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Facts and Meanings: from Word to Myth David Rozema University of Nebraska - Kerney

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Facts and Meanings: from Word to Myth David Rozema University of Nebraska - Kerney Inklings Forever Volume 8 A Collection of Essays Presented at the Joint Meeting of The Eighth Frances White Ewbank Article 23 Colloquium on C.S. Lewis & Friends and The C.S. Lewis & The Inklings Society Conference 5-31-2012 Facts and Meanings: From Word to Myth David Rozema University of Nebraska - Kerney Follow this and additional works at: https://pillars.taylor.edu/inklings_forever Part of the English Language and Literature Commons, History Commons, Philosophy Commons, and the Religion Commons Recommended Citation Rozema, David (2012) "Facts and Meanings: From Word to Myth," Inklings Forever: Vol. 8 , Article 23. Available at: https://pillars.taylor.edu/inklings_forever/vol8/iss1/23 This Essay is brought to you for free and open access by the Center for the Study of C.S. Lewis & Friends at Pillars at Taylor University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Inklings Forever by an authorized editor of Pillars at Taylor University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INKLINGS FOREVER, Volume VIII A Collection of Essays Presented at the Joint Meeting of The Eighth FRANCES WHITE EWBANK COLLOQUIUM ON C.S. LEWIS & FRIENDS and THE C.S. LEWIS AND THE INKLINGS SOCIETY CONFERENCE Taylor University 2012 Upland, Indiana Facts and Meanings: From Word to Myth David Rozema University of Nebraska Kerney Rozema, David. “Facts and Meanings: From Word to Myth.” Inklings Forever 8 (2012) www.taylor.edu/cslewis 1 Facts and Meanings: From Word to Myth David Rozema University of Nebraska Kerney Let me begin by tickling your fourth, the handle of a pump: it has mind with a comparison of several quotes an effect only so long as it is moved from two Cambridge men. Here are two to and fro. (Wittgenstein, 1958, from the first Cambridge man: remarks 43, 11, 12) For a large class of cases— The author of these passages is though not for all—in which we reminding us, by means of the analogies employ the word “meaning” it can with the tools and the handles, that words be defined thus: the meaning of a have many various uses. A hammer may word is its use in the language. be used to pound nails, but it may also be Think of the tools in a tool-box: used to pull them out, or to straighten there is a hammer, pliers, a saw, a them. It may also be used to crush stones, screwdriver, a ruler, a glue-pot, to tap a die, or to find a beam behind a glue, nails, and screws. The wall. It may even serve as a paper-weight. functions of words are as diverse as Similarly with the other tools mentioned. the functions of these objects. (And In addition, each tool is different from the in both cases there are similarities.) others in its range of possible uses. With Of course, what confuses us is the the handles, the reminder is similar: uniform appearance of words when though they are all handles, their we hear them spoken or meet them functions are various and quite different in script and print. For their from each other. application is not presented to us so This author reminds us of these clearly. Especially when we are things because, as he says, “the uniform doing philosophy! appearance of words when we hear them It is like looking into the cabin of spoken or meet them in script or print” a locomotive. We see handles all can confuse us. Let’s take, for example, looking more or less alike. the word “have”—a word as common in (Naturally, since they are all most people’s vocabulary as a hammer is supposed to be handled.) But one is in most people’s tool-boxes. Compare the the handle of a crank which can be function of the word “have” in the moved continuously (it regulates following sentences: “I have a house and the opening of a valve); another is two cars”; “I have a wife and two the handle of a switch, which has children”; “I have a headache”; “I have an only two effective positions, it is idea.” Is the word “have” used in the same either off or on; a third is the handle way in all of these sentences? Is it used of a brake-lever, the harder one the same way in any two of them? Clearly pulls on it, the harder it brakes; a not. Yet, the word itself is the same. If we 2 Facts and Meanings · David Rozema took one meaning of the word to be the As everyone knows, words only one, and then tried to understand the constantly take on new meanings. other sentences with that meaning the Since these do not necessarily, nor result would be confusion. But not even usually, obliterate the old necessarily an obvious confusion: it ones, we should picture this would be subtle, for we would be process not on the analogy of an attempting to use the word in one of its insect undergoing metamorphoses legitimate senses, only it would not be a but rather on that of a tree sensible use in that particular context. throwing out new branches, which Here is another example: the themselves throw out subordinate word “event.” Consider the following branches; in fact, as ramification. sentences: “Upcoming events at the The new branches sometimes Performing Arts Center include . .”; overshadow and kill the old ones “Coming to the Inklings conference has but by no means always. … When been one of the greatest events of my we use one word in many different life”; “In the event of flooding, seek senses we avail ourselves of the shelter in an upper storey”; “Astronomical results of semantic ramification. events, such as supernovae and the [But] we can do this successfully formation of black holes, are rarely seen without being aware of them. … from earth”; “Research on the workings of Each new speaker learns his native the brain is shedding light on mental language chiefly by imitation, partly events, such as remembering, decision- by those hurried scraps of amateur making, and imagining.” Is the use of the lexicography which his elders word “event” the same in all of these produce in answer to the frequent cases? The last sentence is particularly question, ‘What does that mean?’ puzzling, for it seems to cross the He does not at first—how should boundary of the sensible uses of the word he?—distinguish between different “event”: that is, it doesn’t quite seem right senses of one word and different to think of memories, decisions, and words. They all have to be learned imaginings as “events.” But, perhaps, this in the same way. … It is this most unseemly feeling might itself be simply important principle that enables another “mental event”! speakers to give half a dozen In any event, as the author also different meanings to a single word reminds us, what we need in order to with very little danger of confusion. avoid this sort of confusion is a clear … What seems to me certain is that presentation of the application of the in ordinary language the sense of a word; we need the word’s “use in the word is governed by the context language”; we need a particular context. and this sense normally excludes all This author has noticed that such others from the mind. … It is of confusion is especially prominent in course the insulating power of the doing philosophy, for it is common to find context which enables old senses to amongst philosophers a “craving for persist, uncontaminated by newer generality” or a “contemptuous attitude ones. Thus, train (of a dress) and toward the particular case.” That is, train (on the railway), or civil rather than looking at the differences (courteous) and civil (not military), between particular uses of these words, or magazine (a store) and magazine the tendency is to want to know what (a periodical) do not interfere with these words mean “in general.” one another because they are Now, here are more ticklers from unlikely to occur in the same the second Cambridge man: context. They live happily by 3 Facts and Meanings · David Rozema keeping out of each other’s way. But if it makes tolerable sense our (Lewis, 1960, 9-12) tendency is to go merrily on. We are often deceived. In an old author [or Notice, first of all, the remarkable in another context] the word may similarity of this author’s comments with mean something different. I call those of the first author. Perhaps you do such senses dangerous senses, not find it remarkable. After all, the main because they lure us into point is obvious. (Perhaps this is why it is misreadings. (Lewis, 1960, 13) so often overlooked.) But the similarity goes quite deep. Both authors recognize And this reminds me, too, of what our the distinctively different uses of the same first author says of such problems: word: there need be no drawn or These are, of course, not empirical conscious connection between one use problems; they are solved, rather, and the other. This implies that there is by looking into the workings of our no single “primary” or “literal” sense of a language, and that in such a way as word: two different uses of the same to make us recognize those word might be as distinctive as two workings; in despite of an urge to different words. Thus, as both authors misunderstand them. The problems also recognize, danger lurks when a word are solved, not by giving new is abstracted from its particular context— information, but by arranging what from its uses in ordinary language—and we have always known.
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