ABSTRACT
This chapter presents several distinctions that will prove germane to the elucidation of an extensional theory of meaning. It examines George Berkeley’s discussions of the meaning of sortal terms. The chapter shows that Berkeley’s extensional theory of meaning pertains to syncategorematic terms as well as to categorematic terms. It investigates Berkeley’s discussions of analogical and metaphorical meaning. The chapter explores Berkeley’s positive theory of meaning by examining Berkeley’s objections to the doctrine of abstract ideas and his criteria of possibility and impossibility. In discussions of meaning, a distinction is commonly drawn between extensional or denotative theories of meaning and intensional or connotative theories of the meaning of sortal terms. The subjective extension of a term consists of all and only the objects that a particular speaker of a language includes in the extension of a term.
