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

“of” some definite object, say St. Paul’s, has some of the

effects which the object would have. This applies especially to

the effects that depend upon association. The emotional effects,

also, are often similar: images may stimulate desire almost as

strongly as do the objects they represent. And conversely desire

may cause images*: a hungry man will have images of food, and so

on. In all these ways the causal laws concerning images are

connected with the causal laws concerning the objects which the

images “mean.” An image may thus come to fulfil the function of a

general idea. The vague image of a dog, which we spoke of a

moment ago, will have effects which are only connected with dogs

in general, not the more special effects which would be produced

by some dogs but not by others. Berkeley and Hume, in their

attack on general ideas, do not allow for the vagueness of

images: they assume that every image has the definiteness that a

physical object would have This is not the case, and a vague

image may well have a meaning which is general.

 

* This phrase is in need of interpretation, as appears from the

analysis of desire. But the reader can easily supply the

interpretation for himself.

 

In order to define the “meaning” of an image, we have to take

account both of its resemblance to one or more prototypes, and of

its causal efficacy. If there were such a thing as a pure

imagination-image, without any prototype whatever, it would be

destitute of meaning. But according to Hume’s principle, the

simple elements in an image, at least, are derived from

prototypes-except possibly in very rare exceptional cases. Often,

in such instances as our image of a friend’s face or of a

nondescript dog, an image is not derived from one prototype, but

from many; when this happens, the image is vague, and blurs the

features in which the various prototypes differ. To arrive at the

meaning of the image in such a case, we observe that there are

certain respects, notably associations, in which the effects of

images resemble those of their prototypes. If we find, in a given

case, that our vague image, say, of a nondescript dog, has those

associative effects which all dogs would have, but not those

belonging to any special dog or kind of dog, we may say that our

image means “dog” in general. If it has all the associations

appropriate to spaniels but no others, we shall say it means

“spaniel”; while if it has all the associations appropriate to

one particular dog, it will mean that dog, however vague it may

be as a picture. The meaning of an image, according to this

analysis, is constituted by a combination of likeness and

associations. It is not a sharp or definite conception, and in

many cases it will be impossible to decide with any certainty

what an image means. I think this lies in the nature of things,

and not in defective analysis.

 

We may give somewhat more precision to the above account of the

meaning of images, and extend it to meaning in general. We find

sometimes that, IN MNEMIC CAUSATION, an image or word, as

stimulus, has the same effect (or very nearly the same effect) as

would belong to some object, say, a certain dog. In that case we

say that the image or word means that object. In other cases the

mnemic effects are not all those of one object, but only those

shared by objects of a certain kind, e.g. by all dogs. In this

case the meaning of the image or word is general: it means the

whole kind. Generality and particularity are a matter of degree.

If two particulars differ sufficiently little, their mnemic

effects will be the same; therefore no image or word can mean the

one as opposed to the other; this sets a bound to the

particularity of meaning. On the other hand, the mnemic effects

of a number of sufficiently dissimilar objects will have nothing

discoverable in common; hence a word which aims at complete

generality, such as “entity” for example, will have to be devoid

of mnemic effects, and therefore of meaning. In practice, this is

not the case: such words have VERBAL associations, the learning

of which constitutes the study of metaphysics.

 

The meaning of a word, unlike that of an image, is wholly

constituted by mnemic causal laws, and not in any degree by

likeness (except in exceptional cases). The word “dog” bears no

resemblance to a dog, but its effects, like those of an image of

a dog, resemble the effects of an actual dog in certain respects.

It is much easier to say definitely what a word means than what

an image means, since words, however they originated, have been

framed in later times for the purpose of having meaning, and men

have been engaged for ages in giving increased precision to the

meanings of words. But although it is easier to say what a word

means than what an image means, the relation which constitutes

meaning is much the same in both cases. A word, like an image,

has the same associations as its meaning has. In addition to

other associations, it is associated with images of its meaning,

so that the word tends to call up the image and the image tends

to call up the word., But this association is not essential to

the intelligent use of words. If a word has the right

associations with other objects, we shall be able to use it

correctly, and understand its use by others, even if it evokes no

image. The theoretical understanding of words involves only the

power of associating them correctly with other words; the

practical understanding involves associations with other bodily

movements.

