The Analysis of Mind by Bertrand Russell (best large ereader .txt) đź“–
- Author: Bertrand Russell
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being approximately represented by a single letter in writing,
though in practice a letter may represent several sounds, or
several letters may represent one sound. The connection between
the spoken word and the word as it reaches the hearer is causal.
Let us confine ourselves to the spoken word, which is the more
important for the analysis of what is called “thought.” Then we
may say that a single instance of the spoken word consists of a
series of movements, and the word consists of a whole set of such
series, each member of the set being very similar to each other
member. That is to say, any two instances of the word “Napoleon”
are very similar, and each instance consists of a series of
movements in the mouth.
A single word, accordingly, is by no means simple it is a class
of similar series of movements (confining ourselves still to the
spoken word). The degree of similarity required cannot be
precisely defined: a man may pronounce the word “Napoleon” so
badly that it can hardly be determined whether he has really
pronounced it or not. The instances of a word shade off into
other movements by imperceptible degrees. And exactly analogous
observations apply to words heard or written or read. But in what
has been said so far we have not even broached the question of
the DEFINITION of a word, since “meaning” is clearly what
distinguishes a word from other sets of similar movements, and
“meaning” remains to be defined.
It is natural to think of the meaning of a word as something
conventional. This, however, is only true with great limitations.
A new word can be added to an existing language by a mere
convention, as is done, for instance, with new scientific terms.
But the basis of a language is not conventional, either from the
point of view of the individual or from that of the community. A
child learning to speak is learning habits and associations which
are just as much determined by the environment as the habit of
expecting dogs to bark and cocks to crow. The community that
speaks a language has learnt it, and modified it by processes
almost all of which are not deliberate, but the results of causes
operating according to more or less ascertainable laws. If we
trace any Indo-European language back far enough, we arrive
hypothetically (at any rate according to some authorities) at the
stage when language consisted only of the roots out of which
subsequent words have grown. How these roots acquired their
meanings is not known, but a conventional origin is clearly just
as mythical as the social contract by which Hobbes and Rousseau
supposed civil government to have been established. We can hardly
suppose a parliament of hitherto speechless elders meeting
together and agreeing to call a cow a cow and a wolf a wolf. The
association of words with their meanings must have grown up by
some natural process, though at present the nature of the process
is unknown.
Spoken and written words are, of course, not the only way of
conveying meaning. A large part of one of Wundt’s two vast
volumes on language in his “Volkerpsychologie” is concerned with
gesture-language. Ants appear to be able to communicate a certain
amount of information by means of their antennae. Probably
writing itself, which we now regard as merely a way of
representing speech, was originally an independent language, as
it has remained to this day in China. Writing seems to have
consisted originally of pictures, which gradually became
conventionalized, coming in time to represent syllables, and
finally letters on the telephone principle of “T for Tommy.” But
it would seem that writing nowhere began as an attempt to
represent speech it began as a direct pictorial representation of
what was to be expressed. The essence of language lies, not in
the use of this or that special means of communication, but in
the employment of fixed associations (however these may have
originated) in order that something now sensible—a spoken word,
a picture, a gesture, or what not—may call up the “idea” of
something else. Whenever this is done, what is now sensible may
be called a “sign” or “symbol,” and that of which it is intended
to call up the “idea” may be called its “meaning.” This is a
rough outline of what constitutes “meaning.” But we must fill in
the outline in various ways. And, since we are concerned with
what is called “thought,” we must pay more attention than we
otherwise should do to the private as opposed to the social use
of language. Language profoundly affects our thoughts, and it is
this aspect of language that is of most importance to us in our
present inquiry. We are almost more concerned with the internal
speech that is never uttered than we are with the things said out
loud to other people.
When we ask what constitutes meaning, we are not asking what is
the meaning of this or that particular word. The word “Napoleon”
means a certain individual; but we are asking, not who is the
individual meant, but what is the relation of the word to the
individual which makes the one mean the other. But just as it is
useful to realize the nature of a word as part of the physical
world, so it is useful to realize the sort of thing that a word
may mean. When we are clear both as to what a word is in its
physical aspect, and as to what sort of thing it can mean, we are
in a better position to discover the relation of the two which is
meaning.
