display all the ideas for this combination of texts
7 ideas
| 7716 | Words were devised as signs for inner ideas, and their basic meaning is those ideas [Locke] |
| Full Idea: It was necessary that man should find some external sensible signs, whereby those invisible ideas might be made known to others; ..words, then, in their primary or immediate signification stand for nothing but the ideas in the mind of him that uses them. | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 3.02.01-2) | |
| A reaction: This very unpopular theory could be defended. Note Locke's qualification about 'primary signification'. His Wittgensteinian opponents go on about community or communication, but maybe these are parasitic on the initial grunt referring to an inner idea? |
| 7308 | Words stand for the ideas in the mind of him that uses them [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Words in their primary or immediate signification, stand for nothing, but the ideas in the mind of him that uses them. | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 3.02.02) | |
| A reaction: This is notorious and usually dismissed contemptuously. However, if the ideas themselves 'stand for' reality, our words are not just trapped in mental space. If my mental space contains things, presumably we can name them. |
| 12524 | For the correct reference of complex ideas, we can only refer to experts [Locke] |
| Full Idea: We have nothing else to refer these our ideas of mixed modes to as standard, to which we would conform them, but the ideas of those who are thought to use those names in their most proper significations. | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 2.32.12) | |
| A reaction: This is Putnam's thought about elm trees, that he uses the word 'elm' to refer to something the reference of which is fixed by experts on trees, and not by his ignorant self. |
| 5781 | Our important beliefs all, if put into words, take the form of propositions [Russell] |
| Full Idea: The important beliefs, even if they are not the only ones, are those which, if rendered into explicit words, take the form of a proposition. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (On Propositions: What they are, and Meaning [1919], §III) | |
| A reaction: This assertion is close to the heart of the twentieth century linking of ontology and epistemology to language. It is open to challenges. Why is non-propositional belief unimportant? Do dogs have important beliefs? Can propositions exist non-verbally? |
| 5782 | A proposition expressed in words is a 'word-proposition', and one of images an 'image-proposition' [Russell] |
| Full Idea: I shall distinguish a proposition expressed in words as a 'word-proposition', and one consisting of images as an 'image-proposition'. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (On Propositions: What they are, and Meaning [1919], §III) | |
| A reaction: This, I think, is good, though it raises the question of what exactly an 'image' is when it is non-visual, as when a dog believes its owner called. This distinction prevents us from regarding all knowledge and ontology as verbal in form. |
| 5776 | A proposition is what we believe when we believe truly or falsely [Russell] |
| Full Idea: A proposition may be defined as: what we believe when we believe truly or falsely. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (On Propositions: What they are, and Meaning [1919], p.285) | |
| A reaction: If we define belief as 'commitment to truth', Russell's last six words become redundant. "Propositions are the contents of beliefs", it being beliefs which are candidates for truth, not propositions. (Russell agrees, on p.308!) |
| 15991 | Since words are just conventional, we can represent our own ideas with any words we please [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Since sounds are voluntary and indifferent signs of any idea, a man may use what words he pleases to signify his own ideas to himself. | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 3.09.02) | |
| A reaction: Evidently not in tune with Wittgenstein, but it is obvious that I could invent any word I like for my favourite temperature for tomato soup. |