Meaning and Saying: Essays in the Philosophy of Language: Second Edition

By Frank B. Ebersole

[Frank Ebersole is a philosopher] whose contribution to philosophy . . . is the greatest of anyone this [the 20th] century, especially in the areas of philosophy of language, theory of knowledge, and perception.from Wittgenstein, Empiricism, and Language by John W. Cook (Oxford University Press, 1999).

Meaning and Saying has five chapters that address philosophical problems about language and knowledge, and one essay (chapter 6: "Postscript") that provides insights into some of Frank Ebersoles basic ideas about philosophy. The five essays let you participate in his unique struggles to come to terms with such questions as:

Is the meaning of a word central to the philosophy of language?

Is the meaning of a word the part the word plays in speech acts?

How does the action of making sounds fit into speech?

Are conditions for knowing something the same as conditions required for saying one knows something?

Should philosophers still be doing conceptual analysis?

Can G. E. Moore really refute the philosophical skeptic by displaying his hand and saying "I know this is my hand"?

This and its companion volume, Language and Perception, are not just other philosophy books about the philosophy of language. In both books Ebersole, by carefully using examples, convincingly shows that the problems are products of philosophical pictures. The examples also make the pictures less compelling.

How the Second Edition Differs from the First Edition

This edition differs from the first edition (University Press of America, 1979) in several ways.

Two more essays are included:

"Saying and Meaning" (chapter 4) is a revised version of an essay originally published in Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophy and Language, eds. Alice Ambrose and Morris Lazerowitz (George Allen and Unwin, London and Humanities Press, New York, 1972), pp. 186221.

"Saying What You Know" (chapter 5) was first read as a paper in Coos Bay, Oregon on May 26, 1996 at the conference, "Where the Action Is." A modified version of the paper was then published in Philosophical Investigations, vol. 23, no. 3, July 2000. Now it has been expanded and revised.

Material that was formerly part of the preface is now revised and placed as chapter 6 at the end, entitled Postscript.

The text is improved. Throughout the book, Ebersole has made corrections, stylistic improvements, and changed wording to remove ambiguities.

Summary

Language and logic provide philosophers with a dual problem: (1) How is language connected to the world and (2) how can philosophers use language and logic with care so as not to contaminate their own thinking? Speech acts and the use of sentences are thought to be better ways for philosophers to understand language and logic. But do they do the job?

Preface

In the early 1920s philosophers argued that philosophy should be philosophy of language; but this was just old wine in new bottles; then the Wittgensteinian revolution occurred, which identified meaning as the use of words and thereafter identified the meaning of a word with the use of a word. The book addresses some problems with this revolution.

Chapter 1: Meaning and Use

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 18, 2002
• ISBN: 9781462807451

Frank B. Ebersole

Frank B. Ebersole has a philosophy Ph.D. (1947) from the University of Chicago. Initially he was interested in biologically oriented metaphysics, later with analytic and ordinary language philosophy—eventually he evolved into a philosopher whose ideas and methods are unique. Ebersole has held various teaching posts but spent most of his career at the University of Oregon. He has given papers at philosophy meetings and has published widely in philosophy journals. However, much of his writing is not intended for journal publication and is available only in his books: Things We Know, Meaning and Saying, and Language and Perception.

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Copyright © 2002 by Frank B. Ebersole.

First edition published 1979

Copyright © 1979, University Press of America

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Contents

PREFACE

1

2

3

4

5

6

WORKS CITED

PREFACE

This is the first of two volumes of essays on subjects that are now said to belong to the philosophy of language. This volume deals with aspects of the philosophy of speech acts. The second volume, Language and Perception, is concerned with problems that arise in trying to think about the connections between language and reality. The essays were written over a period of thirteen or more years and represent experiments in several different forms and styles. As the reader will quickly see, they were not written as articles for journals, and only a small part of one of them was ever published in a journal. While writing them I hoped they might add up to a book.[1]

Since the 1920s much philosophy in the English-speaking world has been, in one way and another, philosophy of language. At first, except for some efforts to find applications for symbolic logic, it was old wine in new bottles. Philosophers became aggressively aware that they were concerned with words rather than harder to understand parts of reality, and they exercised this concern with words by seeking definitions or analyses of various words

and phrases. The old question What is truth? became the new question What is the meaning of the word ‘true’?

