The Idea Theory of Meaning

The Idea Theory of Meaning

Outline

1. Metasemantics2. The Conformal Theory3. The Idea Theory4. Primary and Secondary Qualities5. General Terms/ Abstract Ideas6. The Tribunal of Experience7. Summary

1. METASEMANTICS

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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?”

Original vs. Derived Intentionality

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

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.

2. THE CONFORMAL THEORY

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.

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.

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).

Conformal Theory

Represents

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).

Conformal Theory

Represents

House

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.

Problem for the Conformal Theory

I represent a house by having the same form as a house. So why doesn’t the house represent me, since it and I have the same form, and representation = sameness of form?

Problem for Conformal Theory

Represents???

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.)

Conformal Theory

Represents

Real FormSpiritual Form

The Idea Theory

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

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 corpuscularians were…

Robert Boyle, 1627-1691

Isaac Newton, 1643-1727

Thomas Hobbes, 1588-1679

John Locke, 1632-1704

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.

Corpuscularianism

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

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.

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).

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.

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.

3. THE IDEA THEORY

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.

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…”

John Locke

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

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.”

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.

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.

The Nature of Ideas

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

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).

Idea Theory

Mind Idea of a Dagger

Dagger

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.

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.

Idea Theory

Mind Idea of a Dagger

Dagger

Resembles

Sees

Corpuscularianism

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

Idea Theory

Mind Idea of a Dog Dog

Partly Resembles

Sees

Note

This was already really part of the original resemblance theory… nobody thinks your idea of a dog smells like a dog!

Resemblance Theory of Representation

Importantly, ideas don’t represent by sharing forms with their intentional objects (as we’ve seen, science doesn’t allow this).

Instead, just like paintings, ideas represent by resembling their intentional objects. An idea of a horse is like a picture of a horse, and it represents a horse as a picture does: by resembling it.

Resemblance Theory

The resemblance theory is really the important part of the idea theory, because it does all the explaining. Why does word W mean X? Because W is associated with idea I and I means X. But why does I mean X? Because I resembles X.

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY QUALITIES

Corpuscularianism Redux

The idea theory can’t exactly escape the problem the conformal theory faced.

A painting of a red wall resembles a red wall in the sense that if you looked at both, the appearances they generate in you would be the same, because both share a feature– they reflect light at a wavelength between 630 and 700nm.

Corpuscularianism Redux

But surely (a) you don’t look at your mental states and (b) your mental states don’t reflect light!

Primary Qualities

Locke famously draws a distinction between primary and secondary qualities.

The primary qualities of an object are those ascribed to it by corpuscularianism (shape, size, momentum, and what Locke calls ‘solidity’).

Secondary Qualities

Secondary qualities are the propensities of the object to cause certain appearances in us (like the feeling of warmth).

According to Locke they were things like color, smell, taste, texture, and warmth or coldness.

COLD HOTNORMAL

COLD HOTNORMAL

FEELS COLD

FEELS HOT

COLD HOTNORMAL

FEELS HOT

FEELS COLD

Primary vs. Secondary Qualities

Locke thought that ideas of primary qualities really did resemble those primary qualities, but the resemblance theory was false for secondary qualities.

Ideas of primary qualities represent by resembling; ideas of secondary qualities represent in some other way.

George Berkeley, 1685-1753

• Irish philosopher • Bishop in the Church of

Ireland.• Idea theorist• Advocated a view which

we now call “subjective idealism.”

George Berkeley, 1685-1753

Berkeley argued that no idea resembled anything physical or material; ideas only resembled ideas.

Only Ideas Can Resemble Ideas

Ideas aren’t spatial and thus they don’t have shapes, sizes or momenta.

Is your idea of a big elephant bigger than your idea of a small elephant?

Ideas don’t even resemble the primary qualities, like shape, size, and momentum.

That’s a SMALL elephant.

That’s a BIG elephant.

Idealism

For Berkeley, this wasn’t a bad thing, and it didn’t show that the idea theory or the resemblance theory were false. What it showed, instead, was that our thoughts were not about a physical world, but of a world made of ideas.

My idea of a table was an idea of an idea, because tables are ideas.

GENERAL TERMS/ABSTRACT IDEAS

Locke on General Terms

“It is not enough for the perfection of language, that sounds can be made signs of ideas, unless those signs can be so made use of as to comprehend several particular things…”

Locke on General Terms

“…for the multiplication of words would have perplexed their use, had every particular thing need of a distinct name to be signified by…”

Locke on General Terms

“To remedy this inconvenience, language had yet a further improvement in the use of general terms, whereby one word was made to mark a multitude of particular existences.”

Particular Terms

Locke

General Terms

Dog

Abstract Ideas

If we accept the idea theory, then, we have to accept that there are “abstract ideas”– not mental pictures of a particular person, but mental pictures that resemble equally a group of things.

These abstract ideas are the meanings of general terms.

Berkeley vs. Abstract Ideas

Berkeley, however, argues that abstract ideas are impossible. The abstract idea of a man is supposed to apply equally to a tall man and a short man; a black man and a white man; a skinny man and a fat man; well-dressed man and a pauper, etc. But no picture resembles equally all such men, as any picture of a man depicts him as either skinny or fat, but not both and not neither.

Berkeley

Again, this didn’t lead Berkeley to reject the idea theory, only to (once again) place a severe limit on what we can have ideas of.

Just as we can’t have ideas of non-ideas (because non-ideas can’t resemble ideas) we can’t have ideas of abstract things, because mental pictures are always determinate and never abstract (like regular pictures).

THE TRIBUNAL OF EXPERIENCE

Hume: Impressions and Ideas

David Hume took Berkeley’s style of austere empiricism to its logical extreme.Hume makes a distinction that wasn’t made by Locke and Berkeley between impressions and ideas. Impressions are sensations or perceptions or sense experiences. Things like seeing red or feeling pain. The idea of red is not the same thing as seeing red though: for Hume, all (simple) ideas are “copies” of impressions.

The Tribunal of Experience

Hume then proposes the tribunal of experience. For each supposed idea, we ask:(a) Is it copied from an impression? If so, which

one? [No answer? Go to (d).](b) If not, is it a complex idea, built out of

simpler ones?(c) If so, repeat (a) and (b) for each of its parts.(d) If not, it’s not really an idea at all!

Hume vs. Causation

Hume notoriously targeted causation for the tribunal of experience. Imagine the following sequence of events (that is, have the following sequence of ideas in your head): first you have an idea of ball A headed toward ball B. Then A hits B and causes B to move away. Got it? OK, now imagine this other sequence of events: A is moving toward B, A and B touch, and B moves away on its own (not because A caused it).

Hume vs. Causation

What’s the difference here? Hume argued that there wasn’t one. You couldn’t see one event causing another, and since all ideas were copies of impressions (for Hume), you couldn’t have an idea of one event causing another.

Other Imperceptibles

There were some other problems with the idea theory involving unobservables. How is your idea of a black hole or an electron anything like those things? Even more straightforwardly, how is your idea of (for example) Moses anything like Moses (there’s no ancient statues or other representations of him)? But it seems we do have an idea of Moses, at least in the sense that we can think about him.

SUMMARY