Use and Reference Theories of Meaning

Well, I have a couple of minutes to write something about the topic.

Wittgenstein of course was an early linguistic philosopher, son of the richest man in Europe, who served admirably in the First World War as a soldier in Europe. He actually worked on the Tractatus Logico Philosophicus while stationed in Italy. That was a little like Descartes in some respects who was stationed in Bavaria as a mercenary and wrote his Discourse on a Method after thinking contemplatively in a sauna. Descartes was never in love with a British fighter pilot though, and Wittgenstein was.

I was rather shocked to learn of that eccentricity of the philosopher whom was also a competent engineer. I believe his wealthy background and wierd life brought him to examine language for-itself as some sort of solid ground, though of course shfting and difficult to define linguistically speaking. His fighter jock was killed in the war.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sellars/

Wittgenstein’s work after he moved to Cambridge as a PhD with Russell's help included writing the Blue and Brown books-those express his ideas about language rather well. He has a rabbit reffered to by natives as a 'gavagai'. By association a language translator learns what the meanings of gavagai might be and then forms a lexicon. Wittgenstein also uses the example of meanings such as 'bring a brick' in brick laying parlance. I reallize this is not a very technical discussion. Good reading.

Word meaning origins as explained within a philosophical context however may be found described a little more completely with W.V.O. Quine's 'Philosophy of Logic'-read the first few chapters, then try his 'Ontological Relativity'.

Quine placed all word structures within ontologies that may be regarded as sets. Sets of course have the elements of the set as potential referents and meanings. Wittgenstein associated word use with situation that conveyed a particular meaning to a given word use. Quine can acknowledge that implicitly however as a logician he has taken a look at the construction of language from phonemes and morphemes and built up from that an explanation of elements of interest to a logician rather than a grammarian the points of interest in discussing truth.

Intentional theories of meaning versus the extensional in some ways have a psychological component that was elaborated by empiricism working along Immanuel Kant's epistemological distinction of categories and meaning. Philosophically the location of meaning-in the mind or in the world, and the location of qualities such as objects seen, is a perennial topic perhaps resolved by quantum mechanics a little. Ideas that are of the mind such as 'I don't like strawberry pudding' differ from ideas with external referents such as scientists like. Extensional ideas refer to the material world while intentional ideas have a psychological and subjective component.

W.V.O. Quine of course abolished the analytic-synthetic distinction in his ’Two Dogmas of Empiricism'. Empiricism was given a real punch on the jaw from which it hasn't recovered. Quine helpfully provided his 'Ontological Relativity' to explain how language has a use and simultaneous reference basis. I enjoy reading Quine now and then and recommend his work.

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