Under the influence of Ludwig Wittgenstein, John Austin, O. K. Bouwsma, Gilbert Ryle, John Wisdom, and others, a new generation of philosophers came to give up the model of word and analysis and to look at language with new metaphors: words are tools, saying something is like making a move in a game, philosophy of language is making a map. Above all: the meaning of a word is to be found in an examination of its use. The theoretical concern with use led to the discovery of the performative word and to the doctrine of speech acts. When we consider the uses of linguistic units, we see that we do not use words so much as we use sentences, and we use sentences in performing speech acts such as promising, asserting, warning, predicting.

1.    Meaning and Use is an examination, in the form of a dialogue, of the possibility of understanding the meaning of a word as the part it plays in the performance of speech acts. What is involved in explaining the meanings of words, especially the meanings of general nouns and natural-kind words? Most of the essay is concerned with the idea of the use of a sentence and with the similes associated with that idea: sentences are tools, they play roles, do jobs. Another metaphor goes with the idea that sentences are tools: language is a signal system.

2.    The Complexity of Speech Acts is an essay on the rationale of a speech act philosophy of language. First it is a brief critical examination of the possibility of accounting for language in be- havioristic terms; that is, in terms of stimuli and responses. The outcome is that stimuli and responses are far too simple, and nothing less complex than human actions will do for a theoretical understanding of speech. The main part of the essay is concerned with the question, What view of human actions will provide a foundation for understanding speech? A large part is concerned with the subquestion, Where—if anywhere—does the action of making sounds fit into speech? Again, the similes that support a certain view of action analysis are the main subjects, particularly the game simile: language is a rule-governed activity like a game.

3.    Knowing and Saying So is an examination of a doctrine that grows out of a speech act philosophy—and that has been most clearly expressed by John Searle. The doctrine is that there is a clear distinction to be made between the meaning of a sentence (and of the words that compose it) and the conditions under which one can utter the sentence and make an assertion. This distinction was ignored by early meaning as use philosophers, and this led them into mistakes. For example, Wittgenstein was led to say as a comment on the word know that G. E. Moore neither knows nor does not know that a tree clearly before him is a tree. The truth of the matter is, G. E. Moore does know that is a tree, although the circumstances are not such that he can understandably say it. People know a great many things they are in no position to say they know.

This essay is the most conventional of the lot, because in it I try in traditional philosophical fashion to refute Searle’s view. I do this, not as something one ought to do, but as an exercise in trying to understand an important philosophical doctrine. The essay is an examination of the analogies and pictures surrounding the distinction between sentences and the conditions of their utterance. A sentence is like a baseball in a baseball game. A baseball can be pitched, hit, fouled off, or used to tag a man out. A sentence can be used to assert, deny, ask a question, promise, warn, predict.

4.    Saying and Meaning is an attempt to examine, in the form of a dialog, some of the things involved in developing a theory of meaning. It presents two opposed theories: (1) the traditional, Platonistic view, and (2) a meaning-is-use view, which I have termed instrumentalist. It was written at a time before I became acquainted with the assertion fallacy.

5.    Saying What you Know is a short essay that reexamines issues involved in discussing the meaning of the verb to know, and proposes yet a third theory of meaning that I have called octopodous.

6. Postscript is an essay in metaphilosophy in which I try to answer some questions people think I should answer, such as: What do you think of as a philosophical problem? Why do we have them? How do you handle them? Why do these essays have such an odd style? What do you call this kind of philosophy? This essay is the same as Essay 9 in Language and Perception. I felt it ought to be available to anyone who had only one of the two volumes.

PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION

This edition differs from the original in three ways.

I’ve made corrections, improvements in wording, and stylistic changes throughout.

Material that was formerly part of the preface is now revised and a separate chapter at the end, entitled Postscript.

The biggest change of all is the addition of two chapters.

