Chapter Two Contained an Argumentto Show That

Chapter Three

SEMANTIC RULES

Introduction

Chapter two contained an argumentto show that

in order to avoid begging questions we must look for

the sharpest possible criteria for identity of meanings,

and it was suggested that onlyby taking note of the

universals (i.e. observable properties and relations)

to which words are intended to refer could we find

sufficiently sharp criteria. (See 2.C.) The way had

been prepared for this in section 2.B., where it was

shown how conceptual schemes were important in connection

with identification of meanings, and how our own con-

ceptual scheme had provision for a distinction between

material objects and the universals which they instan-

tiate. Section 2.D contained arguments to show that

talk about universals can explainsince their existence

is a fact aboutthe world, independent of the existence

of instances or of our use of language.In this chapter

an attempt will be made to show in more detail how

properties may be used to give descriptive words their

meanings, andhow we maycompareand distinguish meanings

by examining the ways in which wordsrefer to properties.

This will provide many interesting examples to which the

analytic-synthetic distinction may be applied later on.

The programme for the chapter will be roughly as

follows. First of all the simplest type of correlation

between words andproperties will be discussed, and then

it will be shown how more complicated correlations are

possible,firstly by means of logical syntheses of con-

cepts and secondly by means of non-logical syntheses.

______

NOTE: This is part of A.Sloman's 1962 Oxford DPhil Thesis

"Knowing and Understanding"

Further information, contents, and other chapters arefreely available at:

Note (24/06/2016): When this chapter was written I knew nothing about programming and Artificial Intelligence. In retrospect, much of the discussion of procedures for applying concepts is directly relevant to the problems of designing human-like intelligent machines.

This will help to justify myclaim that universals

explain our use of descriptive words.

There will be many oversimplifications in this

chapter, since it ignores the fact that words are

ordinarily used with relatively indefinite meanings,

but it is hoped that this will be compensated for by

the discussion in chapter four. In addition, this

chapter will be concerned only to show how we decide

whether or not a particular object is describable by

some word. In order to explain how descriptive words

can contribute to the meanings of whole sentences, we

must wait for the discussion of logical words and con-

structions in chapter five.

Finally, notice that although the discussion is

restricted to words which refer to properties, never-

theless similar remarks could be made about words

referring to observable relations.

3.A.F-words

3.A.1.The simplest sort of semantic rule, though by

no means the only sort, is one which correlates a des-

criptive word with only one property, which must be

possessed by objects correctly describable by that word.

I describe this sort of word as an “f-word” (or feature-

word), and shall say that it is governedbyan f-rule.

Such words describe objects in virtue of something which

they have in common, some respect in which they are all

alike. If, for example, the word “scarlet” refers to a

specific shade of colour, then we may say that it is an

f-word, and all the things which it describes, since

they have exactly the same shade of colour, are alike in

some respect.

The word “red”, as used by normal persons, also

refers to one property, not a shade, but a hue, which

may be common to objects of different shades. When

we look at the white light spectrum (or a rainbow),

we see a continuous range of continuously varying

shades of colour. Yet despite this continuity, the

spectrum is divided into fairly definite bands, each

containing a rangeofspecific shades which arediffer-

ent from one another, yet have something in common.

All the shades in the red band, for example, have some-

thing in common which they do not share with shades in

the orange band, or the yellow band, despite the possi-

bility that shades of red and shades of orange may

resemble one another closely, if they are near the

red-orange boundary.

Hampshire wrote, in “Thought and Action”,on p.35:

“there are a definite number of discriminableshades,

to each one of which a definite name can be allotted”.

He must surely have meant hues rather than specific

shades, for there seem to be indefinitely manydifferent

specific shades. Nevertheless his remarks illustrate

what I meanbyan f-word. I shall ignore for the time

being, the fact that the boundaries between bands may

be more or less indeterminate, andthe fact that differ-

ent persons maysee their bands in different places.

(Contrastwhat I have said with Wittgenstein’s remarks,

in the “Blue and Brown Books”, p.133–5.)

3.A.2.Just as normal persons can learn to see the hue

common to objects with different shades of red, and

associate it with the word “red”, so can most normal

persons learn to perceive the property common to objects

which are all triangular, even though they have different

specific triangular shapes. Such persons mayadopt an

f-rule, correlating the word “triangular” with that common

property. In addition, each of the many different

specific triangular shapes may be memorized and correlated

with a descriptive word by an f-rule. (E.g., the shape

of an equilateral triangle, or a triangle whose sides

meet at angles of 90°, 60° and 30°.)

It should be noticed that I am nottalkingabout

so-called “perfect” triangles. I am talking about

shapes which we can all recognize and which a child can

learn to distinguish long before it learns to prove

geometrical theorems or talk about “perfectly” straight

lines. We allknow how to distinguish triangular

pieces of cardboard, or diagrams, from round or square

ones, for example. In chapter seven something will be

said about “perfect” geometrical conceptsand other

idealized concepts, such as the concept of a perfectly

specific shade of colour. But thischapter is not con-

cerned with such things.

