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Locke on Language

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

E.J. Ashworth
E.J. Ashworth*
Affiliation:
University of Waterloo
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Extract

Locke's main semantic thesis is that words stand for, or signify, ideas. He says this over and over again, though the phraseology he employs varies. In Book III chapter 2 alone we find the following statements of the thesis: (1) ‘ … Words … come to be made use of by Men, as the Signs of their Ideas’ [III.2.1; 405:10-11); (2) The use then of Words, is to be sensible Marks of Ideas; and the Ideas they stand for, are their proper and immediate Signification’ [III.2.1; 405:15-17]; (3) ‘Words in their primary or immediate Signification, stand for nothing, but the Ideas in the Mind of him that uses them’ [III.2.2; 405:21-2]; (4) That then which Words are the Marks of, are the Ideas of the Speaker’ [III.2.2; 405:27-8]; (5) ‘ …

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , March 1984 , pp. 45 - 73
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1984

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References

1 Page and line references are to Locke, John An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, edited with a foreword by H.Nidditch, Peter (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1979).Google Scholar

2 For further discussion, see McRae, Robert,‘ “Idea” as a Philosophical Term in the Seventeenth Century,’ Journal of the History of Ideas, 26 (1965) 175-90CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Stephen Nathanson, L. ‘Locke's Theory of Ideas,’ Journal of the History of Philosophy, 11 (1973) 29–42.Google Scholar

3 Locke, John The Works of John Locke. A New Edition, Corrected. In Ten Volumes (London 1823 / Darmstadt: Scientia Verlag Aalen 1963) Vol. 4, 21Google Scholar

4 For a discussion of the contrary view, see Woozley, A.D. ‘Some Remarks on Locke's Account of Knowledge,’ in Tipton, I.C. ed., Locke on Human Understanding. Selected Essays, (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1977), 141-48.Google Scholar

5 Locke, Works, vol. 4, 360Google Scholar

6 Smiglecius, Martin Logica (Oxoniae: Guil. Turner 1638), 623.Google Scholar

I reply: Rather, indeed, knowledge is immediately of the object as it is in the mind, but of the thing outside the mind only as it is represented by that which is in the mind, as will appear more [clearly] in the following question. For to be known in the formal sense is to be known in the mind, and to be formed in the mind. Whence, whether things exist outside the mind or whether they do not exist, they are known under the guise of an object, because they exist formally in the mind, and as they are in the mind, so they are known. To be objectively, is to be in the mind, not outside the mind, for in so far as things are outside the mind, they are not known, except as represented by the mind. Whence the object of knowledge is the thing as it is in the mind, by virtue of which the thing outside the intellect is called the object. That is immediate, this ultimate; that intrinsic, this extrinsic; that essential, without which there can be no knowledge, this non-essential and without whose actual existence there can be knowledge - for whether it exists or not, there is knowledge, by virtue of the mental object.

Respondeo. lmò verò scientiam esse immediaté de objecto ut est in mente, de re verò extra solùm est tanquam repraesentatâ per id quod est in mente, ut in sequenti quaestione magis patebit. Sciri enim formaliter, est in mente sciri, et in mente formari. Uncle sive res extra mentem existant, sive non existant,’ scientur per modum objecti: quia formaliter existunt in mente, et ut sunt in mente sciuntur: et esse objectivè, est in mente esse non extra mentem, qua tenus enim res sunt extra mentem, non sciuntur, nisi ut repraesentatae in mente. Quare objectum scientiae est res ut est in mente, ratione cujus res extra intellectum dicitur objectum: illud est immediatum, hoc ultimatum; illud intrinsecum, hoc extrinsecum; illud essentiale, sine quo non potest scientia, hoc non essentiale, et sine quo actu existente potest esse scientia, sive enim existat, sive non existat, est scientia ratione objecti mentalis.

7 A.G.N. Flew wrote of Locke: ‘ … he also provided what is perhaps the clearest statement in any classical philosopher of the view that, in another interpretation of the term “private,” not just some, but all language is not merely contingently but essentially private': in Jones, O.R. ed., The Private Language Argument (London: Macmillan 1971) 6.Google Scholar Cf. O'Connor, D.J. John Locke (New York: Dover Publications, Inc. 1967) 132Google Scholar: ‘Our languages are as private as our worlds. And once the representative theory of knowledge is taken seriously, it is difficult to see how it could be otherwise.’