The things that words mean differ more than words do. There are
different sorts of words, distinguished by the grammarians; and
there are logical distinctions, which are connected to some
extent, though not so closely as was formerly supposed, with the
grammatical distinctions of parts of speech. It is easy, however,
to be misled by grammar, particularly if all the languages we
know belong to one family. In some languages, according to some
authorities, the distinction of parts of speech does not exist;
in many languages it is widely different from that to which we
are accustomed in the Indo-European languages. These facts have
to be borne in mind if we are to avoid giving metaphysical
importance to mere accidents of our own speech.
In considering what words mean, it is natural to start with
proper names, and we will again take “Napoleon” as our instance.
We commonly imagine, when we use a proper name, that we mean one
definite entity, the particular individual who was called
“Napoleon.” But what we know as a person is not simple. There MAY
be a single simple ego which was Napoleon, and remained strictly
identical from his birth to his death. There is no way of proving
that this cannot be the case, but there is also not the slightest
reason to suppose that it is the case. Napoleon as he was
empirically known consisted of a series of gradually changing
appearances: first a squalling baby, then a boy, then a slim and
beautiful youth, then a fat and slothful person very
magnificently dressed This series of appearances, and various
occurrences having certain kinds of causal connections with them,
constitute Napoleon as empirically known, and therefore are
Napoleon in so far as he forms part of the experienced world.
Napoleon is a complicated series of occurrences, bound together
by causal laws, not, like instances of a word, by similarities.
For although a person changes gradually, and presents similar
appearances on two nearly contemporaneous occasions, it is not
these similarities that constitute the person, as appears from
the “Comedy of Errors” for example.
Thus in the case of a proper name, while the word is a set of
similar series of movements, what it means is a series of
occurrences bound together by causal laws of that special kind
that makes the occurrences taken together constitute what we call
one person, or one animal or thing, in case the name applies to
an animal or thing instead of to a person. Neither the word nor
what it names is one of the ultimate indivisible constituents of
the world. In language there is no direct way of designating one
of the ultimate brief existents that go to make up the
collections we call things or persons. If we want to speak of
such existentswhich hardly happens except in philosophy-we have
to do it by means of some elaborate phrase, such as “the visual
sensation which occupied the centre of my field of vision at noon
on January 1, 1919.” Such ultimate simples I call “particulars.”
Particulars MIGHT have proper names, and no doubt would have if
language had been invented by scientifically trained observers
for purposes of philosophy and logic. But as language was
invented for practical ends, particulars have remained one and
all without a name.
We are not, in practice, much concerned with the actual
particulars that come into our experience in sensation; we are
concerned rather with whole systems to which the particulars
belong and of which they are signs. What we see makes us say
“Hullo, there’s Jones,” and the fact that what we see is a sign
of Jones (which is the case because it is one of the particulars
that make up Jones) is more interesting to us than the actual
particular itself. Hence we give the name “Jones” to the whole
set of particulars, but do not trouble to give separate names to
the separate particulars that make up the set.
Passing on from proper names, we come next to general names, such
as “man,” “cat,” “triangle.” A word such as “man” means a whole
class of such collections of particulars as have proper names.
The several members of the class are assembled together in virtue
of some similarity or common property. All men resemble each
other in certain important respects; hence we want a word which
shall be equally applicable to all of them. We only give proper
names to the individuals of a species when they differ inter se
in practically important respects. In other cases we do not do
this. A poker, for instance, is just a poker; we do not call one
“John” and another “Peter.”
There is a large class of words, such as “eating,” “walking,”
“speaking,” which mean a set of similar occurrences. Two
instances of walking have the same name because they resemble
each other, whereas two instances of Jones have the same name
because they are causally connected. In practice, however, it is
difficult to make any precise distinction between a word such as
“walking” and a general name such as “man.” One instance of
walking cannot be concentrated into an instant: it is a process
in time, in which there is a causal connection between the
earlier and later parts, as between the earlier and later parts
of Jones. Thus an instance of walking differs from an instance of
man solely by the fact that it has a shorter life. There is a
notion that an instance of walking, as compared with Jones, is
unsubstantial, but this seems to be a mistake. We think that
Jones walks, and that there could not be any walking unless there
were somebody like Jones to perform the walking. But it is
equally true that there could be no Jones unless there were
something like walking for him to do. The notion that actions are
performed by an agent is liable to the same kind of criticism as
the notion that thinking needs a subject or ego, which we
rejected in Lecture I. To say that it is Jones who is walking is
merely to say that the walking in question is part of the whole
series of
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