Three levels of meaning

Each of the preceding objections is based on the assumption that the three approaches to the theory of meaning are approaches to the same thing. I suggest that this assumption is false. Theories of meaning may attempt to do any of three different things. One theory might attempt to explain what it is for a thought to be the thought that so-and-so, etc. Another might attempt to explain what it takes to communicate certain information. A third might offer an account of speech acts. As theories of language, the first would offer an account of the use of language in thinking; the second, an account of the use of language in communication; the third, an account of the use of language in certain institutions, rituals, or practices of a group of speakers.

I shall refer to theories of meaning of level 1, of level 2, and of level 3, respectively. I believe that there is a sense in which later levels presuppose earlier ones. Thus a theory of level 2, i.e., a theory of communication (of thoughts), presupposes a theory of level 1 that would say what various thoughts are. Similarly, a theory of level 3 (e.g., an account of promising) must almost always presuppose a theory of level 2 (since in promising one must communicate what it is one has promised to do).

The objections show only that a theory of one level does not provide a good theory of another level. A theory of the meaning of thoughts does not provide a good account of communication. A theory of meaning in communication does not provide a good account of speech acts. And so forth. On the other hand, I do not want to deny that proponents of the various theories have occasionally been confused about their objectives. I shall argue that such confusion has led to mistakes in all three types of theory.

But first, from the point of view of the suggested distinctions between such levels of meaning, I shall briefly review the three approaches to the theory of meaning sketched at the beginning of this paper.

1 A theory of level 1 attempts to explain what it is to think that p, what it is to believe that p, to desire that p, etc. Let us suppose we are concerned only with thinking done in language. Such a supposition will not affect the argument so long as thinking makes use of some system of representation, whether or not the system is properly part of any natural language.

Even if we do not know what the various expressions of a subject’s language mean, we can still describe him as thinking some sentence of his language, believing true some sentence, desiring true some sentence, etc. It seems reasonable to assume that the subject has the thought that p if and only if he thinks certain words (or other representations) by which he means that p; that he believes that p if and only if he accepts as true some sentence by which he means that p; that he desires that p if and only if he desires true some sentence by which he means that p, etc. The problem of saying what it is to think, believe, desire, etc. that p can be reduced to the problem of saying what it is to mean that p by certain words used in thinking.

Another way to put the same point is this. A theory of the nature of thought, belief, desire, and other psychological attitudes can appear in the guise of the theory of meaning. That is the best way to interpret the first sort of theory at the beginning of this paper. Extreme positivists claim that what a thought means, i.e., what thought it is, is determined by its conditions of verification and refutation. Its meaning or content is determined by the observational conditions under which the subject would acquire the corresponding belief plus those conditions under which he would acquire the corresponding disbelief. Other empiricists argue that what a thought is or means is determined by its position in a whole structure of thoughts and other psychological attitudes, i.e., its place in a subject’s conceptual scheme, including not only relations to experience but also relations to other things in that same scheme.

Several philosophers have argued a similar thesis that makes no explicit reference to meaning. Fodor,¹ Putnam,² and Scriven³ have each taken psychological states to be ‘ functional states ’ of the human organism. What is important about such states is not how they are realized; for my psychological states may well be realized in a different neurophysiological way from yours. What is important is that there is a certain relationship among the various states a person can be in, between such states and observational ‘input’, and between such states and action ‘output’. In this regard persons are sometimes compared with nondeterministic automata.⁴ Just as a particular program or flow chart may be instantiated by various automata made from quite different materials, so too the ‘ same ’ person (a person with the same psychological characteristics and dispositions) might be instantiated by different neurophysiological set-ups and perhaps even by some robot made of semi-conductors, printed circuits, etc. For a person to be in a particular psychological state is like the automaton’s being at a certain point in its program or flow chart rather than like something’s happening at one or another transistor.

If we conceive the automaton’s operation to consist largely in the formation, transfer, and ‘storage’ of certain representations, the analogy is even better. To say that such an automaton is at a certain point in a particular program is to say, first, that the automaton has various possible states related to one another and to input and output in such a way that it instantiates a particular program and, second, that it is in a particular one of the states or collections so indicated. For the automaton in question, the same point can be made by first specifying the role of various representations it uses in its internal operation, its reaction to input, and its influence on output. Second, one may describe the present state of the computer by indicating what representations are where.⁵

It is obvious how such an account may offer a functional account of psychological states via a person’s use of language. Thus, according to Sellars, the meanings of one’s words are determined by the role of the words in the evidence-inference-action game, which includes the influence of observation on thought, the influence of thought on thought in inference, and the influence of thought on action via decision and intention.⁶ Sellars is simply offering a functional account of psychological states in the guise of a theory of meaning. (I do not mean to suggest that Sellars is at all unaware of what he is doing.)

It is important of course that the analogy be with nondeterministic automata. According to Sellars, the meaning of an expression is given by its role in the evidence-inference-action game, where this role is not causal but rather defined in terms of possible (i.e., more or less legitimate) moves that can be made. A similar point would have to be accepted by anyone who would identify psychological states with functional states.

