Chapter 13 Chapter 13 Language

As mentioned earlier, I first became interested in the definition of "meaning" and the relationship of language to fact in 1918.Until then, I had always thought it "obvious" what language was, and had never examined how language's relation to the nonlinguistic world was constituted.The first results of my reflections on this question appear in Lecture 10 of The Analysis of the Mind. The first thing that comes to my attention is extremely obvious, but it seems to have been too neglected by all who have written on this subject before.The thing is that a word is a "universal" and when an instance of the word is said or heard or written or pronounced is an instance of this "universal".Those who study the philosophy of "universal" know that "dog" is a "universal" because there are many dogs, but they do not see that the word "dog" is also a "universal" in the same sense.

Those who deny "universal" always seem to say that one word can be used in all instances.This is exactly the opposite of the truth. There are countless dogs, and there are countless instances of the word "dog".Every instance of the word is somehow related to every instance of the quadruped.But the word itself has only that metaphysical status (whatever that status may be) that belongs to the celestial Platonic dog.In the past, it was thought that words and the objects they referred to were different, but the facts mentioned above have greatly reduced the difference between the words and objects in this idea. It is also obvious that "meaning" must be a relation between an individual instance of a word and an individual instance to which that word refers.That is to say, if you want to explain the meaning of the word "dog", you have to examine the individual sounds that the word makes, and you have to consider how these individual sounds relate to individual members of the dog class.

In seeking a definition of "meaning," my plan, as in my other research, was to proceed as far as possible on the principles of behaviorism, thinking that these principles might not be sufficient after all.It is evident that a child acquires the habit of correctly using the word "dog" in exactly the same way as he acquires any other habit.While his attention was focused on a dog, he heard the word "dog" uttered several times.A dog just coming along gives him an urge to say "dog," and hearing the word "dog" makes him expect a dog or look for a dog, by ordinary apposition.Once these two habits are acquired, the child can be said to know the meaning of the word "dog".

This is not to say that the child has a state of mind that has the definition of the word "dog" as its main component.It just means that he has two behaviors, one is to lead from a dog to an instance of the word "dog", and the other is to lead from an instance of the word to an instance of the dog class.When he has acquired these two habits, he will be able to speak correctly.As far as the word "dog" is concerned, the boy has all that he needs before he becomes a lexicographer. As for the so-called "words about things", the definition of their "meaning" is quite enough.To say that the word "dog" refers to a dog is only to say that the two habits mentioned above have been formed.These two habits may in turn be called active and passive knowledge of the word.Active understanding is saying the word in front of a dog, and passive understanding is when you hear the word "dog", you expect or look for a dog.Passive understanding comes earlier than active understanding, and is not limited to humans.Dogs and horses learn to have a passive understanding of certain words.Parrots, on the other hand, can say some words, but we don't see that they know the meaning of those words.

What it means to use a word "correctly" I have given the following definition (ibid., p. 198): "If an ordinary person hears a word and is influenced by its original intended meaning, Even if the word is used correctly. This is the psychological definition of "correct", not the literary definition. The literary definition is to replace an ordinary listener with a highly educated person who lived long ago ; the purpose of this definition is to make it difficult to say or write correctly. "The law of causality governs our use of a word and our actions after we hear it used. The relationship between a word and its meaning is just like this law of causality. It is not necessary for a person to use a word correctly. To be able to say what the word means is no more necessary than knowing Kepler's laws for a properly orbiting planet."

