The Main Thesis of Locke's Semantic Theory

Bibliographic Data

ID10693786
AuthorsNorman Kretzmann (corresponding author)
Year1968
Volume77
Issue2
Pages175
Publication date1968-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Philosophical Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0031-8108 • E-ISSN: 1558-1470
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2183319
OpenAlexW2326904970
LanguageEN
Citations received10

IN third book of his Essay concerning Human Understanding (first published in I690) John Locke produced first modern treatise devoted specifically to philosophy of language.' No work had a greater influence over development of philosophical semantics during Enlightenment than did this Book Three, entitled Of Words. Naturally it acquired importance simply as a result of being a part of enormously influential Essay, but source of its special influence lay in fact that Locke had expressly connected semantic inquiry with theory of knowledge. He had set out to investigate knowledge and along way found himself unexpectedly compelled to investigate the force and manner of of words (Essay 3.9.21), having discovered that there is so close a connexion between ideas and words ... that it is impossible to speak clearly and distinctly of our knowledge, which all consists in propositions, without considering, first, nature, use, and signification of Language (2.33.I9). Semantic inquiries during Middle Ages and Renaissance had been intimately associated with logic and grammar. The new epistemological orientation of semantics, apparent even in logic books of Enlightenment, was first explicitly established in Locke's Essay. Nevertheless, doctrines to be found in Book Three were not novel in principle, nor were they clearly stated or fully developed. Locke never claimed that they were new, and I am not now concerned with showing that they were not. Suffice it to

Analytic philosophy · Contemporary philosophy · Epistemology · General interest · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Philosophy