 

The use of words is, of course, primarily social, for the purpose

of suggesting to others ideas which we entertain or at least wish

them to entertain. But the aspect of words that specially

concerns us is their power of promoting our own thought. Almost

all higher intellectual activity is a matter of words, to the

nearly total exclusion of everything else. The advantages of

words for purposes of thought are so great that I should never

end if I were to enumerate them. But a few of them deserve to be

mentioned.

 

In the first place, there is no difficulty in producing a word,

whereas an image cannot always be brought into existence at will,

and when it comes it often contains much irrelevant detail. In

the second place, much of our thinking is concerned with abstract

matters which do not readily lend themselves to imagery, and are

apt to be falsely conceived if we insist upon finding images that

may be supposed to represent them. The word is always concrete

and sensible, however abstract its meaning may be, and thus by

the help of words we are able to dwell on abstractions in a way

which would otherwise be impossible. In the third place, two

instances of the same word are so similar that neither has

associations not capable of being shared by the other. Two

instances of the word “dog” are much more alike than (say) a pug

and a great dane; hence the word “dog” makes it much easier to

think about dogs in general. When a number of objects have a

common property which is important but not obvious, the invention

of a name for the common property helps us to remember it and to

think of the whole set of objects that possess it. But it is

unnecessary to prolong the catalogue of the uses of language in

thought.

 

At the same time, it is possible to conduct rudimentary thought

by means of images, and it is important, sometimes, to check

purely verbal thought by reference to what it means. In

philosophy especially the tyranny of traditional words is

dangerous, and we have to be on our guard against assuming that

grammar is the key to metaphysics, or that the structure of a

sentence corresponds at all accurately with the structure of the

fact that it asserts. Sayce maintained that all European

philosophy since Aristotle has been dominated by the fact that

the philosophers spoke Indo-European languages, and therefore

supposed the world, like the sentences they were used to,

necessarily divisible into subjects and predicates. When we come

to the consideration of truth and falsehood, we shall see how

necessary it is to avoid assuming too close a parallelism between

facts and the sentences which assert them. Against such errors,

the only safeguard is to be able, once in a way, to discard words

for a moment and contemplate facts more directly through images.

Most serious advances in philosophic thought result from some

such comparatively direct contemplation of facts. But the outcome

has to be expressed in words if it is to be communicable. Those

who have a relatively direct vision of facts are often incapable

of translating their vision into words, while those who possess

the words have usually lost the vision. It is partly for this

reason that the highest philosophical capacity is so rare: it

requires a combination of vision with abstract words which is

hard to achieve, and too quickly lost in the few who have for a

moment achieved it.

 

LECTURE XI. GENERAL IDEAS AND THOUGHT

 

It is said to be one of the merits of the human mind that it is

capable of framing abstract ideas, and of conducting

nonsensational thought. In this it is supposed to differ from the

mind of animals. From Plato onward the “idea” has played a great

part in the systems of idealizing philosophers. The “idea” has

been, in their hands, always something noble and abstract, the

apprehension and use of which by man confers upon him a quite

special dignity.

 

The thing we have to consider to-day is this: seeing that there

certainly are words of which the meaning is abstract, and seeing

that we can use these words intelligently, what must be assumed

or inferred, or what can be discovered by observation, in the way

of mental content to account for the intelligent use of abstract

words?

 

Taken as a problem in logic, the answer is, of course, that

absolutely nothing in the way of abstract mental content is

inferable from the mere fact that we can use intelligently words

of which the meaning is abstract. It is clear that a sufficiently

ingenious person could manufacture a machine moved by olfactory

stimuli which, whenever a dog appeared in its neighbourhood,

would say, “There is a dog,” and when a cat appeared would throw

stones at it. The act of saying “There is a dog,” and the act of

throwing stones, would in such a case be equally mechanical.

Correct speech does not of itself afford any better evidence of

mental content than the performance of any other set of

biologically useful movements, such as those of flight or combat.

All that is inferable from language is that two instances of a

universal, even when they differ very greatly, may cause the

utterance of two instances of the same word which only differ

very slightly. As we saw in the preceding lecture, the word “dog”

is useful, partly, because two instances of this word are much

more similar than (say) a pug and a great dane. The use of words

is thus a method of substituting for two particulars which differ

widely, in spite of being instances of the same universal, two

other particulars which differ very little, and which are also

instances of a universal, namely the name of the previous

universal. Thus, so far as logic is concerned, we are entirely

free to adopt any theory as to general ideas which empirical

observation may recommend.

 

Berkeley and Hume made a vigorous onslaught