To understand a word about things, the important thing is that the word and its referent have a common property.If you are awakened in the middle of the night by someone shouting "Fire," you will act no differently than you would if you smelled something burning.Of course there is a difference between a word and what it refers to. The word "fire" cannot make you hot or kill you, but what is involved in determining what the meaning is is those similarities that have causal force, not those that are different. Although the definition of "meaning" mentioned above is quite correct in my opinion, it is by no means an exhaustive explanation of the issue of meaning.First, this can only be applied to words about things.You can take a child to the zoo and say "tiger" while the child is watching the tiger.But there is no such zoo where you can point out to a child the meaning of the word "be".There is another limitation to the above doctrine, that is, that doctrine is sufficient only so far as words used for indication or exclamation are concerned.That doctrine cannot account for the words used to narrate, imagine, desire, or command without supplementing them.The use of language for denotation is particularly relevant in epistemology, but in other fields it is equally important for other uses of language.On this point I would like to quote from "Human Knowledge" (p. 85): "I think the basic uses of a word can be divided into indicative, imperative, and interrogative. When a child sees his mother coming, he Maybe say: 'Mom'; this is for directions. When he asks for mom, he calls out: "Mom! ”; this is used for commands. When the mother is disguised as a witch and he gradually sees through the pretense, he may say: “Mother! "; this is used for questioning. When learning a language, it must appear first when used for indicating, because the connection between a word and its referent can only be established when the two appear at the same time. But it is very easy to use for commands. This followed quickly. This is relevant when considering what we mean by "thinking" of an object. Apparently, the child who had just learned to call his mother found a verbal expression of what he used to There was a situation, which was combined with his mother, and which is now combined with the word "mother." Before he learned to speak, only part of his situation could be expressed; a grown man heard him Crying, I used to know that he needs something, but I can only guess what he wants. But "Mom! The fact that these two words can express his situation shows that even before he learned to speak, his situation already had a relationship with his mother, a relationship called "thinking". This relationship is not created by language. Rather, it exists before language learning. The function of language is to enable this relationship to be expressed.

Philosophers and bibliophiles often have a tendency to live their lives so dominated by words that they even forget that the chief function of words is always to have a relation to facts, which, generally speaking, do not belong to language. .Some modern philosophers have gone so far as to say that words should never meet things, but should live in a pure, autonomous world in which words are only compared to other words. "A cat is a carnivore" When you say that, you don't mean that some real cats eat real meat, but only that cats are classified as carnivorous in zoology books.These authors tell us that this attempt to bring language and fact into contact is "metaphysical" and therefore reprehensible.

Some of the opinions are so absurd that only a very learned person would take them.The aforementioned insights about language belong to this category.What makes this view especially absurd is that it loses sight of the place of language in the world of facts.Language, like eating and walking, is composed of sensible phenomena.If we cannot know the facts, we cannot know what others say, and we do not even know what we ourselves say.Words, like other actions, arose from useful habits, without the magic that is commonly supposed.Superstitious views about language are not new, and have been handed down from prehistoric times to the present: "From the earliest times of history man has had a superstitious reverence for words. Once upon a time a man who knew the name of his enemy could use The name acquired magical powers against his enemies. We still use phrases like 'by the name of the Bible.' "In ancient times there were words (the Bible), and it is easy for man to agree to this In a word.

The philosophical foundations of Plato and Kanapoult, and most of the metaphysicians in between, consisted of such insights. " ("Inquiry into Meaning and Truth", p. 23). The elements of psychological phenomena are entirely composed of sensations and images. I have demonstrated this point in the book "The Analysis of the Mind".I do not know if this argument was correct then, but I am still quite convinced that many uses of language cannot be explained without the introduction of images.Behaviorists reject images because images cannot be observed from the outside.But this makes it difficult for them to interpret memory or imagination.When I wrote "The Analysis of the Mind", I thought it possible to explain desire with behaviorism, but I now find this very doubtful.But I still stand by what was said in that book about the necessity of using images to explain the application of words to things that are not presently sensible.

I can summarize the words that can understand a representative object into six items: (1) Use the word properly at the right time in the right situation; (2) You have the appropriate action when you hear the word; (3) ) associate the word with another word (say, a word in another language) that has the appropriate effect on the behavior; (5) use this word to describe or recall an image in memory; (6) use this word to describe or create an imaginary image.At that time I stated these six points, as if ordinary words could be applied.However, in fact, if these six points are not modified, they cannot be applied to words that are not about things.

