ABSTRACT
The Meaning of Meaning is many books in one. It sets forth theories of signs, of definition, of linguistic functions, and of communication. A historical compendium of attitudes to and theories of language fills a hundred pages. There is a critique of philosophic tracts on "meaning" and "beauty" and a practical guide to improving thought and writing. The diversity of the book's theories has left the commentators at odds with one another, some characterizing it as behaviorist, others as mentalist in sympathy. 1 Even Richards and Ogden seem to contradict themselves as they go along. What unifies the book (and it is a unitary work) is a radical and iconoclastically stated inner theme: that words are not part of and do not correspond to things, but rather to thoughts and to emotions and feelings. They are neither signs for objects, nor events, nor universals and they cannot be fully defined by normative uses, proper and "essential" meanings, or grammatical categories. Language by convention can be fitted to a thing, a concept, a grammar, to anything, but it inevitably wriggles out from all restrictions. Words "'mean' nothing by themselves": "It is only when a thinker makes use of them that they stand for anything."2 Only context, that is, has meaning.
