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Full Idea
Concepts and other aspects of mental representation have content but not (normally) meaning (unless they are also expressions in a language used in communication).
Gist of Idea
Concepts in thought have content, but not meaning, which requires communication
Source
Gilbert Harman ((Nonsolipsistic) Conceptual Role Semantics [1987], 12.1.2)
Book Ref
Harman,Gilbert: 'Reasoning Meaning and Mind' [OUP 1999], p.208
A Reaction
Given his account of meaning as involving some complex 'role', he has to say this, though it seems a dubious distinction, going against the grain of a normal request to ask what some concept 'means'. What is 'democracy'?
| 8155 | Without speech we cannot know right/wrong, true/false, good/bad, or pleasant/unpleasant [Anon (Upan)] |
| 19758 | Language may aid thinking, but powerful thought was needed to produce language [Rousseau] |
| 7084 | What can be said is what can be thought, so language shows the limits of thought [Wittgenstein, by Grayling] |
| 23065 | If only we could write like a reptile, of endless sensations and no concepts! [Cioran] |
| 11144 | Concepts are only possible in a language community [Davidson] |
| 12592 | Concepts in thought have content, but not meaning, which requires communication [Harman] |
| 18577 | The word 'grandmother' may be two concepts, with a prototype and a definition [Machery] |