•    Chapter 4, Saying and Meaning, is a revised version of an essay originally published in Ludwig Wittgenstein: Philosophy and Language, eds. Alice Ambrose and Morris Lazerowitz (George Allen and Unwin, London and Humanities Press, New York, 1972), pp. 186-221.

•    Chapter 5, Saying What You Know, was first read as a paper in Coos Bay, Oregon on May 26, 1996 at the conference, Where the Action Is. A modified version of the paper was then published in Philosophical investigations, vol. 23, no. 3, July 2000. Now I have revised it again and added material at the end.

I want to thank the publishers for permission to use these essays.

During the process of bringing this book into its present form, parts of it were read by Tom North, Karen Petersen, David Tiktin, and Robert Walker. They offered many suggestions and were responsible for many improvements. I am grateful for the help they gave me.

Most of all I want to express my indebtedness to Fred Mosedale.

It was his idea that the book should be brought back into existence. He helped at every stage of the process and did all the work preparing the text for publication by modern methods. He also helped me rid the book of many stylistic bad things and made many observations about the content of the material, which led me to make significant changes.

13774-EBER-layout.pdf

The second book about issues related to the philosophy of language, Language and Perception, deals more broadly with problems concerning the connection of language and reality. Perhaps it is more helpful to say that it deals with problems in the philosophy of language that arise while one is struggling with problems in other branches of philosophy, particularly theory of knowledge, metaphysics, philosophy of mind. The topics might be designated as language and blank where for blank one may substitute perception, vision, action, evaluation, fate, truth.

Here is the list of contents of the second book:

Preface

1    The Family Resemblance Metaphor

2    Pictures and Wittgenstein on Pictures

3    Does Language Shape Perception?

4    The Causal Theory of Perception

5    Does It Look the Color It Is?

6    The Analysis of Human Actions

7    Truth and Fate: Future Occurrences

8    Proper Names and Other Names

9    Postscript

1

MEANING AND USE

Persons of the dialogue: Pengra, Dexterdamme

Scene: The building housing the philosophy department at a small state university. Dexterdamme and Pengra lean against opposite walls in a dark, narrow corridor.

The First Day:

The Meanings of Words and the Uses of Sentences The Second Day:

The Tool Analogy The Third Day:

Sentences and Speech Acts The Fourth Day:

The Meanings of Words Again

The First Day: The Meanings of Words and the

Uses of Sentences

Pengra: I’m mystified by an ability we all have, the ability to comment in a certain way on a word. Some have it more than others. Philosophers spend a great deal of time developing it. Dictionary writers use the ability more often than other people, so they probably perfect it more than others.

I used to say it was the ability to discuss or explain the meaning of a word, but now I think that is not the right way to put it. I’m concerned with a philosopher’s questions, and I’m not sure that "mean

ing means what philosophers take it to mean. I’m thinking of a certain dimension that words have and in terms of which we can characterize them. Some philosophers have said it is semantic as opposed to syntactic and pragmatic. It may be better to speak of the semantic dimension or the semantic character of words than the meaning" of words.

It’s not the ability we have that mystifies me. It’s that dimension, that character of a word—the thing we address ourselves to when we try to give a definition of the word, whether for philosophical purposes or to write a dictionary entry. We don’t always speak of this as giving the meaning of the word, so I suppose it isn’t—at least not always—giving the meaning of the word.

Dexterdamme: What mystifies you about this?

Pen: My inability to get a grasp of this character of a word. How is it we can just think about a word and know, more or less, what to say about it? Of course we’re not always right in what we say, but we’re prepared to learn we are wrong in various ways. We’re prepared to accept corrections. We know what’s relevant and how to go about correcting ourselves. Most of us can just think about a word, and then straightway give a passably good definition of it.

Dex: I’m still not clear why you find this mystifying.

