Meaning is the sense or significance of something, such as an expression, representation, or event. It concerns what an entity conveys, stands for, refers to, or makes intelligible. Meaning is often understood as a relational concept that connects an entity to something else, such as the connection between the word dog and a four-legged mammal.
Philosophical inquiry usually centers on linguistic meaning, studying how words, sentences, and utterances acquire content and convey information. It examines how expressions describe the world and evoke emotions while distinguishing between speaker meaning and conventional meaning, and between literal and figurative meaning. Central debates address the contrast between sense and reference; the roles of vagueness, ambiguity, and context-dependence; and how the meaning of a complex expression depends on the meanings of its parts. Philosophers also discuss non-linguistic meaning associated with gestures, pictures, actions, and natural signs, such as footprints. Another topic concerns the meaning of life, asking whether human life or existence as a whole has a higher purpose.
Theories of meaning seek to identify its nature, sources, and functions, typically focusing on linguistic meaning. Reference-based theories hold that the meaning of an expression is what it stands for or the entity it denotes. Truth-conditional theories maintain that understanding a statement involves understanding the conditions under which it would be true or what the world would be like if it were true. Mind-based theories explain meaning in terms of mental processes, such as ideas or communicative intentions. Use-based theories treat the meaning of an expression as a function of how speakers employ it in social and practical contexts. Other approaches stress the role of inferences, verification, and responses to stimuli.
The study of meaning is central to philosophy of language, but it also informs semiotics, logic, philosophy of mind, hermeneutics, aesthetics, ethics, and philosophy of religion. Philosophical inquiry into meaning originated in antiquity in ancient Greek, Indian, and Chinese thought.
Definition Meaning is the sense or significance of an entity, expressing what it conveys or stands for. It is a broad concept associated with signs and understanding, but its precise definition varies with domain and context. Philosophical inquiry often focuses on meaning in language, which concerns the sense of expressions, such as the entities to which words refer or the ideas that sentences convey. Meaning is also attributed to non-linguistic representations, such as pictures and maps that depict the world, and to mental states that represent or interpret reality. In another sense, meaning is discussed as an aspect of actions and other events, reflecting how they embody intentions, manifest values, fit into cultural narratives, or carry historical significance. In a broader sense, meaning can also apply to life or the world as a whole, asking whether a higher purpose governs the cosmic order and grants significance to human existence.
Philosophers typically treat meaning as a relational concept that connects an entity to something else. For example, the meaning of a sign, such as the word dog, connects the sign to what it stands for, such as a four-legged animal. This relational aspect may be analyzed in terms of intentionality as a way how a meaningful entity is about or directed at something else, for instance, by referring to an object, representing a situation, or conveying information about the world. Meaning is closely linked to understanding and communication and is typically regarded as a key element in grasping reality and expressing ideas about it.
The terms sense and significance are often used as synonyms of meaning but also carry distinct connotations depending on the context. A single entity can have several meanings, such as the word bank, which can signify a financial institution or the side of a river. Conversely, two distinct entities can share the same meaning, such as the words film and movie. Meaning contrasts with meaninglessness, in which an entity is unintelligible or lacks a coherent reference or purpose. The noun meaning was first formed in Middle English, with an early use in the Wycliffite Bible around 1384. The noun derives from the verb to mean, which has its roots in the Old English and the Old Saxon ().
Types Linguistic and non-linguistic Linguistic meaning concerns the sense of expressions formed according to a language, such as English or Japanese. Languages are typically spoken or written, but there are also sign languages based on gestures, like American Sign Language. Languages are complex sign systems to communicate ideas. They use semantic units, such as words, to construct more complex expressions, including sentences and longer texts. This process follows conventions, such as the rules of grammar. These are shared within a linguistic community, governing how expressions are formed and what meanings they have.
Non-linguistic meaning encompasses the significance conveyed outside of language. Many non-linguistic sign systems are used to communicate meaning, including traffic signals, gestures, facial expressions, maps, and emojis. Linguistic and non-linguistic meaning do not exclude each other and can overlap. For example, paralanguage comprises non-linguistic elements that shape the meaning of linguistic expressions or convey additional information. Articulation, rhythm, pitch, and loudness are paralinguistic elements in spoken language, while colors and fonts serve as paralinguistic markers in written communication.
