The Idea Theory of Meaning - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

The Idea Theory of MeaningSlide2

Outline

Metasemantics

The Conformal Theory

The Idea

Theory

Primary and Secondary Qualities

General Terms/ Abstract Ideas

The Tribunal of Experience

SummarySlide3

1. metasemanticsSlide4

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.Slide5

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.Slide6

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.Slide7

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.Slide8

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?Slide9

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?”Slide10

Original vs. Derived Intentionality

A historically popular strategy for approaching this question has been to draw a distinction between original and derived intentionality (representation). Slide11

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.Slide12

2. The conformal theorySlide13

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. Slide14

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. Slide15

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). Slide16

Conformal Theory

RepresentsSlide17

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). Slide18

Conformal Theory

Represents

HouseSlide19

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.Slide20

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? Slide21

Problem for Conformal Theory

Represents???Slide22

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.)Slide23

Conformal Theory

Represents

Real Form

Spiritual FormSlide24

The Idea Theory

The addition of “spiritual forms” to regular forms presaged what would become the dominant view of mental representations: the idea theory.Slide25

The New Science

The 17

th

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…Slide26

Robert Boyle, 1627-1691Slide27

Isaac Newton, 1643-1727Slide28

Thomas Hobbes, 1588-1679Slide29

John Locke, 1632-1704Slide30

John Locke

Father of Classical Liberalism (civil liberties, economic freedom, limited government)

Along with Descartes, most important 17

th

Century Western philosopher.

Worked in Boyle’s lab.Slide31

Corpuscularianism

The

view was that everything is made out of corpuscles– microscopic little bits that had a certain shape, size, and momentum. Slide32

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.Slide33

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

). Slide34

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. Slide35

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.Slide36

3. The idea theorySlide37

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.Slide38

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…”Slide39

John Locke

“

yet they are all within his own breast, invisible and hidden from others, nor can of themselves be made to appear…”Slide40

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.”Slide41

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. Slide42

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.Slide43

The Nature of Ideas

According

to Locke, ideas are “the pictures drawn in our minds” (Essay, II.x.5). Slide44

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).Slide45

Idea Theory

Mind

Idea of a Dagger

DaggerSlide46

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.Slide47

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.Slide48

Idea Theory

Mind

Idea of a Dagger

Dagger

Resembles

SeesSlide49

Corpuscularianism

So how did the Idea Theory handle the claims of

corpuscularianism

, that things in the world didn’t have color, taste, etc.?Slide50

Idea Theory

Mind

Idea of a Dog

Dog

Partly Resembles

SeesSlide51

Note

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

smells

like a dog!Slide52

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.Slide53

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.Slide54

Primary and secondary qualitiesSlide55

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. Slide56

Corpuscularianism

Redux

But

surely

you

don’t look at your mental states and

your

mental states don’t reflect light!Slide57

Primary Qualities

Locke

famously draws a distinction between primary and secondary

qualities.

T

he

primary qualities of an object are those ascribed to it by

corpuscularianism

(shape, size, momentum, and what Locke calls ‘solidity

’).Slide58

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

.Slide59

COLD

HOT

NORMALSlide60

COLD

HOT

NORMAL

FEELS COLD

FEELS HOTSlide61

COLD

HOT

NORMAL

FEELS HOT

FEELS COLDSlide62

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. Slide63

George Berkeley, 1685-1753

Irish philosopher

Bishop

in the Church of Ireland.

Idea theorist

Advocated a

view which we now call “subjective idealism.” Slide64

George Berkeley, 1685-1753

Berkeley argued

that no idea resembled anything physical or material;

ideas only resembled ideas

. Slide65

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.Slide66

That’s a SMALL elephant.Slide67

That’s a BIG elephant.Slide68

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. Slide69

General terms/

Abstract ideasSlide70

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…”Slide71

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…”Slide72

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.”Slide73

Particular Terms

LockeSlide74

General Terms

DogSlide75

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.Slide76

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. Slide77

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).Slide78

The tribunal of experienceSlide79

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.Slide80

The Tribunal of Experience

Hume then proposes the tribunal of experience. For each supposed idea, we ask:

Is it copied from an impression? If so, which one? [No answer? Go to (d).]

If not, is it a complex idea, built out of simpler ones?

If so, repeat (a) and (b) for each of its parts.

If not, it’s not really an idea at all!Slide81

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).Slide82

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. Slide83

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.Slide84

summary