Theories of Meaning

 

What is meaning? Philosophers have struggled hard this century to arrive at a something that will tell them where and how meaning is to be sought. They have sought some theory that would encompass requirements like: There are sounds or marks on paper that possess meaning. They refer to things and can be true. Meaning is given in specified ways by the words themselves and syntax. Sentences should be composed of smaller units (propositions), each of which indicate the conditions to be satisfied to make each sentence true. There should be rules governing sentence composition. Language occurs in some context, and must express beliefs, hopes, intentions, etc. While these beliefs and hopes, etc. are no doubt states of the speaker's nervous system, the sentences should also relate to exterior objects and situations. Believing something is a relation to what is being believed: this relationships should be capable of being treated in some systematic way. Ultimately, though we cannot do so yet, semantics and psychology should reduce to physical acts and entities.

Has such a theory been found? No. Some requirements are satisfied by one theory, and some by another, but there is no single encompassing theory that commands general acceptance. Nor does one seem likely now.

Suppose we require that meaning be as simple and transportable as possible. We could break a sentence into simple units (propositions) which conform to a simple assertions of fact. And we can remove the context: the who, why, how, etc. of its application. The result will assuredly be simplistic, but the sentences will rest on assured foundations and can be built in logically correct ways. There are many advantages in this approach: clarity, certainty, universality. Once expressions are reduced to propositions with truth values, it becomes harder to dally with relativism. Truth and falsity are universals, and apply across the different worlds of individuals, cultures and times.

But matters are a good deal less clear-cut when metalanguages and different logics are involved. Perhaps we should start from another direction altogether and ask why human beings use speech. What are their purposes and intentions? J.L. Austin's How to Do Things with Words was the seminal work, and his approach was extended and systematized by John Searle and others. Meaning is real and includes both what the speaker intended and what he actually said — i.e. the function of a sentence and its internal structure. Speech, moreover, is rule-governed, and we should be able to spell out these rules.

Intention-based semantic theories are still popular and are actively pursued. But they have not entirely succeeded in reducing meaning and psychology to actions and utterances. If meaning is defined as acting so as to induce belief and action in another, theories of meaning must be grounded in non-semantic terms to avoid circularity. And there is some doubt whether this can be done. Individuals act according to beliefs, and the communication of these beliefs eventually and necessarily calls on public beliefs and language.

Since all attempts to ground meaning in more fundamental entities have failed, perhaps we should conclude that sentences have no meaning at all, no final, settled meaning that we can paraphrase in non-metaphorical language. That is the contention of Jacques Derrida. Deconstruction is the literary programme that derives from this approach, though Derrida himself does not see deconstruction as a method, and still less an attack on the western canon of literature, but more a way of investigating the textural contexts in which words are used. The social, cultural and historical aspects of that context, and how we interpret a text from our own current perspective, are the concerns of hermeneutics.

Semiotics is still an obsession of literary theory, but clearly only one of many approaches to meaning, and may indeed be fading now from the American philosophy scene. Very few of its ten thousand professional philosophers are rattling the bars of the prison cage of language. Linguistic philosophies continue, but in addition to the traditional fields — philosophy of existence (ontology), meaning (epistemology) art (aesthetics), morals (ethics) and political history — there is increased emphasis on new fields: computer issues, applied ethics, feminism, rights of parenthood, etc.

The upshot for the arts, and poetry in particular? We now have a richer understanding of the resources and shortcomings of language. Inspired by the example of science in its search for objective and fundamental knowledge, philosophy and its kindred disciplines have attempted to ground language in something incontrovertible, free of individual and cultural suppositions. They have failed. And even if cognitive science should one day be able to explain language in terms of the chemical or physical processes of the brain, those very processes would rest on findings produced by the shared beliefs and practices of the scientific community. There is no escaping the human element. Even if expressed entirely as mathematics, the processes could not escape the lacunae discovered by human beings at the heart of mathematical logic.

But this is no cause for dejection. The various disciplines of art, philosophy and science each make their own starting assumptions, and consequently map the world differently. And surely each is appropriate in its own sphere: composing a poem will not mend a broken leg. But the spheres are not wholly distinct and detached from each other, so that better understanding and cooperation between the disciplines could be immensely enriching.

These are excerpts from a much longer and more technical article on TextEtc.

 

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Theories of Meaning

 

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