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The Idea Theory of Meaning

The Idea Theory of Meaning. Outline. Metasemantics The Conformal Theory The Idea Theory Primary and Secondary Qualities General Terms/ Abstract Ideas The Tribunal of Experience Summary. 1. metasemantics. The Meaningless World.

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The Idea Theory of Meaning

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  1. The Idea Theory of Meaning

  2. Outline • Metasemantics • The Conformal Theory • The Idea Theory • Primary and Secondary Qualities • General Terms/ Abstract Ideas • The Tribunal of Experience • Summary

  3. 1. metasemantics

  4. The Meaningless World Most things in the world don’t have meanings. Rivers and lakes and trees and rocks and planets and black holes and electrons… none of these things have meanings. There’s nothing that a river is about, there is nothing that a lake represents, a tree can’t be true or false.

  5. Meaningful Artifacts A very small number of things, however, do have meanings/ are about or represent other things. Many of these meaningful things are human artifacts, like maps, diagrams, paintings, icons, etc. In addition, there are linguistic and mental representations.

  6. Language All normal human beings, and most abnormal human beings, speak a language. First languages don’t need to be taught; they come naturally to us. A sentence like “The cat is on the mat” has a meaning; it is about a certain cat and a certain mat; and it is true if the cat it’s about is on the mat it’s about, and false otherwise.

  7. Mental Representation Thoughts too are representational. I can think about cats, and I can think that a cat is on a mat. Unlike language, it’s plausible that a large number of non-human animals have representational thoughts. Almost certainly dolphins and dogs, and maybe even bees and ants.

  8. Metasemantics Since most things aren’t meaningful, and only a few things are, it’s reasonable to ask: why do things like maps, sentences, and thoughts have meanings and rivers, lakes, and trees have no meanings? And why, for example, is a map of Hong Kong a map of Hong Kong, rather than (say) a map of Kuala Lumpur? Why do meaningful things have the meanings they do rather than some other meaning?

  9. Metasemantics “Metasemantics” (metaphysical semantics, the metaphysics of meanings) is the part of philosophy of language that tries to answer the question: “Why [in virtue of what] do meaningful things have the meanings they do, rather than some other meaning, or no meaning at all?”

  10. Original vs. Derived Intentionality A historically popular strategy for approaching this question has been to draw a distinction between original and derived intentionality (representation).

  11. Original vs. Derived Intentionality Minds (more accurately: thoughts) have original intentionality. We have to have a real story for them to answer the metasemantic question (why they mean what they do). Other non-mental representations on the other hand, like diagrams and sentences, have derived intentionality. They mean what they do because they inherit their meanings from our thoughts.

  12. 2. The conformal theory

  13. Aristotle Aristotle (384-322 BCE) is in the running for “greatest Western philosopher” and he’s usually in everyone’s top 5 at least. According to Aristotle, substances are composed of matter + form.

  14. Aristotle on Hylomorphism Example: a house is a substance. The matter of the house is the bricks, cement, plaster, wood, and so forth. But the house is not just the bricks and cement, etc. It is those bricks, cement, plaster, etc. arranged in a certain way: with a certain form.

  15. The Conformal Theory of Representation Aristotle held an obscure doctrine of the identity of the knower with the known. The basic idea seems to be this. When I think of a house, for instance, my soul (i.e. my matter) takes on the form of a house. Thus, even though I (me, my soul, my matter) am distinct from a house (its matter), I represent the house because it and my soul have literally the same form (the form of a house).

  16. Conformal Theory Represents

  17. Aristotle on Linguistic Representation Furthermore, Aristotle thought that spoken language was an outward sign of the state of one’s soul. So the (spoken) word ‘horse’ was a sign of my soul having the form of a horse. So we can say that ‘horse’ represents horses, because it is a sign of a state of my soul that represents horses (by identity of form with them).

  18. Conformal Theory Represents House

  19. Aquinas and the Conformal Theory Aristotle’s greatest medieval follower, St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274 CE), tried to deal with a problem in the conformal theory.

  20. Problem for the Conformal Theory I represent a houseby having the same form as a house. So why doesn’t the houserepresent me, since it and I have the same form, and representation = sameness of form?