3.A.3.The examples “triangle” and “red”, illustrate

an ambiguity in talking about a wordwhich is correlated

with justone property. This does not mean that there

may not be a whole range of different properties which

correspond to the word. For example, there are very

many different shades of red which may be possessed by

red objects, anddifferenttriangular shapes which may

be possessed by triangles. Nevertheless, in each case,

if the word is an f-word, than there is only one property

in virtue ofwhich all those objectsarecorrectly

describable by it. (Cf. 3.C.5.)

Neither do I wish to rule out the possibility that

there may be other less specific properties common to

all the objects described by an f-word. Forexample,

even if theword “triangular” refers to only one property,

thereare nevertheless several other properties common

to allobjects which it describes. For example, all are

bounded by straight lines, may be inscribed in circles,

and have no reflex angles. These properties may be

possessed by other objects too, such as square or hexa-

gonal objects. But there are other properties common

only to triangles, such as the property of being recti-

linear and having angles which add up to a straight line.

3.A.4.It may be objectedthat there is not justone

feature or property associated with the word “triangular”

since a definition can be given in terms of simpler

notions. But anyone who talks about the possibility of

analysing such a concept in terms of simpler ones, or

about criteria for telling whether an object has the

property or not, must at least admit that at some stage

we simply have to recognize something, be it a criterion

or one of the “simpler” properties. Then a word could

be correlated with that “something” by means of an f-rule

and would illustrate what I am talking about. However,

since triangularityis a feature which most of us can

perceive and take in at a glance, whynotallow that the

word “triangular” can be usedasan f-word, if thereare

f-words at all? I do not wish to settle this here.

(One person may regardsome property simple or unanalys-

able, while anotherregards it as built out of simpler

properties. Are theretwo properties, or only one?

Cf. “tetrahedral” example in 2.C.8.)

3.A.5.F-words need not describe only continuously

existing material objects. A sound which starts, lasts

a few minutes,thenstops is a particular, and may be

described as a sort of physical object with physical

properties. It can be located in time, and sometimes

in space too. It may be a sound of a definite pitch, and

this property may be shared with other sounds. Or it

may have a definite timbre,suchas the tone of a flute,

or clarinet, or electronic organ, and share this pro-

perty with other sounds quite different in pitch. It

may be the sound of a major chord, and share this pro-

perty with other sounds in different keys, or with

different dynamic distributions (e.g. the tonic may be

louderthan the dominant in one, but not the other).

Each of these properties common to different sounds can

be memorized, associated with a descriptive f-word, and

recognized again later on.

A sound may also change.If it changes in pitch,

then the pattern of changes may be recognizable, and we

can speak of a “tune”, and other sounds may have the same

tune. Some persons may be able to memorize the sound of

a whole symphony, and associate that property with an

f-word. Less fortunate beings can merely recognize

parts of symphonies, or the styles in which they are

written, such as Beethoven’s style, or Hindemith’s.

These are properties of enduring objects or events, and

have to be perceived during an interval of time. But

they may all be correlated with descriptive f-words, by

means of f-rules.

3.A.6.The important thing about allthe examples is

that they involve properties which can be perceived by

means of the senses, memorized, and recognized in new

instances. A property which is not observable by means

of the senses, such as the property of being magnetized,

or of having a certain electrical resistivity, cannot

be correlated thus with a descriptive word and provide

a rational explanation of our use of the word. Words

may, of course, refer to such “inferred” properties

(e.g. “dispositional” properties), but not in the same

way. (Theremay be some intermediate cases.)

3.A.7.These observable properties are the basic enti-

ties out of which the meanings of many kinds of descriptive

words are constructed. I have so far described only

the very simplest kind of descriptive word, governed by

the very simplest kind of semantic rule, namely a rule

which correlates one property with one word.

It is commonly denied that descriptive words cor-

respond to single entities which are their meanings,

or account for their having meanings (see, for example,

remarks in 2.D.6 and 7, etc., to the effect that the

“one-one” model will not do). Unfortunately, this

denial is usually much too vague to be of use to anyone.

By showing that there are other kindsof descriptive

words than f-words, and why they fail to fit the “one-

one” model, I shall be describing one clear sense in

which the denial is justified, though relatively trivial.

But it is important to distinguish the thesis that the

one-one model is inadequate to account for mostofour

descriptive words from the thesis that descriptive words

do not refer to properties or other universals which

can explain their use. It is very easy to confuse these

theses. (I think Wittgenstein’s discussion of the notion

of “following a rule” in “Philosophical Investigations”

was intended to support something like thelatter

thesis. I shall not explicitly argue against him,

but my account canbe construed as an attempt to show

that an alternative picture can be coherently constructed.)

The time hasnow cometo turn to more complicated

types of semantic correlations.

