Nuces Philosophic

Adapted from Dale:

GRICE. What do we mean by the word 'meaning'?

His malignant demon. Be patient! You can only learn the meaning of the word "meaning" from the consideration of the nature of ideas, and their connexion with things'."

Dale, in online "The theory of meaning"

"The only thinker earlier than Welby cited
as raising the question of meaning is
"one Edward Johnson"."

Dale adds:

"The quote Ogden and Richards provide ... is from
Johnson's

Nuces Philosophic

(published in 1842)."

And, furhter, Dale notes:

"Welby also quotes from Johnson without
mentioning his name in Welby (1896), p. 190.
The quote Welby used she reports to have
come from "a forgotten book of somewhat
quaint dialogues called The Philosophy of Things""

---- where by 'forgotten' she means 'almost-forgotten', since she could quote verbatim.

Dale:

"The Ogden and Richards quotation from Johnson and the Welby quotation from Johnson are not identical but they just about overlap with the sentences."


"B.

'What then do you mean by the word meaning?'

A.

'Be patient. You can only learn the meaning of the word meaning from the consideration of the nature of ideas, and their connexion with things'."

-- where "A" is short for "Aristotle".

"Peri Hermeneias" Grice and Strawson would lecture on. And Aristotle therein does mention 'phastasmata' as being 'meant' (semein) by words and 'phantasmata' as standing for things.

Locke, who I think is the most important author in this area -- see my "Jabberwocky" essay for the Christ Church-based "Lewis Carroll Society" -- would say that

the thing

is the MEDIATE

signification of the 'sign'.

Words are signs of ideas, and ideas are signs of things. Grice was clever enough to make fun of Locke by titling his thick volume, "the Way of Words" (rather than the Way of Ideas of which we know next to nuttin').