Reading Notes: August 15th, 2022

“For [Russell] mere resemblance in effects will no longer constitute meaning; these effects must be appropriate to the object, i.e., apparently they must fulfil some purpose or desire that we entertain in regard to it. Does this amendment help? Unfortunately, no. Several of the defects that we have just found in the amended form break out again in this one. We would point especially to the old hysteron proteron that dogs the heels of every causal and pragmatic theory of the idea. The word or image is to cause behavior appropriate to some object; through causing this it means that object. But it does seem a little miraculous that a word or image which means nothing at all should have this special and gratifying result. Why my thought of something thought help me to act appropriately toward it if it had no reference to this whatever before the behaviour supervened, is very hard to see. Surely, it is because I can think of it before I adjust myself that I succeed in adjusting myself at all; the thought conditions the adjustment, not the adjustment the thought.” (Blanshard, The Nature of Thought, Vol. I, 294-295) 

“We are told that an image means an object through being similar to it. Now, that when I think of something I may have an image that resembles it is of course admitted. But that the image’s meaning the object is not the same as its likeness to it may be shown very readily. Suppose you have just seen an unlabeled picture of the Nawab of Pataudi and think of it by help of its image, while I think of the Nawab himself. It is quite clear that your image may be more like him than mine, but yours will not mean him at all while mine will. Your image happens by accident to be like some particular man of whose existence you have probably never heard. If meaning consists in likeness, your image should mean him more obviously than mine. But it cannot mean him, for you know of no such object to mean. If accidental resemblance is meaning, then in our everyday thoughts we are thinking of things and persons that we never heard of. This is absurd. Hence meaning does not consist in similarity.” (Blanshard, The Nature of Thought, Vol. I, 288) 

“To develop [Dr. Schiller’s argument] in our own way, we should say: If meaning were resemblance, then the clearer the image, the more evidently would it mean one particular object, whereas in fact it does not. If Mr. Russell replies that it does, he must also say some very strange things.” (Blanshard, The Nature of Thought, Vol. I, 289) 

“[According to Russell:] “What is called an image “of” some definite object…has some of the effects which the object would have. This applies especially to the effects that depend upon association”….And this similarity in producing effects is what we mean by meaning. How will this serve? Difficulties crowd in. (1) A moment ago, at Mr. Russell’s suggestion, I did think of St. Paul’s, but before the thought could sprout associates, it was cut off by my hearing footsteps outside my door. If meaning consists in giving rise to later associates, my image, so far as I can see, meant nothing. And this is incredible. When I mean something, does my image happen first, and its meaning arrive later? It seems to me quite clear that I can make a passing reference to St. Paul’s and that this reference is equally genuine whether it gives rise to a train of associates or not. Should I have meant St. Paul’s more truly if I had gone on to think of Dean Inge, and then of his love of epigrams, and then, perhaps, of the epigrams of Martial? We may agree that my first image started off the train, but surely not that it was meaningless until the train appeared. And how much of the train is needed? Would my image have meant St. Paul’s more clearly if five steps rather than two were included within its causal efficacy?....But that the image did not delay for its meaning until it had proved its causal efficacy can be shown by a consideration already used. [You] cannot explain how one image calls up another if you take the first as quite meaningless. It is only because my image already meant St. Paul’s that it could lead on to the thought of this cathedral’s former Dean. If the image did not already mean St. Paul’s, why should it call up the head of St. Paul’s rather than the head of St. Peter’s, or indeed anything rather than anything else? And if it did mean St. Paul’s already, what becomes of the theory that meaning lies in causal efficacy.” (Blanshard, The Nature of Thought, Vol. I, 292-293)