Meaning
Author(s): H. P. Grice
Source: The Philosophical Review , Jul., 1957, Vol. 66, No. 3 (Jul., 1957), pp. 377-388
Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of Philosophical Review
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2182440
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MEANING
CONSIDER the following sentences:
"Those spots mean (meant) measles."
"Those spots didn't mean anything to me, but to the
doctor they meant measles."
"The recent budget means that we shall have a hard
year.'"
(i) I cannot say, "Those spots meant measles, but he hadn't
got measles," and I cannot say, "The recent budget means that
we shall have a hard year, but we shan't have." That is to say,
in cases like the above, x meant that p and x means that p entail p.
(2) I cannot argue from "Those spots mean (meant) measles"
to any conclusion about "what is (was) meant by those spots";
for example, I am not entitled to say, "What was meant by
those spots was that he had measles." Equally I cannot draw from
the statement about the recent budget the conclusion "What is
meant by the recent budget is that we shall have a hard year."
(3) I cannot argue from "Those spots meant measles" to any
conclusion to the effect that somebody or other meant by those
spots so-and-so. Mutatis mutandis, the same is true of the sentence
about the recent budget.
(4) For none of the above examples can a restatement be
found in which the verb "mean" is followed by a sentence or
phrase in inverted commas. Thus "Those spots meant measles"
cannot be reformulated as "Those spots meant 'measles' " or
as "Those spots meant 'he has measles.' "
(5) On the other hand, for all these examples an approximate
restatement can be found beginning with the phrase "The fact
that ... ."; for example, "The fact that he had those spots meant
that he had measles" and "The fact that the recent budget was
as it wa? means that we shall have a hard year."
Now contrast the above sentences with the following:
"Those three rings on the bell (of the bus) mean that the
'bus is full.'"
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H. P. GRICE
"That remark, 'Smith couldn't get on without his trouble
and strife,' meant that Smith found his wife indispensable."
(i) I can use the first of these and go on to say, "But it isn't
in fact full-the conductor has made a mistake"; and I can use
the second and go on, "But in fact Smith deserted her seven
years ago." That is to say, here x means that p and x meant that
do not entail p.
(2) I can argue from the first to some statement about "what
is (was) meant" by the rings on the bell and from the second to
some statement about "what is (was) meant" by the quoted
remark.
(3) I can argue from the first sentence to the conclusion that
somebody (viz., the conductor) meant, or at any rate should have
meant, by the rings that the bus is full, and I can argue analogously
for the second sentence.
(4) The first sentence can be restated in a form in which the
verb "mean" is followed by a phrase in inverted commas, that is,
"Those three rings on the bell mean 'the bus is full.'" So also
can the second sentence.
(5) Such a sentence as "The fact that the bell has been rung
three times means that the bus is full" is not a restatement of the
meaning of the first sentence. Both may be true, but they do not
have, even approximately, the same meaning.
When the expressions "means,'' "means something," "means
that" are used in the kind of way in which they are used in the
first set of sentences, I shall speak of the sense, or senses, in which
they are used, as the natural sense, or senses, of the expressions in
question. When the expressions are used in the kind of way in
which they are used in the second set of sentences, I shall speak
of the sense, or senses, in which they are used, as the nonnatural
sense, or senses, of the expressions in question. I shall use the
abbreviation "meansNN" to distinguish the nonnatural sense or
senses.
I propose, for convenience, also to include under the head of
natural senses of "mean" such senses of "mean" as may be
exemplified in sentences of the pattern "A means (meant) to
do so-and-so (by x)," where A is a human agent. By contrast, as
the previous examples show, I include under the head of non-
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MEANING
natural senses of "mean" any senses of "mean" found in sentences
of the patterns "A means (meant) something by x" or "A means
(meant) by x that...." (This is overrigid; but it will serve as an
indication.)
I do not want to maintain that all our uses of "mean" fall
easily, obviously, and tidily into one of the two groups I have
distinguished; but I think that in most cases we should be at
least fairly strongly inclined to assimilate a use of "mean" to one
group rather than to the other. The question which now arises
is this: "What more can be said about the distinction between the
cases where we should say that the word is applied in a natural
sense and the cases where we should say that the word is applied
in an nonnatural sense?" Asking this question will not of course
prohibit us from trying to give an explanation of "meaning,,"
in terms of one or another natural sense of "mean."
