The Analysis of Mind by Bertrand Russell (red queen free ebook txt) 📕

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