Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-sh8wx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-16T17:34:37.381Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Meanings of “Meaning”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

H. Gomperz*
Affiliation:
University of Southern California

Extract

The following analysis has been undertaken mainly for the purpose of presenting a sample of a method which, as the writer holds, would, if widely and consistently applied, tend considerably to reduce the number and the significance of epistemological problems. The presuppositions characteristic of this method might be summarized in these five statements:

  1. 1) You cannot make discoveries by changing the meaning of terms.

  2. 2) There is wisdom in common sense since it represents the accumulated experience of the race.

  3. 3) It cannot be impossible to work out common sense into a consistent terminology.

  4. 4) It is when we lack the patience to do this that epistemological problems seem to arise.

  5. 5) But when such a terminology is worked out, it will prove rather disappointing since it will just express, in a somewhat clarified form, what all the world has always been aware of.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association 1941

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)