The Meaning of Meaning subtitled A Study of the Influence of Language upon Thought and of the Science of Symbolism (1923) was co-authored by C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards, Magdalene College, University of Cambridge. It is accompanied by the two supplementary essays by Bronislaw Malinowski and F. G. Crookshank.

Opening quotations

"All life comes back to the question of our speech -- the medium through which we communicate." -- HENRY JAMES.

"Error is never so difficult to be destroyed as when it has its root in Language." -- BENTHAM.

"We have to make use of language, which is made up necessarily of preconceived ideas. Such ideas unconsciously held are the most dangerous of all." -- POINCARÉ.

"By the grammatical structure of a group of languages everything runs smoothly for one kind of philosophical system, whereas the way is as it were barred for certain other possibilities." -- NIETZSCHE.

"An Englishman, a Frenchman, a German, and an Italian cannot by any means bring themselves to think quite alike, at least on subjects that involve any depth of sentiment : they have not the verbal means." -- Prof. J. S. MACKENZIE.

"In Primitive Thought the name and the object named are associated in such wise that the one is regarded as a part of the other. The imperfect separation of words from things characterizes Greek speculation in general." -- HERBERT SPENCER.

"The tendency has always been strong to believe that whatever receives a name must be an entity or being, having an independent existence of its own : and if no real entity answering to the name could be found, men did not for that reason suppose that none existed, but imagined that it was something peculiarly abstruse and mysterious, too high to be an object of science." -- J. S. MILL.

"Nothing is more usual than for philosophers to encroach on the province of grammarians, and to engage in disputes of words, while they imagine they are handling controversies of the deepest importance and concern." -- HUME.

"Men contend themselves with the same words as other people use, as if the very sound necessarily carried the same meaning." -- LOCKE.

"A verbal discussion may be important or unimportant, but it is at least desirable to know that it is verbal." -- Sir G. CORNEWALL LEWIS.

"Scientific controversies constantly resolve themselves into differences about the meaning of words." -- Prof. A. SCHUSTER.

Thoughts, words and things

(to come)

Mental, verbal and external contexts

(to come)

Attention to C. S. Peirce

(to come)

Supplementary essays

• The Problem of Meaning in Primitive Language by Bronislaw Malinowski, Professor of Anthropology, University of London.
• The Importance of a Theory of Signs and a Critique of Language in the Study of Medicine by F. G. Crookshank.

Criticism

(to come)

Aftermath

(to come)

Coincidental titles

• The Meaning of 'Meaning' by Hilary Putnam (1975).
• The meaning of meaning.

See also

• Linguistics
• Psycholinguistics
• Cognitive science
• Semantics
• General semantics
• Pragmatics
• Semiotics
• C. S. Peirce

External links

(to come)