Philosophical inquiry into meaning often centers on linguistic meaning. One reason is the idea that language is the most complex and general sign system, serving as a paradigm case that can also describe meanings expressed in other sign systems.
Word, sentence, and utterance
The study of linguistic meaning is often divided into word meaning, sentence meaning, and utterance meaning, studied by lexical semantics, phrasal semantics, and pragmatics, respectively. Word meaning concerns the semantic content of lexical units such as sleep, bird, and all. The meaning of many words is non-compositional: it cannot be derived from their parts, such as sounds or letters. Philosophers of language discuss different types of words and the meanings associated with each type. For example, one view identifies the meaning of a name, such as Cleopatra, with the entity it refers to, and the meaning of a verb, such as run, with the set of actions or events it applies to. Other philosophical discussions center on semantic features of words, like vagueness and ambiguity, and on lexical relations between words, such as synonyms with the same meaning and antonyms with opposed meanings.
Sentence meaning concerns the semantic content of a full sentence, understood as a well-formed string of words. A key aspect, in contrast to word meaning, is the role of compositionality: the meaning of a sentence is systematically influenced by the meanings of its parts and their mode of combination. Sentence meaning also varies by sentence type: declarative sentences make assertions, interrogative sentences ask questions, and imperative sentences issue commands, such as the contrast between "The window is closed.", "Is the window closed?" and "Close the window!". Philosophical analysis often focuses on the meaning of declarative sentences, regarding them as vehicles for expressing propositions, which bear truth values and can serve as premises and conclusions in arguments.
Utterance meaning concerns the semantic content of concrete speech acts. It goes beyond sentence meaning by considering how the context or circumstances in which a sentence is uttered shape its meaning. For example, when a teacher says to a student "Can you open the window?", the utterance meaning is a request to open the window, contrasting with the literal sentence meaning as an inquiry into the student's ability to do so. Philosophical debates address the relation between sentence meaning and utterance meaning, including the question of whether one is more fundamental than the other.
Descriptive and emotive Descriptive meaning, also called cognitive or propositional meaning, signifies objects or conveys facts about the world. It takes the form of propositions, which state information that can be true or false. Descriptive meaning contrasts with emotive meaning, also termed expressive meaning, which reflects the speaker's emotions or evokes emotions in the audience. For example, yelling "Ouch!" after stepping on a sharp piece of glass is an expression of emotive meaning, whereas the statement "I just felt a sudden sharp pain" has descriptive meaning. A single expression can have both descriptive and emotive meaning. Similarly, two words may be synonyms regarding their descriptive meaning by referring to the same entities but differ in their emotive meaning. In this case, they express different evaluative attitudes, like the contrast between the words dad and father.
Various philosophical discussions address whether sentences within a given domain have primarily descriptive or emotive meaning. For instance, ethical cognitivists argue that moral language, like the sentence "murder is wrong", has descriptive meaning and can be true or false. Ethical emotivists, by contrast, hold that such sentences have primarily emotive meaning by expressing attitudes of approval or disapproval. This outlook is a form of anti-realism that challenges the claim that ethical evaluations represent objective reality. Similar debates are found in the field of aesthetics regarding the value of artworks.
In addition to its contrast with emotive meaning, descriptive meaning is also distinguished from normative or prescriptive meaning: descriptive meaning expresses what is the case, whereas normative meaning conveys what should be the case.
Speaker, conventional, and figurative The contrast between speaker meaning and conventional meaning depends on the source or location of the meaning. Speaker meaning is what a person intends to communicate, reflecting the ideas they associate with an expression. Conventional meaning arises from shared social norms that govern language use in a community, such as the dictionary definition of a word. Speaker meaning and conventional meaning align when a person follows established conventions to express what they intend to say. However, they can come apart when a speaker employs a word idiosyncratically or mistakenly in a way that diverges from public linguistic norms, which can lead to miscommunication.
An overlapping distinction is between literal and figurative meaning. The literal meaning of an expression is its standard sense based on conventional use. Figurative meaning involves the creative use of expressions in unconventional ways, often in situations where it is clear from the context that the standard sense is not intended. This occurs in verbal irony when a person says the opposite of what they mean, such as remarking "Great job!" after a disastrous failure. Philosophical discussions explore whether figurative meaning can be explained in terms of literal meaning together with contextual factors, and whether figurative uses are a primary mechanism by which language changes and new meanings and concepts emerge.
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