  21. Problem for Conformal Theory Represents???

  22. Intentional Presence The solution was that the rock-form was not “really” present in me, it was only “spiritually” present. Spiritually present forms represent really present ones, but not vice versa. (Incidentally, this is also the explanation for why even though I have the form of a rock, I don’t look anything like a rock.)

  23. Conformal Theory Spiritual Form Real Form Represents

  24. The Idea Theory The addition of “spiritual forms” to regular forms presaged what would become the dominant view of mental representations: the idea theory.

  25. The New Science The 17th Century saw the rise of corpuscularianism. It was a lot like Greek atomism, except whereas atoms are essentially indivisible, corpuscles could theoretically be divided. Notable corpuscularianswere…

  26. Robert Boyle, 1627-1691

  27. Isaac Newton, 1643-1727

  28. Thomas Hobbes, 1588-1679

  29. John Locke, 1632-1704

  30. John Locke • Father of Classical Liberalism (civil liberties, economic freedom, limited government) • Along with Descartes, most important 17th Century Western philosopher. • Worked in Boyle’s lab.

  31. Corpuscularianism The view was that everything is made out of corpuscles– microscopic little bits that had a certain shape, size, and momentum.

  32. Corpuscularianism However, the corpuscles did not have color, taste, smell, sound, or warmth. These other qualities were explained as the effects of the corpuscles on our sensory organs. For example, heat is just the motion of corpuscles, but this motion causes us to experience the sensation of warmth.

  33. The Unreality of Tastes, Colors, etc. “I think that tastes, odors, colors, and so on are no more than mere names so far as the object in which we place them is concerned, and that they reside only in the consciousness. Hence if the living creature were removed, all these qualities would be wiped away and annihilated” (Galileo, The Assayer).

  34. Problems for the Conformal Theory But if colors, for example, exist only in the mind, then it cannot be true that when I represent a white horse, my soul has the same form as a white horse.

  35. Problems for the Conformal Theory There are no white horses. There are horses that cause me to experience whiteness when light bounces off of them. But the whiteness itself depends on me, the observer. Whiteness exists only in minds.

  36. 3. The idea theory

  37. The Idea Theory The new scientific developments called for a new theory of representation. Many philosophers, including Descartes, Hobbes, and Locke adopted an “idea theory” to account for representation.

  38. John Locke “Words are sensible signs, necessary for communication of ideas. Man, though he have great variety of thoughts, and such from which others as well as himself might receive profit and delight…”

  39. John Locke “yet they are all within his own breast, invisible and hidden from others, nor can of themselves be made to appear…”

  40. John Locke “The comfort and advantage of society not being to be had without communication of thoughts, it was necessary that man should find out some external sensible signs, whereof those invisible ideas, which his thoughts are made up of, might be made known to others.”

  41. Comparison with the Conformal Theory For Aristotle and Aquinas, a mind/ soul represents an object by sharing its form. Language represents by indicating the state of the soul.

  42. Comparison with the Conformal Theory The idea theory introduces a new element. The mind represents a thing by having an idea that represents that thing. A word represents by indicating an idea present in the mind.

  43. The Nature of Ideas According to Locke, ideas are “the pictures drawn in our minds” (Essay, II.x.5).

  44. The Nature of Ideas An idea of a horse, then, is very much like a picture, image, or painting of a horse. Compare Hume: “By ideas I mean the faint images of [perceptions] in thinking and reasoning” (Treatise, I.i.1).

  45. Idea Theory Dagger Mind Idea of a Dagger

  46. Indirect Realism The idea theory is a variety of “indirect realism.” What you directly see are mental entities (for example, ideas). You only indirectly see the real things that the ideas represent.

  47. Resemblance Theory According to the resemblance theory of representation, ideas represent things by resembling them– sort of like how painting works. The resemblance theory is thus a theory of what it is in virtue of which ideas have the contents they have: the ideas resemble the contents.

  48. Idea Theory Resembles Sees Dagger Mind Idea of a Dagger

  49. Corpuscularianism So how did the Idea Theory handle the claims of corpuscularianism, that things in the world didn’t have color, taste, etc.?

  50. Idea Theory Partly Resembles Sees Dog Mind Idea of a Dog

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