8 Hanfling wrote: ‘According to Locke words stand not, as is commonly supposed, for real things and real features of things, but for “the ideas in the mind of him that uses them”.’ Philosophy and Language I, prepared by Oswald Hanfling for the Course Team (The Open University Press 1973) 20.

9 For the relation of this remark to the writings of the Dutch Cartesian Clauberg, see Aarsleff, Hans ‘Leibniz on Locke on Language,’ American Philosophical Quarterly, 1 (1964) 186-7.Google Scholar

10 Cf. Alston, William P. Philosophy of Language (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, Inc. 1964) 24Google Scholar, where he asks in relation to Locke: ‘Can you discern an idea of “when,” “in,” “course,” “becomes,” etc., swimming into your ken as each word is pronounced? … What are we supposed to look for by way of an idea of “when”? How can we tell whether we have it in mind or not?’

11 Bennett, Jonathan Locke, Berkeley, Hume: Central Themes (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1971) 20Google Scholar: ‘ … though he acknowledges the existence of “particles” such as “is” and “if,” his very cursory treatment of them amounts to a depiction of them as classificatory after all — specifically, as words for classifying “the several postures of [the]mind in discoursing”.’ Cf. Clapp, James Gordon ‘Locke,’ in Edwards, Paul ed., The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (New York: Free Press 1967). vol. 4, 496Google Scholar: ‘Again a difficulty arises. If “is” and “is not” stand for the mind's act of affirming or denying, then either the mind directly apprehends its own actions in some way or we do have ideas of affirmation or denial. If we do have ideas of the mind's acts, then these words ought to signify the ideas of these acts; if we do not have ideas which these words signify, then either we do not apprehend them or something besides ideas is the object of the mind when it thinks.’

12 William Ockham, Ockham's Theory of Terms: Part I of the Summa Logicae, translated and introduced by Loux, M.J. (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press 1974) 194-5.Google Scholar Ockham's logic was reprinted in Oxford in 1675, though there is no reason to believe that Locke read it.

13 Dummett, M.A.E. ‘What is a Theory of Meaning?’, in S. Guttenplan, ed., Mind and Language. Wolfson College Lectures 1974 (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1975) 97Google Scholar

14 Alston, 22: The classic statement of the ideational theory was given by the seventeenth-century British philosopher, John Locke … ‘. Bennett (27) remarked of the claim Words stand for ideas’ that Locke ‘seems to imply - implausibly - that a word stands for its meaning. Remember, though, that for Locke, “ideas” are also sense data … I further suggest that his acceptance of a statement which seems to imply “I use the word ‘sugar’ to stand for its own meaning” may be partly explained by his construing it so as to imply ‘I use the word ‘sugar’ to stand for sugar-as-I -experience-it, or for the sense-data I have when I see or taste or touch sugar.’ Cf. O'Connor, 131: When we reflect that “ideas” for Locke consist largely of sensory elements like sense data and images, it is not very difficult to see the defects of his view. It is, in fact, a particularly crude form of the “translation” theory of meaning … ‘.

15 Stampe, Dennis W. ‘Toward a Grammar of Meaning,’ Philosophical Review, 77 (1968) 137-74CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 Hacking, Ian Why Does Language Matter to Philosophy? (New York: Cambridge University Press 1975)CrossRefGoogle Scholar makes this point when he argues ‘Locke did not have a theory of meaning’ (52) and cites as evidence that priority was given to mental discourse (16) and that ‘signify’ did not mean ‘mean’ (20). As will be seen below, I am thoroughly in agreement with Hacking on these points. However, Hacking does not support his claim by considering any of the scholastic sources. Another author who realizes that ‘signify’ and ‘mean’ are not equivalent is Armstrong, D.M. ‘Meaning and Communication,’ Philosophical Review, 80 (1971) 430-1CrossRefGoogle Scholar: ‘So if a Locke an type of analysis is to go through it must be accepted that what a certain utterance signifies in the sense stipulated, and what it means, are two different things. (By the way, there are some indications that Locke saw, or half saw, this point although his language remains atrociously ambiguous.)’

