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Meaning and Synonymy in Natural Languages by Rudolf Carnap UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA at LOS ANGELES

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Meaning and Synonymy in Natural Languages by Rudolf Carnap UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA at LOS ANGELES Meaning and Synonymy in Natural Languages by Rudolf Carnap UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES 1. Meaning Analysis in Pragmatics and Semantics The analysis of meanings of expressions occurs in two fundamentally different forms. The first belongs to pragmatics, that is, the empirical investigation of historically given natural languages. This kind of analysis has long carried out by linguists and philosophers, especially analytic philosophers. The second form was developed only recently in the field of symbolic logic; this form belongs to semantics (here understood in the sense of pure semantics, while descriptive semantics may be regarded as of pragmatics), that is, the study of constructed language systems given by their rules. The theory of the relations between a language—either a natural language a language system— and what language is about may be divided into two parts which I call the theory of extension and the theory of intension, respectively.1 The first deals with concepts like denoting, naming, extension, and related ones. (For example, the word ‘blau’ in German, and likewise the predicate ‘B’ in a symbolic language system if a rule assigns to it the same meaning, denote any object that is blue; its extension is the class of all blue objects; ‘der Mond’ is a name of the moon; the sentence ‘der Mond ist blau’ is true if and only if the moon is blue.) The theory of intension deals with concepts like intension, synonymy, analyticity, and 33 34 PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES related ones; for our present discussion let us call them “intension concepts.” (I use ‘intension’ as a technical term for the meaning of an expression or, more specifically, for its designative meaning component; see below. For example, the intension of ‘blau’ in German is the property of being blue; two predicates are synonymous if and only if they have the same intension; a sentence is analytic if it is true by virtue of the intensions of the expressions occurring in it.) From a systematic point of view, the description of a language may well begin with the theory of intension and then build the theory of extension on its basis. By learning the theory of intension of language, say German, we learn the intensions of the words and phrases and finally of the sentences. Thus the theory of intension of a given language L enables us to understand the sentences of L. On the other hand, we can apply the concepts of the theory of extension of L only if we have, in addition to the knowledge of the theory of intension of L, also sufficient empirical knowledge of the relevant facts. For example, in order to ascertain whether a German word denotes a given object, one must first understand the word, that is, know what is its intension, in other words, know the general condition which an object must fulfill in order to be denoted by this word; and secondly he must investigate the object in question in order to see whether it fulfills the condition or not. On the other hand, if a linguist makes an empirical investigation of a language not previously described, he finds out first that certain objects are denoted by a given word, and later he determines the intension of the word. Nobody doubts that the pragmatical investigation of natural languages is of greatest importance for an understanding both of the behavior of individuals and of the character and development of whole cultures. On the other hand, I believe with the majority of logicians today that for the special purpose of the development of logic the construction and semantical investigation of language systems is more important. But also for the logician a study of pragmatics may be useful. If he wishes to find out an efficient form for a language system to be used, say, in a branch of empirical science, he might find fruitful suggestions by a study of the natural development of the language of scientists and even of the every. day language. Many of the concepts used today in pure semantics were indeed suggested by corresponding pragmatical concepts which had been used for natural languages by philosophers or linguists, though usually without exact definitions. Those semantical concepts were, in a sense, intended as explicata for the corresponding pragmatical concepts. In the case of the semantical intension concepts there is an additional motivation for studying the corresponding pragmatical concepts. The reason is that some of the objections raised against these semantical concepts MEANING AND SYNONYMY 35 concern, not so much any particular proposed explication, but the question of the very existence of the alleged explicanda. Especially Quine’s criticism does not concern the formal correctness of the definitions in pure semantics; rather, he doubts whether there are any clear and fruitful corre- sponding pragmatical concepts which could serve as explicanda. That is the reason why he demands that these pragmatical concepts be shown to be scientifically legitimate by stating empirical, behavioristic criteria for them. If I understand him correctly, he believes that, without this pragmatical substructure, the semantical intension concepts, even if formally correct, are arbitrary and without purpose. I do not think that a semantical concept, in order to be fruitful, must necessarily possess a prior pragmatical counterpart. It is theoretically possible to demonstrate its fruitfulness through its application in the further development of language systems. But this is a slow process. If for a given semantical concept there is already a familiar; though somewhat vague, corre- sponding pragmatical concept and if we are able to clarify the latter by describing an operational procedure for its application, then this may indeed be a simpler way for refuting the objections and furnish a practical justification at once for both concepts. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the nature of the pragmatical concept of intension in natural languages and to outline a behavioristic, operational procedure for it. This will give a prac- tical vindication for the semantical intension concepts; ways for defining them, especially analyticity, I have shown in a previous paper.2 By way of introduction I shall first (in §2) discuss briefly the pragmatical concepts of denotation and extension; it seems to be generally agreed that they are scientifically legitimate. 2. The Determination of Extensions We take as example the German language. We imagine that a linguist who does not know anything about this language sets out to study it by observing the linguistic behavior of German- speaking people. More specifically, he studies the German language as used by a given person Karl at a given time. For simplicity, we restrict the discussion in this paper mainly to predicates applicable to observable things, like ‘blau’ and ‘Hund.’ It is generally agreed that, on the basis of spontaneous or elicited utterances of a person, the linguist can ascertain whether or not the person is willing to apply a given predicate to a given thing, in other words, whether the predicate denotes the given thing for the person. By collecting results of this kind, the linguist can determine first, the extension of the predicate “Hund” within a given region for Karl, that is, the class of the things to which Karl is willing to apply the predicate, second, the extension of the PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES 36 contradictory, that is, the class of those things for which Karl denies the application of ‘Hund,’ and, third, the intermediate class of those things for which Karl is not willing either to affirm or to deny the predicate. The size of the third class indicates the degree of vagueness of the predicate ‘Hund,’ if we disregard for simplicity the effect of Karl’s ignorance about relevant facts. For certain predicates, e.g., ‘Mensch,’ this third class is relatively very small; the degree of their extensional vagueness is low. On the basis of the determination of the three classes for the predicate ‘Hund’ within the investigated region, the linguist may make a hypothesis concerning the responses of Karl to things outside of that region, and maybe even a hypothesis concerning the total extension in the universe. The latter hypothesis cannot, of course, be completely verified, but every single instance of it can in principle be tested. On the other hand, it is also generally agreed that this determination of extension involves uncertainty and possible error. But since this holds for all concepts of empirical science, nobody regards this fact as a sufficient reason for rejecting the concepts of the theory of extension. The sources of uncertainty are chiefly the following: first, the linguist’s acceptance of the result that a given thing is denoted by ‘Hund’ for Karl may be erroneous, e.g., due to a misunderstanding or a factual error of Karl’s; and, second, the generalization to things which he has not tested suffers, of course, from the uncertainty of all inductive inference. 3. The Determination of Intensions The purpose of this paper is to defend the thesis that the analysis of intension for a natural language is a scientific procedure, methodologically just as sound as the analysis of extension. To many linguists and philosophers this thesis will appear as a truism. However, some contemporary philosophers, especially Quine3 and White4 believe that the pragmatical intention concepts are foggy, mysterious, and not really understandable, and that so far no explications for them have been given. They believe further that, if an explication for one of these concepts is found, it will at best be in the form of a concept of degree. They acknowledge the good scientific status of the pragmatical concepts of the theory of extension. They emphasize that their objection against the intension concepts is based on a point of principle and not on the generally recognized facts of the technical difficulty of linguistic investigations, the inductive uncertainty, and the vagueness of the words of ordinary language.
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