"For to talk about the meaning of an expression or sentence is not to talk about its use on a particular occasion, but about the rules, habits, conventions governing its correct use, on all occasions, to refer or assert" (Strawson 1950, p. 327).
This quote is trying to suggest that there is a very clear line drawn between the actual meaning of an expression or sentence and the use of an expression of sentence. Since Russell did not see this difference, Strawson notes that sentences and expressions do have meaning to them, but that meaning might change depending on the context it is put in. Overall, Strawson is aiming to explain the difference between the concrete meaning of a sentence or expression and the use of a sentence or expression.
I find this to be an improvement over Russell's theory because it expands to go more in depth about the meaning of a sentence, as well as how that meaning may change depending on the context. Russell does not see this difference that Strawson explains so well that it has to be thought about in a deeper sense.
A question I might have about this quote is about where the line is drawn more specifically between the meaning and the use of an expression or sentence.
I don't think there is supposed to be a line drawn between meaning and usage. More that Strawson is saying that the usage of an expression or sentence helps determine the meaning of what the speaker is saying, not that they are two different things. Depending on the context of the expression or sentence, the meaning changes (such as "The King of France is wise" changes depending on when the sentence is expressed).
ReplyDeleteTo understand Strawson's position on meaning, I think it would be helpful to introduce the following distinction. It is true that Strawson regards meaning (in one sense) as determined by our use. What I mean when I say "money is important" is going to differ from what you mean when you say it, because this kind of meaning is highly speaker-relative and depends on our particular notions and experiences of "money", "important", and what we take the relation "is" to imply. However, Strawson does not believe that the meaning of a sentence or expression is determined by use, rather he believes that appropriate use of a sentence or expression is determined by a sentence's meaning (in another sense). Meaning in this second sense is just the rules, habits, and conventions which govern appropriate use. For instance, I don't use the word "water" to talk about trees, even though the relation between the sound I make to produce the utterance "water" is only superficially and contingently linked to my concept of water. Using "water" to speak of trees then would fall outside the range of appropriate uses of "water". When I say "I love water", and you say it, the meaning (in this sense) of the expression does not change; we simply use the expressions to make different appropriate descriptions. Now, if in some society, people have a convention of using the word "water" to talk about trees, Strawson would be committed to the view that this is an appropriate use.
ReplyDeleteAgain, the first sense of meaning (the kind that changes depending on use) is the meaning of a use, not the meaning of a sentence or expression, and this is not Strawson's main focus. The second sense of meaning (the kind Strawson is talking about in your quote) is essentially the system of rules and conventions which determine the range of appropriate uses of sentences and expressions. This is a very different kind of meaning than what we typically have in mind when we ask "what does that mean?" When we ask "what does that mean?", we are usually really asking "what did you mean when you said that", not "what are the range of correct uses of that expression?" or "what are the rules that determine that sentence's range of correct uses?" (I think that sometimes this is what we are actually asking but only rarely). The line between meaning and use is drawn between governing rules/conventions of expressions and instances or occasions of expressions. A somewhat loose analogy: In chess, there are rules which determine how a knight is allowed to move (meaning). In one particular game, I move my knight from g1 to f3 (use).
One thing that may be of note though is that Strawson openly allows for less logic in language. That is to say that certain expressions are Ambiguous in regards to truth value which may be epistemologically unsettling
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