ABSTRACT
The Victoria Welby/Charles Kay Ogden correspondence is noteworthy from the viewpoint of the history of ideas, revealing as it does the connection between significs and the conception of meaning expounded in the renowned monograph The Meaning of Meaning, coauthored by Ogden with Ivor A. Richards. Welby characteristically used her correspondence — and her exchanges with Ogden were no exception — as the place for theoretical discussion, the exchange of ideas, information, and eventually materials. By a process of abstraction, Welby divided meaning into the three levels of “sense,” “meaning,” and “significance,” present in all spheres of human language, knowledge, and behavior. The “dynamical interpretant” concerns the sign’s signification in a specific context and corresponds to Welby’s “meaning” insofar as they both imply a specific intention. The Welby/Ogden correspondence nears its end as Ogden’s commitments on other fronts attracted the better part of his attention, leaving him little time for significs.