3.B.Logical syntheses

3.B.1.Some one-one correlations between descriptive

words and properties have been described, and now we must

see how more complicated correlations are possible if

new semantic correlations are constructed out of the

simplest ones. Three methods of construction will be

describedinthis section, namely disjunction, conjunction

end negation. These correspond to the use of the

logical connectives “or”, “and” and “not” in explicit

definitions. They may be thought of notonly as pro-

positional connectives, but also as meaning-functions,

which take words as arguments and yield expressions

whose meanings are simple functions of the meanings of

the arguments. I shall simply assume that we under-

stand these logical words, and will not try to explain

how they work. (See chapter five.)

The construction of new semantic correlations of the

sorts about to be described may be called a process of

“logical synthesis”. Later, we shall contrast it with

processes of “non-logical synthesis”.

3.B.2.D-words

The first sort of rule which does not fit the simple

one-one model is a semantic rule which correlates a word

with more than one property, disjunctively. I shall call

such a rule a d-rule, and the word it governs a d-word.

For example, the word “ored” may be correlated with the

two hues, red and orange, so that the word describes

an objectif and only if it has one or other of these two

properties. If the words “red” and “orange” are f-words

which refer to these two properties, then the word “ored”

means the same as “red or orange”.

A more interesting kind of disjunctive rule is one

which correlates a word with a whole range of properties,

such as a range of specific shades of colour. The word

“red” may be used as a d-word of this sort, instead of

as an f-word. For there may be persons who can see and

discriminate and memorize specific shades of colour,

though quite unable to see hues in the way in which most

normal persons can, as described in 3.A.1, above. Such

a person willsee the spectrum as a single band of

continuously varying shades of colour, much as we see one

of thebands of the spectrum. This hue-blind (but not

colour-blind) person will not see thespectrum divided

up into different bands, so he cannot learn to use the

word “red” in thenormal way.If presented with pieces

of coloured paper all of different shades, and instructed

to arrange them in groups with a common feature, he will

be unable to do so,evenif there are several red pieces,

several yellow pieces, and so on. To him they all simply

look different. (They look different to normal persons

too, but they also have respects of similarity, which is

why we can group them.) Though unable to learn to use

the word “red” in the normal way, such a hue-blind person

may learn to use it as a d-word, by memorizing all the

different shadesin the spectrum which lie in the red

band,and then describing an object as “red” if and only

if it has one of the specific shades of colour which he

has learnt to associate with the word. Similarly,

aperson who is not hue-blind, butsees the spectrum

dividedup differently from the way we do (his “hues”

are different because he sees bands in different places)

may learn to use our word “red”as a d-word, by memorizing

specific shades of colour. All we require of such

personsisthat they agree withnormal persons as to

whether objectsare exactly the sameshade of colour or

not.

3.B.2.a.In the same way, there may be a person who is

unable to see anything common to all those shapes which

are triangular, although he can see and discriminate

specific shapes and tell, for example, whether two

objects are both equilaterally triangular,ornot.

Perhaps he is unable to count up to three - but the

explanation of his inability to perceive triangularity

need not concern us. Such a person cannot use the words

“triangle”, “quadrilateral”, etc., as f-words, for he

cannot see any common property with which they may be

correlated. Butifhe can see andmemorize specific

triangular shapes, such as the shape of a right-angled

isosceles triangle, and distinguish themfrom other

specific shapes, suchas the shape of a square or a

regular pentagon, then he can memorize a whole range of

specific triangular shapes andadopt a d-rule correlating

them with theword “triangular”. He then uses the word

to describe objects if and onlyif they have one of the

many shapes which he has memorized, as in the case of

“ored” or the d-word “red”. (As before, I am nottalking

about “perfect” mathematical, shapes, but shapes which we

canall learn to recognize and discriminate with greater

and lesser degrees of accuracy.)

Of course, these examples are highly artificial,

since there are indefinitely many different specific

shades of red, and indefinitely manyspecifictriangular

shapes and nobody could memorize themall. But the

essential point could as well be illustratedby a person

who merely memorized very many different shades of red,

or triangular shapes, enough to get by with in most

ordinary circumstances. (Later, a procedure for picking

out a whole rangeof properties without memorizingthem

all will be described.) Notice that a person who

memorizes a set of propertiesand correlates them with a

word need nothave a name for each of them. His d-word

need not, therefore, be definable in his vocabulary.

3.B.3.C-words

The next type of semantic rule is one which correlates

a word with a combination of properties. This is a

c-word, and refers to a set of properties conjunctively.

For example, the word “gleen” might be defined so as to

refer to the combination of the hue, green, andthe

surface-property, glossiness. It would then describe

objects which possessed both of these properties,and

would be synonymous with the expression “green and

glossy”. (As before, someone might learn to use a

c-word to refer to a combination of properties without

being taught names for those different properties.

Then, in his vocabulary, the word would be indefinable,