Quine’s thesis of indeterminacy says that, functionally defined, the meaning of a thought is not uniquely determined. The thesis ought to be expressible directly as the following claim about instantiations of nondeterministic automata: When a set of possible states of some device can be interpreted in a particular way as instantiations of a given nondeterministic automaton, that interpretation will not in general be the only way to interpret those physical states as instantiations of the given automaton.⁷

I hope I have said enough to show how theories of the first sort may be treated as theories about the nature of meaning of thoughts and other psychological (‘ intentional’) states.

2 A theory of level 2 attempts to say what communication is and what is involved in a message’s having a particular meaning. Communication is communication of thoughts and ideas; and Katz’s description of it is perfectly acceptable provided that his talk about ‘ decoding ’ is not taken too literally. It is true that Katz’s description of communication would have us explain meaning in terms of meaning; but the two sorts of meaning are different. Katz would have us explain the meaning of a message in terms of the meaning of a thought, which is to explain meaning of level 2 in terms of meaning of level 1. And there is nothing wrong with that. (On the other hand I do not mean to suggest that the Katz-Fodor theory of meaning is not involved in serious confusion. On the contrary) Grice’s theory of meaning seems to provide what Katz is looking for. And it avoids the charge of circularity by explaining the meaning of a message (what the speaker means) in terms of the meaning of the thought communicated (which the speaker intends the hearer to think the speaker has).

Communication need not involve use of language. When it does, the language used need not be one either speaker or hearer is able to think in. And even when the language used is one both participants think in, it may (for the purposes of certain communications) be used arbitrarily as a code. But ordinary communication makes use of a language which both participants think in and which is not being used arbitrarily as a code. In such a case the hearer typically assigns, as his interpretation of what the speaker says, either (a) a thought that the hearer expresses using the same wrords the speaker has used (with possible minor modification, e.g., for first and second person in pronouns) or (b) a thought that is some simple function of a thought in those words, where the function is determined by context (irony, e.g.). Similarly, the speaker standardly uses in communication (almost) the same words he uses in expressing to himself the thought he intends to communicate. This is no accident, and one will fail to understand the nature of linguistic communication unless one grasps this point. It is obscured when linguistic communication is described as if it involved processes of coding and decoding. We would not be able to use language in communication as we do if communication really involved coding and decoding. (As I shall argue below, Katz and Fodor have gone wrong at exactly this point.)

Similarly, it would be a mistake to treat learning one’s first language as simply a matter of learning how to communicate one’s thoughts to others and to understand others when they attempt to communicate. When a child is exposed to language he acquires two things. First he acquires a new system of representation for use in thinking and in the formation of various psychological attitudes. This is the primary thing he acquires. Second he acquires the ability, alluded to above, to communicate with and understand other speakers of the language. This ability relies heavily on the fact that the language has been acquired as an instrument of thought. No very complicated principles of interpretation need to be learned to support this ability. All the child needs to do, at first, is to assume that other speakers express by their words thoughts the child would think using those same words. More complicated principles of interpretation are learned later to allow for lying, irony, metaphor, etc. But it would surely be a mistake to think of the child as having an ability to perform a certain sort of complicated decoding.

Aside from that point, I hope it is now clear how, e.g., Grice’s theory may be treated as a promising attempt at a level 2 theory of meaning; and I hope it is clear why it should not be criticized for failing to do what can be done only by a theory of meaning of another level.

3 A theory of level 3 would be a theory of social institutions, games, practices, etc. The theory would explain how the existence of such things can make certain acts possible, e.g., how the existence of a game of football can make possible scoring a touchdown or how the existence of an institution of banking, etc. can make possible writing a check. In a sense such a theory is a theory of meaning. The game or institution confers meaning on an act like carrying a ball to a certain place or writing one’s name on a piece of paper.

Some institutions, games, practices, etc. involve the use of language and can therefore confer meaning (significance) on such uses of language. But this is a different sort of meaning than that involved in levels 1 and 2. And typically, use of certain words within an institution, practice, or game presupposes that the words have meaning as a message (which standardly presupposes that they have meaning when used to express one’s thoughts). In a sense (which does not destroy the priority of level 1) meaning on levels 1 and 2 can sometimes presuppose meaning on level 3; but this is only because one can think and communicate about practices, games, and institutions.

¹ Jerry Fodor, ‘Explanations in Psychology’, in Max Black, ed., Philosophy in America (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell, 1965).

² Hilary Putnam, ‘Minds and Machines’, in Sidney Hook, ed., Dimensions of Mind (New York: NYU Press, 1960).

³ Michael Scriven, Primary Philosophy (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), pp. 181-97.

⁴ G. A. Miller, E. Galanter, and K. H. Pribram, Plans and the Structure of Behavior (New York: Holt, Rhinehart & Winston, 1960).

⁵ Cf. my ‘Psychological Aspects of the Theory of Syntax’, The Journal of Philosophy, LXIV, 2 (February 1967): 75-87; and ‘Knowledge, Inference, and Explanation’, American Philosophical Quarterly, v, 3 (July 1968): 164-5.

⁶ Wilfrid Sellars, ‘ Some Reflections on Language Games’, in Science, Perception and Reality (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1963).

⁷ Cf. my ‘Quine on Meaning and Existence 1 ’, Review of Metaphysics, xxxi, 1 (September 1967):124-51.