Sense and Science

Abstract

Meaning, thought Bloomfield, is an important matter. Yet the study of meaning, according to him ([2], p. 139), is in poor shape. Its development he took to depend on the development of science: while only science can guarantee ‘accurate definitions’ of linguistic terms, the state of science is lamentably such that it cannot actually provide such definitions to most linguistic expressions. There are, however, some words whose definitions are in a happier state. Thus, he says, We can define the names of minerals, for example, in terms of chemistry and mineralogy, as when we say that the ordinary meaning of the English word ‘salt’ is ‘sodium chloride (NaCl)’, and we can define the names of plants or animals by means of the technical terms of botany or zoology, but we have no precise way of defining words like ‘love’ or ‘hate’, which concern situations which have not been accurately classified — and these latter are in the great majority. ([2], p. 139.)