This question about the distinction between natural and nonnatural
meaning is, I think, what people are getting at when
they display an interest in a distinction between "natural" and
"conventional" signs. But I think my formulation is better. For
some things which can meanNN something are not signs (e.g., words
are not), and some are not conventional in any ordinary sense
(e.g., certain gestures); while some things which mean naturally
are not signs of what they mean (cf. the recent budget example).
I want first to consider briefly, and reject, what I might term a
causal type of answer to the question, "What is meanings ??"
We might try to say, for instance, more or less with C. L.
Stevenson,' that for x to meanNN something, x must have (roughly
a tendency to produce in an audience some attitude (cognitive
or otherwise) and a tendency, in the case of a speaker, to be
produced by that attitude, these tendencies being dependent on
"an elaborate process of conditioning attending the use of the
sign in communication."2 This clearly will not do.
(i) Let us consider a case where an utterance, if it qualifies at
all as meaningNN something, will be of a descriptive or informative
kind and the relevant attitude, therefore, will be a cognitive one,
Ethics and Language (New Haven, I 944), ch. iii.
2 Ibid., P- 57-
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H. P. GRICE
for example, a belief. (I use "utterance" as a neutral word to
apply to any candidate for meaningNN; it has a convenient actobject
ambiguity.) It is no doubt the case that many people have
a tendency to put on a tail coat when they think they are about
to go to a dance, and it is no doubt also the case that many
people, on seeing someone put on a tail coat, would conclude
that the person in question was about to go to a dance. Does
this satisfy us that putting on a tail coat meansNN that one is
about to go to a dance (or indeed meansNN anything at all)?
Obviously not. It is no help to refer to the qualifying phrase
"dependent on an elaborate process of conditioning. . . ." For
if all this means is that the response to the sight of a tail coat being
put on is in some way learned or acquired, it will not exclude
the present case from being one of meaningsN. But if we have to
take seriously the second part of the qualifying phrase ("attending
the use of the sign in communication"), then the account of
meaningN is obviously circular. We might just as well say,
"X has meaning., if it is used in communication," which, though
true, is not helpful.
(2) If this is not enough, there is a difficulty-really the same
difficulty, I think-which Stevenson recognizes: how we are
to avoid saying, for example, that "Jones is tall" is part of what
is meant by "Jones is an athlete," since to tell someone that Jones
is an athlete would tend to make him believe that Jones is tall.
Stevenson here resorts to invoking linguistic rules, namely, a
permissive rule of language that "athletes may be nontall." This
amounts to saying that we are not prohibited by rule from speaking
of "nontall athletes." But why are we not prohibited? Not
because it is not bad grammar, or is not impolite, and so on, but
presumably because it is not meaningless (or, if this is too strong,
does not in any way violate the rules of meaning for the expressions
concerned). But this seems to involve us in another circle.
Moreover, one wants to ask why, if it is legitimate to appeal
here to rules to distinguish what is meant from what is suggested,
this appeal was not made earlier, in the case of groans, for example,
to deal with which Stevenson originally introduced the
qualifying phrase about dependence on conditioning.
A further deficiency in a causal theory of the type just
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MEANING
expounded seems to be that, even if we accept it as it stand
are furnished with an analysis only of statements about the
ard meaning, or the meaning in general, of a "sign." No
vision is made for dealing with statements about what a pa
speaker or writer means by a sign on a particular occasion
may well diverge from the standard meaning of the sign);
it obvious how the theory could be adapted to make such pr
One might even go further in criticism and maintain t
causal theory ignores the 'fact that the meaning (in genera
sign needs to be explained in terms of what users of the si
(or should) mean by it on particular occasions; and so th
notion, which is unexplained by the causal theory, is in fac
fundamental one. I am sympathetic to this more radical cri
though I am aware that the point is controversial.
I do not propose to consider any further theories of the "
tendency" type. I suspect no such theory could avoid diffic
analogous to those I have outlined without utterly losing its
claim to rank as a theory of this type.
I will now try a different and, I hope, more promising line.
