The Meaning of Meaning Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

The Meaning of Meaning - Essay Example The traditional study of natural language leaves much to be desired in the philosophical realm. While they have discovered certain universal features which appear to be species-specific, and have some idea about the structure of language, it remains to be seen as to whether any of this is actually naturistic of language, or more associated with actual cognitive learning approaches and syntax. The question raised most often by philosophy is what about the meaning of words; where does it originate. It’s not that meanings don’t exist per se, but rather that they take a different form than what we usually intend when we say meaning. Word meanings are more inaccurate than sentence meanings. For this reason we often have to gain the meaning of words through their contextual surroundings. Previous philosophers have postulated that sentence meanings should be addressed first in attempting to discover the meaning of words; however, if the word has different connotations between societies, then no amount of studying the meaning of a sentence will bring one closer to the real meaning of a term. Traditional philosophers postulated that there are two applications of words; one in the actual term, and the other in its significance or sense. The actual term has been thought of as the extension of a descriptive concept; the actuality of everything belonging to that one descriptive set and whatever is true for that set. The significance or sense of a term involves whatever is intentioned by that term. Words cannot be defined concretely as there are always variances of significance despite the terms used.