Pen: I’ll give you an example of the difficulties I get into. There’s a very large class of important words, which some philosophers call general concrete words. I mean such words as robin, tree, silent, loud, carefully. Admittedly there’s difficulty telling which words belong to this class and which don’t. When we discuss them, we seem to tell what characteristics a person, place, animal, thing, action, or happening (or whatever) has to have in order for the word to correctly apply to it. These words somehow have the character or life they have because of the way they are connected to persons, events—things. I try to think what this connection could be, and I’m not able to. My efforts to think it fail. I think you understand the difficulty.[2]

Dex: I’m surprised at you. Of all people, you ought to be the first to see the source of this mystification of yours. Don’t you see—you’re thinking in a graphic, geometrical way. You imagine words to have certain dimensions. There is the syntactic, which is the connection words have with each other. Then by comparison you have the semantic, which is the connection words have with things. You try to picture things and then words, and you think the words are connected to the things. You think you ought to be able to trace this connection as you could trace a line on a piece of paper connecting one dot with another.

Pen: You realize that’s a caricature. I was never trying to think of the connection between words and things in such a simple way. But you’re right. I’m prepared to see that something like that picture lies behind my thinking and brings about all my philosophical miseries. What do you propose I do to see the source of my difficulty more clearly so that maybe I can see through it?

Dex: I’m even more surprised at you because you’ve had the cure for your ailment at your finger tips all along.

Pen: Your metaphors confuse me.

Dex: This is what I mean. You’ve read Wittgenstein’s dictum many times: The meaning of a word is its use.[3] You can easily put your finger on that passage, and if you think about it, I believe it shows the way to resolve your problems.

Pen: I’ve often thought about that cryptic remark, but I’ve never got any help from it. You must remember I’m not concerned with meaning, or rather, not exactly with meaning.

Dex: That surely isn’t important. The thing you should come to see is that the mysterious character of words—whatever you call it—is their use. This clears up many problems at the same time. Not all words are general concrete words. Take if, never, to be. With these words, I would never think of some connection with things. And consider good, gringo, run (I mean run in the sense of a score in baseball). With these words, if we try to think of any connection with things, then the connection is indirect and mediated, and the mediation is as important as anything else. The connection is mediated by values, attitudes, human institutions. (One should remember that Wittgenstein says in connection with use that learning a language is learning a way of life.[4]) A person can think about the character of any of these words, and when he thinks about a word, regardless of which word, we can ask him, What are you thinking about? When a person tries to give a definition of a word, he is surely thinking about its use. Different words have uses that are radically different from each other, and there is no sense trying to think of one of these uses as more fundamental or more important than others.

Pen: I suppose I was thinking in a way that general concrete words were more important than others—more important somehow in showing this semantical character I’m concerned with. But I think my main reason for dwelling on them was that I thought their semantical character was easier to discern. They stand for or are the names of things. They are applied to things because of some characteristics of the things or some similarities the things have to each other. I really never got around to thinking seriously about other kinds of words. I got bogged down trying to think what the connection of these words with things could be. Even with a simple word like red, I was unable to see exactly what in things earned the application of this word. It seemed to me that

what the red things had in common was what they got by having the same word applied to them. So the word seemed to get its character from the things to which it applied, but the things seemed to get their character from the word that is applied to them. That’s the main thing I’ve been puzzled about. How could words and things be so tangled together that I can’t think how to untangle them?

Dex: If you think of the character of a word as its use, that puzzle will be dissolved too. After all, words are used by people, and their uses are no less complex than people and the societies of people who speak a common language. Words are applied to things at different times for different reasons. It’s little wonder you are unable to think of the things to which a word applies independently of the language, the lives of the people, and all the rest.

Pen: What you say seems to hold promise, but it’s all so general and metaphorical. I want to see it brought down to earth, brought to bear on the details of my problems. Now it’s my turn to be surprised at you. If I understand what you’re trying to show me, namely something that will dissolve my problem, surely you must show it in detail. If you’ve a mistaken attitude about someone or something, and you’re trying to show yourself why your attitude is mistaken, you can do it only by going over and over all of the details of your life that bear on it.

Dex: I’m not sure how much detail is required. If it is a deep and fundamental mistake, anything that will show it to be a mistake will do. If you think of a person or a thing in inappropriate terms, anything that will bring out the inappro- priateness will be of help to you.

