The Analysis of Mind by Bertrand Russell (best large ereader .txt) 📖

the moment possessing it.

 

Yet this might perhaps be regarded as something of an

overstatement. The words alone, without the use of images, may

cause appropriate emotions and appropriate behaviour. The words

have been used in an environment which produced certain

emotions;. by a telescoped process, the words alone are now

capable of producing similar emotions. On these lines it might be

sought to show that images are unnecessary. I do not believe,

however, that we could account on these lines for the entirely

different response produced by a narrative and by a description

of present facts. Images, as contrasted with sensations, are the

response expected during a narrative; it is understood that

present action is not called for. Thus it seems that we must

maintain our distinction words used demonstratively describe and

are intended to lead to sensations, while the same words used in

narrative describe and are only intended to lead to images.

 

We have thus, in addition to our four previous ways in which

words can mean, two new ways, namely the way of memory and the

way of imagination. That is to say:

 

(5) Words may be used to describe or recall a memory-image: to

describe it when it already exists, or to recall it when the

words exist as a habit and are known to be descriptive of some

past experience.

 

(6) Words may be used to describe or create an imagination-image:

to describe it, for example, in the case of a poet or novelist,

or to create it in the ordinary case for giving

information-though, in the latter case, it is intended that the

imagination-image, when created, shall be accompanied by belief

that something of the sort occurred.

 

These two ways of using words, including their occurrence in

inner speech, may be spoken of together as the use of words in

“thinking.” If we are right, the use of words in thinking

depends, at least in its origin, upon images, and cannot be fully

dealt with on behaviourist lines. And this is really the most

essential function of words, namely that, originally through

their connection with images, they bring us into touch with what

is remote in time or space. When they operate without the medium

of images, this seems to be a telescoped process. Thus the

problem of the meaning of words is brought into connection with

the problem of the meaning of images.

 

To understand the function that words perform in what is called

“thinking,” we must understand both the causes and the effects of

their occurrence. The causes of the occurrence of words require

somewhat different treatment according as the object designated

by the word is sensibly present or absent. When the object is

present, it may itself be taken as the cause of the word, through

association. But when it is absent there is more difficulty in

obtaining a behaviourist theory of the occurrence of the word.

The language-habit consists not merely in the use of words

demonstratively, but also in their use to express narrative or

desire. Professor Watson, in his account of the acquisition of

the language-habit, pays very little attention to the use of

words in narrative and desire. He says (“Behavior,” pp. 329-330):

 

“The stimulus (object) to which the child often responds, a box,

e.g. by movements such as opening and closing and putting objects

into it, may serve to illustrate our argument. The nurse,

observing that the child reacts with his hands, feet, etc., to

the box, begins to say ‘box’ when the child is handed the box,

‘open box’ when the child opens it, ‘close box’ when he closes

it, and ‘put doll in box ‘ when that act is executed. This is

repeated over and over again. In the process of time it comes

about that without any other stimulus than that of the box which

originally called out the bodily habits, he begins to say ‘box’

when he sees it, ‘open box’ when he opens it, etc. The visible

box now becomes a stimulus capable of releasing either the bodily

habits or the word-habit, i.e. development has brought about two

things : (1) a series of functional connections among arcs which

run from visual receptor to muscles of throat, and (2) a series

of already earlier connected arcs which run from the same

receptor to the bodily muscles…. The object meets the child’s

vision. He runs to it and tries to reach it and says ‘box.’…

Finally the word is uttered without the movement of going towards

the box being executed…. Habits are formed of going to the box

when the arms are full of toys. The child has been taught to

deposit them there. When his arms are laden with toys and no box

is there, the word-habit arises and he calls ‘box’; it is handed

to him, and he opens it and deposits the toys therein. This

roughly marks what we would call the genesis of a true

language-habit.”(pp. 329-330).*

 

* Just the same account of language is given in Professor

Watson’s more recent book (reference above).

 

We need not linger over what is said in the above passage as to

the use of the word “box” in the presence of the box. But as to

its use in the absence of the box, there is only one brief

sentence, namely: “When his arms are laden with toys and no box

is there, the word-habit arises and he calls ‘box.’ ” This is

inadequate as it stands, since the habit has been to use the word

when the box is present, and we have to explain its extension to

cases in which the box is absent.