However, as soon as we move on to consider sentences and words that have meaning only as part of sentences, new problems arise.You can use words like "fire" or "fox" in an exclamation without putting them in a sentence. But there are many words that cannot be used alone like this.Just like this sentence: "The earth is bigger than the moon". "Yes" and "than" are meaningful only when used as part of a sentence.Someone may have a problem with words like "bigger".If you're looking at a horse and you suddenly see an elephant, you might shout, "Bigger!" But I think anyone can see that's an ellipsis.Some words require a sentence as a prerequisite.Therefore, without first thinking about the sentence, it can also be said that, in any case, no further analysis of meaning is possible without first considering what the mental phenomenon the sentence expresses. Once upon a time when I was writing "Principles of Mathematics", I began to have trouble understanding the sentences.At that time, the function of verbs in particular interested me.That's when I thought it was the verb that made the sentence a whole. "A is greater than B" is a complex sentence because it contains several words.There must also be a corresponding complexity in the fact that makes the sentence true (if that sentence is true).It seemed clear to me then, and it still feels clear to me now.In addition to this complex unity, a sentence has a quality, the duality of truth and falsehood.For these two reasons, it is more difficult and more important to explain the problems involved in the meaning of sentences than to clarify the problems involved in the meaning of words about things.In "Analysis of the Mind", I did not discuss these issues in detail.But in "Inquiry into Meaning and Truth" I have endeavored to present appropriate accounts in this field.Some assumptions are considered by many modern philosophers to be too metaphysical.Without these assumptions, I think it is impossible to create a plausible theory of relational truth and falsity.I think we must say that there are facts, that "true" is one relation to fact, and "false" another.Humble agnosticism, which claims that we can never know the facts, I think is absurd.When I feel pain or hear a voice or see the sun, and I pretend not to know, such a thing is possible only for those for whom theory has stifled all sense of practicality.Nay, even those who cling most zealously to the views I now reject admit that sentences are made of words, and cannot deny that speaking a sentence or hearing a sentence is a fact of the kind they consider unknowable. .Speech, like walking and eating, is an act of the body.As much as we know nothing about food and drink, we cannot know about language. There are many things in the world that we can see to be complex.Maybe some things aren't complicated, but there's no need to have an opinion on that.When things are complex, they are made of parts.There are relationships between parts.The table is made of table legs and table top.A knife is made of a handle and a blade.Facts, as we use them, always consist of the relations between the parts of a whole, or the qualities of a single thing.In a word, all things that exist are facts, except things that are perfectly simple (whether there are such things or not).When two things are connected, they form a complex, and this complex can be regarded as one thing.For the sake of convenience, the word fact is used to indicate the analyzed connection between parts, not to indicate the complex whole composed of parts.If the sentence is true, the sentence expresses this relationship.If the sentence is false, it cannot express this relationship.All the sentences formed by more than one booming character are some analyzes that embody a complex.If several complexes have a common element, this can be shown by the fact that the sentences analyzed for these complexes all contain a common word.Take some of the following sentences as examples: "Socrates was wise"; "Socrates was an Athenian"; "Socrates loved Plato"; "Socrates drank poison."All these sentences contain the name "Socrates," and all the facts that make them true contain the person Socrates as a constituent.This is what we mean when we say these sentences are "about" Socrates. Socrates enters with an unanalyzed whole into the facts that make these sentences true.But Su Ge himself is of course complicated.We can make other sentences asserting about this complex, for example, "Socrates has a flat nose" or "Socrates has two legs".Such a sentence is an analysis of a whole.How far this kind of analysis can be carried out in a certain period depends on the development of science in that period.How the parts of a whole relate to each other forms the "structure" of the whole.On this point I would like to quote the following passage from Human Knowledge (pp. 267-9): "To show the structure of an object is to say the parts of the object and how they relate to each other. If you study dissection Learning, you can first figure out the names and shapes of various bones, and then let someone tell you the position of each bone in the skeleton. Then you will know the structure of the skeleton in anatomy. But the knowledge about the structure of the skeleton You haven't finished. Bones are made of cells, cells are made of molecules, and every molecule has an atomic structure, which is studied by chemistry. Atoms also