Pen: How would you try to bring out the source of my trouble for me so that it will be helpful?

Dex: You are mystified by a certain character you believe a word to have. You are mystified, I think, because you expect the character to be something it isn’t. You might in a similar way be mystified by a yardstick. You might wonder how a piece of wood can have the character of being a measuring instrument. You don’t actually wonder about this, of course, because it’s too easy to see that the piece of wood that is a yardstick has the character of being a measuring instrument by virtue of the use it has. Hammers, chisels, brooms, buttons, and table knives might seem mysterious if we somehow failed to see that each has its character by virtue of its use. Of course, each has a different use from the others, and we’re not tempted into thinking that one has a basic or fundamental use and the others derive their uses from the basic one. With a word it’s not so easy to see that the semantical character you find mystifying is its use.

Pen: I was wondering how I was to think of the use of a word, and you have helped me a little. We’re to think of the uses of words as we think of the uses of tools and instruments. In a children’s book we might print a picture of a crosscut saw, and under the picture we could have the heading, Use of the crosscut saw, and then under that we might print, To cut wood pieces across the grain. Under the picture of an adze we will print, Use: to shape rough boards and beams. In the same way, we could print a picture of each tool and give its use. Wouldn’t you agree?

Dex: Yes.

Pen: For most tools, though, we couldn’t give a single use; we would have to give several. Take screwdrivers, for example. Under the heading of its uses we would have to say:

(1)    To turn in screws;

(2)    To turn out screws;

(3)    To pry off paint can lids;

(4)    To pry up tack heads; and probably more.

Dex: I’m not sure about all of those or how many uses we need to consider. We would have to stick to the standard uses, that is, the uses for which the tool was designed or the ones to which it is commonly put. But you’re right. For most tools, there would be more than one use.

Pen: And the same, I take it, for words. Most words will have more than one use.

Dex: Yes, of course.

Pen: And you think the uses of a word are like the uses of a tool. Or rather, you think words have uses in the same way tools have uses—and not just tools, of course, but instruments, implements, utensils, and devices of other kinds.

Dex: Of course I do. But I don’t see why you should have any trouble understanding the idea of a word’s use.

Pen: I didn’t mean to suggest that I have trouble with the idea of a word’s use. I haven’t thought about it. Now that it’s come up though, I suppose I do. But mostly I’m disturbed by the way you talk of the uses of words.

Dex: Why should that be?

Pen: The phrase the use of a word sounds strange. I think it may sound strange because the phrase a word is general, and perhaps it wouldn’t sound so strange if I were to specify some particular word. Perhaps it would sound all right if I were to say the use of the word x where a particular word were specified in place of the letter x. But what word should I specify? And when would the phrase containing that word sound all right?

Dex: You want me to provide an example. That’s easy. Suppose Nancy, who is the head of a university department, has prepared a report on the work of a member of her department named smothers. she is about to send it off for filing in the appropriate dean’s office. Now suppose Smothers exercises his right to read the report on his work and, after reading it, goes to Nancy to talk about it. He may say: I object to the use of the word ‘competent’ in describing my teaching. Be stronger if you want, but please be more specific: ‘dull,’ ‘disorganized’— whatever—but not ‘competent.’

Pen: In this case Smothers could just as well have said, I object to your using the word ‘competent.’ It’s quite clear that he is referring to the occurrence of that one word in that one specific place. The phrase use of the word ‘competent’ doesn’t suggest anything we might think of when trying to give an account of the meaning—or semantical character—of the word. This isn’t a case where we speak of the use of the word ‘competent’ in the proper way. Use of the word ‘competent’ is not parallel to use of the crosscut saw. The use of the crosscut saw is to cut wood across the grain. There is nothing analogous we can cite as the use of competent, something we could specify in giving its meaning. It seems to me that we don’t speak of the use of a word in the way your use account requires.