 

Having admitted images, we may say that the word “box,” in the

absence of the box, is caused by an image of the box. This may or

may not be true—in fact, it is true in some cases but not in

others. Even, however, if it were true in all cases, it would

only slightly shift our problem: we should now have to ask what

causes an image of the box to arise. We might be inclined to say

that desire for the box is the cause. But when this view is

investigated, it is found that it compels us to suppose that the

box can be desired without the child’s having either an image of

the box or the word “box.” This will require a theory of desire

which may be, and I think is, in the main true, but which removes

desire from among things that actually occur, and makes it merely

a convenient fiction, like force in mechanics.* With such a view,

desire is no longer a true cause, but merely a short way of

describing certain processes.

 

* See Lecture III, above.

 

In order to explain the occurrence of either the word or the

image in the absence of the box, we have to assume that there is

something, either in the environment or in our own sensations,

which has frequently occurred at about the same time as the word

“box.” One of the laws which distinguish psychology (or

nerve-physiology?) from physics is the law that, when two things

have frequently existed in close temporal contiguity, either

comes in time to cause the other.* This is the basis both of

habit and of association. Thus, in our case, the arms full of

toys have frequently been followed quickly by the box, and the

box in turn by the word “box.” The box itself is subject to

physical laws, and does not tend to be caused by the arms full of

toys, however often it may in the past have followed them—always

provided that, in the case in question, its physical position is

such that voluntary movements cannot lead to it. But the word

“box” and the image of the box are subject to the law of habit;

hence it is possible for either to be caused by the arms full of

toys. And we may lay it down generally that, whenever we use a

word, either aloud or in inner speech, there is some sensation or

image (either of which may be itself a word) which has frequently

occurred at about the same time as the word, and now, through

habit, causes the word. It follows that the law of habit is

adequate to account for the use of words in the absence of their

objects; moreover, it would be adequate even without introducing

images. Although, therefore, images seem undeniable, we cannot

derive an additional argument in their favour from the use of

words, which could, theoretically, be explained without

introducing images.

 

*For a more exact statement of this law, with the limitations

suggested by experiment, see A. Wohlgemuth, “On Memory and the

Direction of Associations,” “British Journal of Psychology,” vol.

v, part iv (March, 1913).

 

When we understand a word, there is a reciprocal association

between it and the images of what it “means.” Images may cause us

to use words which mean them, and these words, heard or read, may

in turn cause the appropriate images. Thus speech is a means of

producing in our hearers the images which are in us. Also, by a

telescoped process, words come in time to produce directly the

effects which would have been produced by the images with which

they were associated. The general law of telescoped processes is

that, if A causes B and B causes C, it will happen in time that A

will cause C directly, without the intermediary of B. This is a

characteristic of psychological and neural causation. In virtue

of this law, the effects of images upon our actions come to be

produced by words, even when the words do not call up appropriate

images. The more familiar we are with words, the more our

“thinking” goes on in words instead of images. We may, for

example, be able to describe a person’s appearance correctly

without having at any time had any image of him, provided, when

we saw him, we thought of words which fitted him; the words alone

may remain with us as a habit, and enable us to speak as if we

could recall a visual image of the man. In this and other ways

the understanding of a word often comes to be quite free from

imagery; but in first learning the use of language it would seem

that imagery always plays a very important part.

 

Images as well as words may be said to have “meaning”; indeed,

the meaning of images seems more primitive than the meaning of

words. What we call (say) an image of St. Paul’s may be said to

“mean” St. Paul’s. But it is not at all easy to say exactly what

constitutes the meaning of an image. A memory-image of a

particular occurrence, when accompanied by a memory-belief, may

be said to mean the occurrence of which it is an image. But most

actual images do not have this degree of definiteness. If we call

up an image of a dog, we are very likely to have a vague image,

which is not representative of some one special dog, but of dogs

in general. When we call up an image of a friend’s face, we are

not likely to reproduce the expression he had on some one

particular occasion, but rather a compromise expression derived

from many occasions. And there is hardly any limit to the

vagueness of which images are capable. In such cases, the meaning

of the image, if defined by relation to the prototype, is vague:

there is not one definite prototype, but a number, none of which

is copied exactly.*

 

* Cf. Semon, Mnemische Empfindungen, chap. xvi, especially pp.

301-308.

 

There is, however, another way of approaching the meaning of

images, namely through their causal efficacy. What is called an

image