is obviously circular. We might just as well say, “X has meaningNN if it is used in communication,” which, though true, is not helpful.
(2) If this is not enough, there is a difficulty – really the same difficulty, I think – which Stevenson recognizes: how we are to avoid saying, for example, that “Jones is tall” is part of what is meant by “Jones is an athlete,” since to tell someone that Jones is an athlete would tend to make him believe that Jones is tall. Stevenson here resorts to invoking linguistic rules, namely, a permissive rule of language that “athletes may be nontall.” This amounts to saying that we are not prohibited by rule from speaking of “nontall athletes.” But why are we not prohibited? Not because it is not bad grammar, or is not impolite, and so on, but presumably because it is not meaningless (or, if this is too strong, does not in any way violate the rules of meaning for the expressions concerned). But this seems to involve us in another circle. Moreover, one wants to ask why, if it is legitimate to appeal here to rules to distinguish what is meant from what is suggested, this appeal was not made earlier, in the case of groans, for example, to deal with which Stevenson originally introduced the qualifying phrase about dependence on conditioning.
A further deficiency in a causal theory of the type just [381] expounded seems to be that, even if we accept it as it stands, we are furnished with an analysis only of statements about the standard meaning, or the meaning in general, of a “sign.” No provision is made for dealing with statements about what a particular speaker or writer means by a sign on a particular occasion (which may well diverge from the standard meaning of the sign); nor is it obvious how the theory could be adapted to make such provision. One might even go further in criticism and maintain that the causal theory ignores the fact that the meaning (in general) of a sign needs to be explained in terms of what users of the sign do (or should) mean by it on particular occasions; and so the latter notion, which is unexplained by the causal theory, is in fact the fundamental one. I am sympathetic to this more radical criticism, though I am aware that the point is controversial.
I do not propose to consider any further theories of the “causal-tendency” type. I suspect no such theory could avoid difficulties analogous to those I have outlined without utterly losing its claim to rank as a theory of this type.
I will now try a different and, I hope, more promising line. If we can elucidate the meaning of
“x meantNN something (on a particular occasion)” and
“x meantNN that so-and-so (on a particular occasion)”
and of
“A meantNN something by x (on a particular occasion)” and
“A meantNN by x that so-and-so (on a particular occasion),”
this might reasonably be expected to help us with
“x meansNN (timeless) something (that so-and-so),”
“A meansNN (timeless) by x something (that so-and-so),”
and with the explication of “means the same as,” “understands,” “entails,” and so on. Let us for the moment pretend that we have to deal only with utterances which might be informative or descriptive.
A first shot would be to suggest that “x meantNN something” would be true if x was intended by its utterer to induce a belief in some “audience” and that to say what the belief was would be to say what x meantNN. This will not do. I might leave B’s [382] handkerchief near the scene of a murder in order to induce the detective to believe that B was the murderer; but we should not want to say that the handkerchief (or my leaving it there) meantNN anything or that I had meantNN by leaving it that B was the murderer. Clearly we must at least add that, for x to have meantNN anything, not merely must it have been “uttered” with the intention of inducing a certain belief but also the utterer must have intended an “audience” to recognize the intention behind the utterance.
This, though perhaps better, is not good enough. Consider the following cases:
(1) Herod presents Salome with the head of St. John the
Baptist on a charger.
(2) Feeling faint, a child lets its mother see how pale it is (hoping that she may draw her own conclusions and help).
(3) I leave the china my daughter has broken lying around for my wife to see.
Here we seem to have cases which satisfy the conditions so far given for meaningNN. For example, Herod intended to make Salome believe that St. John the Baptist was dead and no doubt also intended Salome to recognize that he intended her to believe that St. John the Baptist was dead. Similarly for the other cases. Yet I certainly do not think that we should want to say that we have here cases of meaningNN.
What we want to find is the difference between, for example, “deliberately and openly letting someone know” and “telling” and between “getting someone to think” and “telling.”
The way out is perhaps as follows. Compare the following two cases:
(1) I show Mr. X a photograph of Mr. Y displaying undue familiarity to Mrs. X.
(2) I draw a picture of Mr. Y behaving in this manner and show it to Mr. X.
I find that I want to deny that in (1) the photograph (or my showing it to Mr. X) meantNN anything at all; while I want to assert that in (2) the picture (or my drawing and showing) [383] meantNN something (that Mr. Y had been unduly unfamiliar), or at least that I had meantNN by it that Mr. Y had been unduly familiar. What is the difference between the two cases? Surely that in case (1) Mr. X’s recognition of my intention to make him believe that there is something between Mr. Y and Mrs. X is (more or less) irrelevant to the production of this effect by the photograph. Mr. X would be led by the photograph at least to suspect Mrs. X even if instead of showing it to him I had left it in his room by accident; and I ( the photograph shower) would not be unaware of this. But it will make a difference to the effect of my picture on Mr. X whether or not he takes me to be intending to inform him (make him believe something) about Mrs. X, and not to be just doodling or trying to produce a work of art.
But now we seem to be landed in a further difficulty if we accept this account. For consider now, say, frowning. If I frown spontaneously, in the ordinary course of events, someone looking at me may well treat the frown as a natural sign of displeasure. But if I frown deliberately (to convey my displeasure), an onlooker may be expected, provided he recognizes my intention, still to conclude that I am displeased. Ought we not then to say, since it could not be expected to make any difference to the onlooker’s reaction whether he regards my frown as spontaneous or as intended to be informative, that my frown (deliberate) does not meanNN anything? I think this difficulty can be met; for though in general a deliberate frown may have the same effect (as regards inducing belief in my displeasure) as a spontaneous frown, it can be expected to have the same effect only provided the audience takes it as intended to convey displeasure. That is, if we take away the recognition of intention, leaving the other circumstances (including the recognition of the frown as deliberate), the belief-producing tendency of the frown must be regarded as being impaired or destroyed.
Perhaps we may sum up what is necessary for A to mean something by x as follows. A must intend to induce by x a belief in an audience, and he must also intend his utterance to be recognized as so intended. But these intentions are not independent; the recognition is intended by A to play its part in inducing the belief, and if it does not do so something will have gone wrong [384] with the fulfillment of A’s intentions. Moreover, A’s intending that the recognition should play this part implies, I think, that he assumes that there is some chance that it will in fact play this part, that he does not regard it as a foregone conclusion that the belief will be induced in the audience whether or not the intention behind