The
word “meaning”.
‹‹ Grammatically, the word “meaning” belongs to
the substantives whose basic function is apparently to signify real objects.
There can be no doubt that many substantives really do have this function. But
there is also a large group of substantives for which no corresponding object
can be found in reality, even when the concept of “real object” is very widely
extended. It is true, there is a tendency, in the case of these substantives
also, to assume an object which is to be conceived on the analogy of real
objects and which thus, for example, has the characteristic of independent
existence.
Now, Wittgenstein is of the opinion that the
word “meaning” belongs to the latter group of substantives. There is no real
independent object that one would call “the meaning of the word x”. But,
according to Wittgenstein, one is inclined also with this expression to look
for an independent object that would correspond to it. He speaks of a
“temptation to look about you for something which you might call the ‘meaning’
.” (B.B. 1). This “temptation” arises from the tendency to look for a
corresponding substance in the case of every substantive. “The questions ‘what
is the length ?’, ‘what is meaning ?’, ‘what is the number one ?’ etc. produce
in us a mental cramp. We feel that we cannot point to anything in reply to them
and yet ought to point to something. (We are up against one of the great source
of philosophical bewilderment: we try to find a substance for a substantive)”
(B.B. 1). ››
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[About hypostatisation of meaning:
‹‹ Already Aristotle was resisting
the conception that to every substantive there must correspond a substance (cf
for example De Sophisticis Elenchis 178b 37 ). In the Middle Age it was above all Ockham who was
repeatedly drawing attention to false hypostatisation, resulting from the
capacity of certain words to be conveyed into substantives. ››
‹‹ Ryle also represents the view
that the hypostatisation of meaning has its roots in certain linguistic forms
of expression. His arguments sound, it is true, much more radical than the
cautious formulations of Wittgenstein: “ A host of errors of the same sort has
been generated in logic itself and epistemology by the omission to analyse the
quasi-descriptive phrase: the meaning of the expression ‘x’. I suspect that all
the mistaken doctrines of concepts, ideas, terms, judgements, objective
propositions, contents, objective and the like derive from the same fallacy,
namely, that must be something referred to by such expression as: the
meaning of the word (phrase or sentences) ‘x’, on all fours with the policeman
who really is referred to by the descriptive phrase in ‘ our village policeman
is fond of football’. “ (Ryle 1931 p.30). ›› ]