have a structure, which is studied by physics. Orthodox So far is the scientific analysis, but there is no reason why further analysis is impossible. We shall have occasion later to propose the analysis of material entities into the structure of events, and I shall try to show that even events may be regarded as having a Structure, this view of events is good. Next let's consider a slightly different example of structure, the sentence yes.A sentence is a series of words.If it is spoken language, this series of words is arranged in a sequence according to the relationship between them.If it is a pen to a book, it is arranged in an order according to the relationship between left and right.But these relations are not relations between words, but relations between instances of words.A word is a class of similar sounds that all have the same or nearly the same meaning. (For simplicity, I only discuss spoken language, not written text).A sentence is also a class of sounds, because many people can say the same sentence.So we must say that not a sentence is a series of words in time, but a sentence is a class of sounds, each sound contains a series of sounds, closely connected in time.Each sound in the series is an instance of a word. (This is a necessary feature of a sentence, but not a sufficient feature. It is not sufficient, because some series of sounds are meaningless.) I will not discuss in detail the relationship between different parts of speech. distinction, and proceeds to a second stage of analysis, which does not belong to the construction of sentences, as discussed above, but to phonetics.Each instance of a word is a complex sound, the parts of which are the letters (assuming a language made of sounded letters).After the analysis of pronunciation, there is a further stage, which is to analyze the complex physiological process of speaking or hearing a letter.Physiological analysis is followed by physical analysis, and from this point the analysis proceeds as in the example of the bones... It is not necessary to explain the structure in terms of units, which are themselves found to be complex. Miscalculated.For example, the definition of a point can be said to be a class of events, but this does not prove wrong what is said in traditional geometry, which regards points as simple.Everything that explains the structure is related to some units, and these units seem to have no structure for the time being, but it must not be said that these units have no structure in another connection, and it is very important to admit this structure.” A straightforward sentence is uttered because the speaker believes it to be true, or because the speaker expects it to elicit action or emotion in the listener.I pointed out earlier that when an actor says, "It is I, Hamlet the Dane," no one believes him, but no one thinks he is lying.This proves that only sentences that express belief or are intended to lead to belief are true or false.Concerning truth and falsity, sentences matter only as a vehicle for conveying beliefs.It is obvious that beliefs can exist without words if they are not complex.We are thus outside the domain of language and have to discuss first the belief which has nothing to do with language, and then the relation between this belief and the sentence which expresses it. Because there is a continuum between the lowest animals and humans, belief is not a precise concept.Animals have behaviors which may be said to imply beliefs of one kind or another.This must not be forgotten, but we are talking primarily of human beliefs as we know them from our own experience.Only simple beliefs can live without borrowing words.We all believe that the ratio of circumference to diameter is about 3.14159, but I don't see how this belief can exist without language.Even so, there are many beliefs that clearly precede language.When you see a dog, you may say the word "dog" to verbalize what you believe.A cat that sees a dog expresses its belief in a different way, by bristling, arching its back, and hissing.This is an expression of belief, which is exactly what you use "dog" with. The word is the same.The same goes for memory.If you have just heard a loud thunder, you have a state. If you use words to express this state, you should use this sentence: "There was a loud thunder just now."But even if the words don't come to your mind, you believe what the words say. "The word belief, as I understand it, means a state of body or mind, or both. To avoid redundancy, I call it a state of an organism, without distinction being made between the physical and the spiritual" (" Human Knowledge, p. 16).I added: "Any state of an organism (the state of believing in something) is theoretically perfectly describable without reference to the thing believed. When you believe 'a Your belief that a car is coming' is made up of a certain state of muscle, senses, and emotion, perhaps with some visual imagery. All of this, and what else can be What constitutes your belief can be fully described theoretically through the cooperation of psychologists and physiologists, without them having to refer to anything other than your body and mind".Saying an appropriate word is but one of several states that make up your believing.Verbal expression is important because it communicates, because it expresses it more precisely than any non-verbal state that embodies this belief.