Dex: I agree that in my example, the use of use doesn’t show what I want it to. If we could ask Nancy to explain why she had used the word competent, she might say she had used it in order to create doubts about the quality of Smothers’ work. And that, certainly, is not part of the meaning of the word. She might explain, though, that she used the word because it expresses her honest appraisal of the person’s work. That, too, wouldn’t give much of the meaning of the word. I suspect the fact is this: the use of the word that is relevant is so commonplace and well understood that we have no occasion to speak of it. So we reserve the word use for other uses, those that are more interesting or those that are peculiar to certain situations. This must be what leads Wittgenstein to give examples of primitive forms of language or language games. In these simplified languages or models, the most commonplace uses stand out in a conspicuous way—as they do not in more real examples involving the uses of words in our native language.

Pen: You must remind me and show me how that is so.

Dex: Remember the language game in which the builder says block and his assistant brings a block? Or the builder says d-block and his assistant counts a-b-c-d, one block for each letter, and brings four blocks?[5]

Pen: Yes, I remember most of it. And what is the use of the word block or the use of d that is supposed to stand out so clearly in this example?

Dex: Why, the use of the word block is to get the assistant to bring a block. The use of the word d is to get the assistant to count out four—in connection with block its use is to count out four blocks, of course.

Pen: I fail to see how this makes the idea of the uses of words stand out clearly. If I try to think—as I know you want me to— that these games are complete descriptions of the linguistic behavior of a people, then I’m inclined to think block and d are not words at all. They seem more like signals we might give a trained animal.

Suppose I have a collection of objects, and I train my dog to fetch whichever object I want. I snap my fingers once, and he brings the ball. I snap my fingers twice, and he brings the leather glove. How will I describe this? Will I think one snap is one word and two snaps another word? Will I think of the dog as having learned the meaning of one-snap and of two-snaps? Will I think he has learned the use of these words?

Or perhaps block in Wittgenstein’s language game is more like a cry or a call one might find a social animal giving in the course of a complex bit of flock or herd behavior. The lead bird in a flock of pelicans gives a short squawk, and the flock turns left. He gives a long squawk, and the flock turns right.

We might say that the squawks of the lead pelican are signals, like signals used to give orders. The birds in the flock understand their meanings. A short squawk means turn left, a long squawk turn right. A leader might direct his cleanup crew with a tin horn. One toot means go ahead, two toots, come back. If we’re

to talk of the meanings of bird squawks or horn toots, the meanings have to be compared not to words, but to sentences, for example, turn right, go forward.

If we want to find out what the use of a word is or what the meaning of a word is, we had best stick to examples about which we can talk clearly and confidently of uses and meanings. When I consider Wittgenstein’s language games, I don’t know what to make of the question, What is the use of ‘block’? or What is the use of ‘d’? I try to ask these questions—to say these words—and I don’t understand what I’m asking. I don’t know what to say or think of such language games at all. I was much better off with your original example. Smothers, the resentful faculty member, talks about the use of the word competent, but it’s clear that he is talking about his department head’s use of the word in that one situation. I suspect when we talk of the use of a word, we are always talking about a certain person’s use of a certain word in a certain situation. And that’s not to talk of the use of the word in a way that will be an account of its meaning or its semantical character.

Dex: I take it that by meaning you’re thinking of distinguishing characteristics of the things the word is a name for—or something like that. The meaning of the word elater will be given by a formula such as: ’elater’ is the name of a kind of long, tapering beetle—one that jumps with a click when laid on its back.

Pen: Yes, I was thinking of that kind of meaning-talk.

Dex: Then meaning and use are not as different as you think they are. If you imagine the meaning of a word is given by some such formula, then the formula gives only part of the use of the word. Meaning—in this sense—and use are closely related: the meaning is a part of the use.

Pen: You’re simply ignoring my difficulty with your idea of use. I can’t think what use is except as it is shown in examples. So far we have only one example: the department head’s use of the word competent. Nothing about that example shows her use of the word competent in that situation and the meaning of the word ‘competent’ are related in the way you say they are—as whole to part. We speak of the meaning of the word but of her use of the word. I don’t see how we can think of the use of a word in the same way we can think about the meaning of a word. Use is always his use or our use—the use of some one person or of several persons—and is always limited to a certain occurrence of the word in question.

