Words and the world : a study in seventeenth-century theories of meaning

Abstract

Empiricist philosophers have always been interested in questions surrounding the notion of Meaning Seventeenth-century English empiricists were largely concerned with the criticism of scholastiaism their criticism vas directed primarily against scholastic controversy, and against the apparent inability of the schoolmen to adapt themselves to the growth of the new scientific knowledge. In effect, this criticism amounted to a questioning of the meaningfulness of certain terms employed in traditional philosophy. The seventeenth-century empiricists suggested, therefore, that the absurdity of much earlier theorizing would be made clear if an attempt were made to develop a more accurate account of the way our language functions. Basically, seventeenth-century theories of meaning were 'naming' theories; also, this is the type of theory normally attributed to English philosophers from Bacon to Locke. Such accounts, however, are partial in two main ways: (1)they overlook the complexity of the theories; (2) they overlook the general seventeenth-century awareness that naming-theories, if they are to apply at all, can only apply to a very restricted area of human discourse. On these questions, any proper interpretation of seventeenth-century empiricism needs to take account of the general intellectual background of the time: attention should be paid to the anti-scholasticism of the period, as well as to the distrust of language, the request for a 'plain style' the growth of the new knowledge, and the growing interest in the things in the world. Such an investigation reveals the close connexion that existed between the naming theories of meaning commonly attributed to the empiricists and th$ seventeenth-century interest in linguistic reform. Language was to be reformed to conform to the naming-model in the interests of science, but this was not meant to imply that language was to have no other usa. On the contrary, the seventeenth-century philosophers devoted considerable thought to developing meaning theory at levels other than the scientific. This development has been insufficiently emphasized in traditional interpretations. This tendency to develop two distinct theories of meaning - one for the language of science, and one adequate outside this sphere - may be seen in the work of many philosophers of the century. Here, as in so much else, Locke is at one with his contemporaries. Such a re-assessment of the explanations of meaning offered in the seventeenth century reveals interesting resemblances between their theorising and two important movements in the twentieth century, viz., the philosophy of logical atomism and the later work of Wittgenstein. It is misleading to say either, (1), that the seventeenth century had nothing to offer in the way of an explanation of meaning, or (2), that they offered simple, naive, 'naming' theories of meaning. In many ways they grappled with, and partially gave a satisfactory answer to, problems which have been to the fore in twentieth-century Anglo-Saxon philosophy.