Meanings

Definition (Reference Books)
Definition (Gerald Runkle)
Definition (P. W. Bridgman)

Sign and symbol (H. H. Price)
Sign and symbol (Friedrich Waismann)

Signification and significance (Russel Ackoff and Fred Emery)
Meaning (Ludwig Wittgenstein)
Clarifying meaning (Abraham Kaplan)
Aspects of meaning (Abraham Kaplan)
Theory and meaning (Abraham Kaplan)
Images and meaning (Kenneth Boulding)
Concepts and meaning (Abraham Kaplan)
Terms and meaning (Jennifer Trusted)
Experience and meaning (Moritz Schlick)
Acquisition of meaning (John Dewey)

Definition

[1974] The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
“1. That which is signified by something; sense, import.
2. That which one wishes to convey.
3. Functional value, efficacy; significance.”

[1927] P. W. Bridgman, The Logic of Modern Physics, 1960
“... the true meaning of a term is to be found by observing what a man does with it, not by what he says about it.” (p. 7)

[1953] Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations
“The meaning of a word is what is explained by the explanation of the meaning.”

[1981] Gerald Runkle, Good Thinking, Second edition
“The meaning of a word is the use to which it can be put in the language of which it is a part.”
“The meanings of words change as their uses change.” (Chapter 2, p. 14)
“Most words have more than one meaning. Most of the time the context will make clear which of two or more meanings is intended.” (Context and Ambiguity, p. 24)

Sign and symbol

[1953] H.H. Price, Thinking and Experience
“It is often said that we must distinguish two senses of the word ‘meaning’: meaning in the sign sense (e.g. black clouds mean rain) and meaning in the symbol sense (e.g. the word ‘rain’ means rain).
Meaning in the symbol sense is not confined to words; other entities and occurrences, for instance gestures, diagrams, pictures, mental images, are also supposed to have meaning in this sense.” (Chapter VI, p. 144)

[1981] Friedrich Waismann in Oswald Hanfling (editor), Essential Readings in Logical Positivism
"A symbol is an applied, rule-governed sign.
A sign is what can be perceived of a symbol. (So, one and the same sign can be common to two symbols. The sign will then symbolize differently in those two cases.)
The way a sign is used is its meaning.
A meaning is what all symbols that can represent one another have in common." (p. 29)

Signification and significance

[1972] Russell Ackoff and Fred Emery, On Purposeful Systems
“Pragmatic philosophers from Peirce to Dewey have pointed out that in practice the meaning of a term does not lie in what it comes out from, but in what it leads to; or, as they put it, in the difference it makes in the respondent’s behaviour.” (p. 170)
“In effect, meaning, though a function of what a sign signifies, is separate from it; it lies not in the signification of a sign but in its significance.” (p. 170)
“... the signification and significance of a sign depend on the sign environment and the situation in which it is used.” (p. 172)

Clarifying meaning

[1964] Abraham Kaplan, The Conduct of Inquiry
- Ostension. “The most basic device [for clarifying meaning] is ostension, pointing to or directly presenting the denotation.” "Apprenticeship begins with ostension in the laboratory, the clinic, and out in the field."
- Description. “A second procedure for specifying meaning is description which serves for indirect observables as well as for observational terms.”
- Definition. “By far the most frequently mentioned device, though not the most frequently used, is definition.”
“... a definition provides a set of terms synonymous, as a set, with the term defined, so that they are mutually replaceable. The definition formulates the conditions which are both necessary and sufficient for the applicability of the term defined.”
(Chapter II, p. 72)

Aspects of meaning

[1964] Abraham Kaplan, The Conduct of Inquiry
- Systemic meaning. “... there are terms which require for a specification of their meaning not one sential context but the context of the whole set of sentences in which they appear. Such meaning I have previously called ‘systemic meaning’.” (e.g. Marx’s class; Freud’s libido; Durkheim’s anomie).
“All theoretical terms have systemic meaning.” (p. 64)
- Dynamic (openness of) meaning. “Dynamic openness is, so to speak, the leading edge of scientific terms, their permanent possibility of change in meaning.” “If meanings are taken to be always wholly fixed, logically speaking, relations between an old concept and new ones can be described only as overlap, inclusion, or complete replacement. The details of the process of change, its intermediate steps, its locus, and justification - all remain unspoken.” “Because meanings are open, our conceptualizations can reach out for a firmer grip on reality.” “Tolerance of ambiguity is as important for creativity in science as it is anywhere else.” (pp. 69-71)

Theory and meaning

[1964] Abraham Kaplan, The Conduct of Inquiry
“The value of a theory lies not only in the explanations it was constructed to provide but also in its unanticipated consequences, and these in turn enrich meanings in unforeseen ways. No single specification of meaning suffices for a theoretical term precisely because no single context of application exhausts its significance for the scientist using it.” (Chapter II, p. 65)

Images and meaning

[1961, First Edition 1956] Kenneth E. Boulding, The Image
“The meaning of a message is the change which it produces in the image.”
The dynamic between message and image :
- The message may leave the image unaffected
- The message may add something to the image (addition)
- The message may change totally the image (conversion)
(from Chapter 1, pp. 7-8)

Concepts and meaning

[1964] Abraham Kaplan, The Conduct of Inquiry
“With the growth of knowledge our conceptions of things are modified, sometimes quite radically, and so therefore are our concepts.
Changes in meaning may very well be more marked than increments of truth. We may not know very much more about psychosis than the medievals did, but we certainly think differently about it.” (Chapter II, p. 69)

Terms and meaning

[1987] Jennifer Trusted, Inquiry and Understanding. An introduction to explanation in the physical and human sciences, Macmillan, London
“In everyday life many terms are ‘open-ended’, that is their meaning is not fixed and depends on the context and the user.” “... the flexibility can be misleading and can confuse ordinary discussion, but flexibility can also be convenient for too rigid a meaning could be constricting.” (p. 46)

Experience and meaning

[1981] Moritz Schlick in Oswald Hanfling (editor), Essential Readings in Logical Positivism
“Thus, if I utter a sentence, and you ask me what I mean by it (perhaps by shrugging your shoulders or by looking at me with a vacant stare), I shall have to answer you by translating the sentence into a language you understand, or, if you do not understand any language yet, I shall have to teach you one; and this involves certain acts on our part, I have to make you undergo certain experiences. All your future understanding will be by virtue of these experiences. In this way all meaning is essentially referred to experience.”
(“Philosophical Papers” vol. IIº, pp. 33-34)

Acquisition of meaning

[1991, First Published 1910] John Dewey, How We Think
“The problem of the acquisition of meaning ... is ... the problem of introducing
(i) definiteness and distinction and
(ii) consistency or stability of meaning
into what is otherwise vague and wavering.”
“The acquisition of definiteness and of coherency (or constancy) of meanings is derived primarily from practical activities.” (Chapter 9, p. 122)

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