17 See Ashworth, E.J. ‘Philosophy Teaching at Oxford,’ to appear in the new edition of Schobinger, J.-P. ed., Friedrich Ueberwegs Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie. V. Philosophie im 17 Jahrhundert, (Basel, Stuttgart: Schwabe &: Co.).Google Scholar

18 Various dates have been suggested including c.1656 and after 1671: see Schankula, H.A.S. ‘Locke, Descartes and the Science of Nature,’ Journal of the History of Ideas, 41 (1980) 461-3.CrossRefGoogle Scholar I am following Cranston, Maurice John Locke. A Biography (London: Longmans Green and Co. 1957), 99–100.Google Scholar 19 Locke, Works, Vol. 9, 86

20 Locke, Works, Vol. 4, 8, 449Google Scholar

21 For further details, see Ashworth, E.J. ‘ “Do Words Signify Ideas or Things?” The Scholastic Sources of Locke's Theory of Language,’ Journal of the History of Philosophy, 19 (1981) 299–326.CrossRefGoogle Scholar This paper pays much more attention to seventeenth-century scholastics, and much less attention to Locke himself, than does the present paper. References to non-scholastic authors whose theories may have influenced Locke will be found in Richard Aaron, I. John Locke, 2nd. edn. (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1965). 207Google Scholar, note 1; Kretzmann, Norman ‘The Main Thesis of Locke's Semantic Theory,’ Philosophical Review, 77 (1968) 176CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and John W., Yolton John Locke and the Way of Ideas (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1956).Google Scholar

22 Trieu, Philip Du Manuductio ad Logicam (Oxoniae: Guil. Hall 1662), 85Google Scholar: ‘Definitio quid reiest, quae rei per nomen significatae naturam explicat.’ Cf. Smiglecius, 729-39; Sanderson, Robert Logicae Artis Compendium (Oxoniae: L.L. & H.H. 1664) 61-2Google Scholar; Burgersdijck, Franco Institutionum Logicarum libri duo (Cantabrigiae: Ex Academiae celeberrimae typographeo 1637) 153-4.Google Scholar On p. 154 he wrote: ‘Definitio perfecta est, quae rei essentiam attributis essentialibus explicat perfecté.’ ‘A definition is perfect when it perfectly explains the essence of a thing by its essential attributes.’

23 See Ashworth, E.J. ‘The Structure of Mental Language: Some Problems Discussed by Early Sixteenth-Century Logicians,’ Vivarium, 20 (1982) 59–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24 See E.J. Ashworth, ‘Mental Language and the Unity of Propositions: A Semantic Problem Discussed by Early Sixteenth-Century Logicians,’ Franciscan Studies (forthcoming).

25 See Ockham, William Quodlibet II Quaestio 19 (193-7) and Quodlibet III Quaestio 13 (251-3)Google Scholar. in Ockham, Guillelmi de Quodlibeta Septem, edidit Wey, Joseph C. Opera Theologica IX (St. Bonaventure, NY: St. Bonaventure University Press 1980).Google Scholar

26 Pinke, Robert Quaestiones Selectiores in Logica, Ethica, Physica et Metaphysica inter authores celebriores repertae (Oxoniae: Leon. Lichfield 1680) 12Google Scholar

27 Smiglecius, 453-6

28 Hacking, 16: ‘If we are to make any sense at all out of theories of language of this period, we must acknowledge that at the time one accepted the priority of mental discourse to public speech.’ Woolhouse suggests that Locke used the phrase ‘mental proposition’ to refer to ‘that which is expressed by a sentence’: Woolhouse, R.S. Locke's Philosophy of Science and Knowledge (Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1971).Google Scholar 5 note 1. Landesman is also puzzled by Locke's references to mental propositions, and writes: ‘By a mental proposition, Locke sometimes means the mental act by which the mind perceives a state of affairs; ideas as constituents of the mental act are signs of the constituents of the state of affairs. But sometimes he means by a mental proposition the state of affairs itself…’: Landesman, Charles ‘Locke's Theory of Meaning,’ Journal of the History of Philosophy, 14 (1976) 26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29 For an easily accessible discussion, see John of St. Thomas, Outlines of Formal Logic, translated with an introduction by Wade, F.C. (Milwaukee, WI.: Marquette University Press 1955), 30-3.Google Scholar

30 Sanderson, 73 wrote: ‘ … Conceptus [‘Concepts are from nature, and hence everywhere the same’] sunt à naturâ, & proinde ubique eadem.’