Of course we can make a general statement: In appraisals of work, the use of the word ‘competent’ is always a denigration. Still, we’re speaking of incidents of a word’s use by people in a special situation, not use as it may be applied to the word competent in the way meaning is supposed to be.

Dex: You seem to think I’ve divorced the idea of use from the user. I didn’t intend to. I think use is always tied to the user. People—speakers—language-using animals—use words. When we think of use, we think of a user’s use and not of something else like things or characteristics of things. That’s why thinking about use will resolve your problem. It will hold your attention to the proper subject and keep it from wandering in the wrong directions.

Pen: I’m trying now to think of something definite that your phrase people use words suggests. I’m trying to think of some person using some word—and I can’t see how it gives me anything I could usefully think of when trying to give an account of the semantic character of a word. I have heard people say, If you use a word twice, you will make it part of your vocabulary. I’ve often said such things as: If he uses the word ‘presumably’ once more I’ll scream. I’ve wondered why sports writers think they have to use a different word every time they mean beat. I sometimes realize, when I’ve written something, that I didn’t use the best or most appropriate word, not the word I wanted and was looking for. In these cases I can’t see anything more to the idea of a person’s using a word than his saying something or writing something in which the word appears. It’s hard to see in any of these examples anything that suggests or supports the idea that every word has some use, some definite use, which is like or different from the uses of other words, something that is its semantical character.

Dex: I’m afraid that I don’t understand your difficulty. You seem unable to give up the idea that there must be something like a thing or property or relation to think of. I think you’re looking for the wrong sort of thing. You don’t see the requisite use of words because it is too near; it’s always right before you. As you speak to me, you use words—lots of them. When we try to think of the meaning of some word, we have nothing to think about except people using that word. If we’re uncertain what to say about the meaning of a certain word, we think of conversations and examples in which people—one person or another—use that word.

Pen: I don’t seem able to think of what you want me to. Now I’m trying to think every time anyone says anything he uses certain words. This is what immediately comes to mind. Somebody named Gomez says something. Perhaps I didn’t hear what he said. Manuel may tell me, He said that the cherries are not quite ripe. Now I suppose I can ask Manuel to tell me what words Gomez used: I want to know exactly what words he used. Manuel may then say, These are his exact words: ‘The cherries are not quite ripe.’ I’m interested because his speech is often full of unexpected poetic phrases. I thought he might have said, The cherries are not yet done within and candy coated, or something like that—or something better than that.

But here, when I want to know what words he used, I just want to know his exact words. If this is what we’re interested in whenever anyone uses words, then of course we’re not interested in semantics at all.

Dex: I’m beginning to think you have some deep resistance to seeing the obvious.

Pen: It seems to me I’ve been doing just what you say one should do if he’s interested in the semantics of a word. I’ve been trying to think of examples in which the word use will be used. Then I’ve tried to reflect on what these examples show me about the semantics of the word. So far, I can see no more in the verb to use as it occurs in phrases like he used the word . . . than that a person said or wrote something in which the word occurred.

Dex: What you fail to see is that the word occurred in a certain linguistic transaction, as part of something done in a human community—it played a part in the life of that community.

Pen: Now I’m inclined to think you don’t want me just to mull over examples. You want me to bring something to the examples, to interpret the examples in accordance with your theory.

Dex: I don’t like to think that I have any theory at all. But if I do, it gets its life entirely from examples. You have to do something with examples. You can’t just stare at them. You have to extract something from them, and it has to be something orderly and coherent. I don’t mind if you think of that as a theory.

Pen: When you say words are used in transactions and play a part in what people do, I think you’re bringing a certain picture or theory to the data. I think you must take seriously the simile you first used in talking about words.

Dex: What simile?

Pen: You said the use of a word is like the use of a tool.

Dex: Yes, I do take that seriously. When I consider the use of a word—one I regularly use—as a guide to what I say about its meaning, I’m in the same position as a carpenter or a mason who is asked to comment on a tool he regularly uses. The question, What is the semantical character of this word? is like the question, What is this tool? That, I think, is the same question as "What is the peculiar nature of this tool that