence also there can be no ethical propositions. Propositions cannot express anything higher.

6.421 It is clear that ethics cannot be expressed. Ethics is transcendental.”

(‘Transcendental’ here is not to be confused with ‘transcendent’. ‘Transcendental’ is used here in a technical philosophical sense to mean that which is incapable of being experienced by any of the senses – and is therefore beyond the reach of science, which deals in what can be observed.)

Now I don't claim to 'know what is transcendental' - because after all to know it would be to render it no longer transcendental. But I dimly suspect that amongst the whatever-it-is that 'transcendental' signifies, is whatever holds the rope up in the first place - which in turn is the reason that language has use in the first place.

And I am gratified to read, in that same piece, that in this matter, Wittgenstein was very much in the lineage of Kant, and motivated by the same concerns.