31 John of St. Thomas, 35

32 See E.J. Ashworth, ‘Words, Concepts and Things: A Study of Perihermeneias Commentaries from the Late Thirteenth to the Early Sixteenth Century,’ to appear in The Cultural and Intellectual Life of the Middle Ages: Paideia, 1980.

33 Smiglecius, 436-8. For a more detailed discussion of his argument see the paper cited in note 21.

34 Kretzmann, 175-96; Landesman, 23-35; and Odegard, Douglas ‘Locke and the Signification of Words,’ Locke Newsletter, 1 (1970) 11–17.Google Scholar For a further discussion of Kretzmann and Landesman, see the paper cited in note 21, and see also Yolton, John W. Locke and the Compass of Human Understanding (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1970), 208-14.Google Scholar

35 Aaron, 209, obviously believed that Locke was being consciously innovative: ‘Locke does not attempt to make a complete inventory of the kinds of signs in use. But he does face the more important question: What does the sign signify? To this question he puts forward an answer which he knew to be unusual, but to which none the less he consistently adheres. The word table is usually thought to be the sign of the physical object. Words it is usually supposed signify things, at least some words do. This Locke categorically denies.’

36 Du Trieu, 93-4; Sanderson, 81-2. Cf. Sanderson, 73: ‘Conceptus sunt signa sive notae rerum, Voces Conceptuum, Literae vocum’ [‘Concepts are signs or marks of things, utterances of concepts, letters of utterances’]

37 Burgersdijck, 110: ‘Voces articulatae significant animi conceptus, primò scilicet, atque immediatè: nam res etiam significant, sed mediantibus conceptibus’

38 Bennett, 7. Cf. Hacking, 47-50.

39 Bennett, 6

40 Mackie, J.L. Problems from Locke (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1976), 93–100CrossRefGoogle Scholar

41 Bennett takes it that this was Locke's view: he writes (16) ‘Locke uses “agree with” to mean “resemble.” I deny that an idea or mental image can resemble an extramental object … ’and (18) ‘ … I have argued against only one of them, namely the theory that we classify extra-mental things on the basis of a prior ability to classify ideas and to spot resemblances. Clearly, if Locke is advancing a theory of this general sort it must be that one in particular.’ For a good criticism of Bennett's views on classification, see Minas, Anne C. ‘Locke on Generality,’ Philosophical Forum, 11 (1979-80) 182-92.Google Scholar However, Minas herself falls into one of Bennett's errors when she writes (183): ‘A general word is applicable to a certain thing because that thing “agrees” with the idea which is that word's meaning; and since in his discussion of general terms Locke uses “agree” interchangeably with “resemble,” he means that the thing resembles the word's meaning.’

42 Here too Locke may well be influenced by scholastic writers. Smiglecius (628) wrote: ‘Ilia enim similitudo quam intelligendo format intellectus, est similitudo realis realiter producta ab intellectu realiter repraesentans objectum, et non distincta ab ipsa intellectione, siquidem intellectio nihil aliud est, quàm formatio objecti, seu formatio similitudinis objecti in intellectu.’

‘For that similitude which the intellect forms by understanding, is the similitude of something real really produced by the intellect really representing the object, and it is not distinct from that act of understanding, since indeed the act of understanding is nothing other than the formation of the object, or the formation of the similitude of the object, in the intellect.’

He explicitly compared the mental similitude to an actual image (631).

43 Minas, 190: ‘I have assumed without argument that: (1) ideas, in the sense of images which can resemble experience in their content, can function successfully in the meaning of terms…’

44 O'Connor, 142

45 But cf. Minas, 188.

46 Hacking, 52

47 I would like to thank my colleague, Anne C. Minas, for her helpful criticisms; the Department of Philosophy of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for inviting me to read this paper to them; and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for the generous grants which enabled me to do the research.