If we can elucidate the meaning of
"x meantNN something (on a particular occasion)" and
"x meantNN that so-and-so (on a particular occasion)"
and of
"A meantNN something by x (on a particular occasion)" and
"A meantNN by x that so-and-so (on a particular occasion),"
this might reasonably be expected to help us with
"x meansNN (timeless) something (that so-and-so),"
"A meansNN (timeless) by x something (that so-and-so),"
and with the explication of "means the same as," "understands,"
"entails," and so on. Let us for the moment pretend that we have
to deal only with utterances which might be informative or
descriptive.
A first shot would be to suggest that "x meantNN something"
would be true if x was intended by its utterer to induce a belief
in some "audience" and that to say what the belief was would
be to say what x meantNN. This will not do. I might leave B's
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H. P. GRICE
handkerchief near the scene of a murder in order to in
detective to believe that B was the murderer; but we should
not want to say that the handkerchief (or my leaving it there)
meantNN anything or that I had meantNN by leaving it that B was
the murderer. Clearly we must at least add that, for x to have
meantNN anything, not merely must it have been "uttered" with
the intention of inducing a certain belief but also the utterer must
have intended an "audience" to recognize the intention behind
the utterance.
This, though perhaps better, is not good enough. Consider the
following cases:
(i) Herod presents Salome with the head of St. John the
Baptist on a charger.
(2) Feeling faint, a child lets its mother see how pale it
is (hoping that she may draw her own conclusions and help).
(3) I leave the china my daughter has broken lying around
for my wife to see.
Here we seem to have cases which satisfy the conditions so far
given for meanings . For example, Herod intended to make
Salome believe that St. John the Baptist was dead and no doubt
also intended Salome to recognize that he intended her to believe
that St. John the Baptist was dead. Similarly for the other cases.
Yet I certainly do not think that we should want to say that we
have here cases of meaningNN.
What we want to find is the difference between, for example,
"deliberately and openly letting someone know" and "telling"
and between "getting someone to think" and "telling."
The way out is perhaps as follows. Compare the following two
cases:
(i) I show Mr. X a photograph of Mr. r displaying undue
familiarity to Mrs. X.
(2) I draw a picture of Mr. r behaving in this manner and
show it to Mr. X.
I find that I want to deny that in (i) the photograph (or my
showing it to Mr. X) meantNN anything at all; while I want to
assert that in (2) the picture (or my drawing and showing it)
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MEANING
meantNN something (that Mr. r had been unduly unfamiliar),
or at least that I had meantNN by it that Mr. r had been unduly
familiar. What is the difference between the two cases? Surely
that in case (i) Mr. X's recognition of my intention to make him
believe that there is something between Mr. r and Mrs. X is
(more or less) irrelevant to the production of this effect by the
photograph. Mr. X would be led by the photograph at least to
suspect Mrs. X even if instead of showing it to him I had left it
in his room by accident; and I (the photograph shower) would
not be unaware of this. But it will make a difference to the effect
of my picture on Mr. X whether or not he takes me to be intending
to inform him (make him believe something) about Mrs. X, and
not to be just doodling or trying to produce a work of art.
But now we seem to be landed in a further difficulty if we
accept this account. For consider now, say, frowning. If I frown
spontaneously, in the ordinary course of events, someone looking
at me may well treat the frown as a natural sign of displeasure.
But if I frown deliberately (to convey my displeasure), an onlooker
may be expected, provided he recognizes my intention, still to
conclude that I am displeased. Ought we not then to say, since
it could not be expected to make any difference to the onlooker's
reaction whether he regards my frown as spontaneous or as
intended to be informative, that my frown (deliberate) does not
meanNN anything? I think this difficulty can be met; for though
in general a deliberate frown may have the same effect (as regards
inducing belief in my displeasure) as a spontaneous frown, it can
be expected to have the same effect only provided the audience
takes it as intended to convey displeasure. That is, if we take
away the recognition of intention, leaving the other circumstances
(including the recognition of the frown as deliberate),
the belief-producing tendency of the frown must be regarded as
being impaired or destroyed.
Perhaps we may sum up what is necessary for A to mean something
by x as follows. A must intend to induce by x a belief in
an audience, and he must also intend his utterance to be recognized
as so intended. But these intentions are not independent;
the recognition is intended by A to play its part in inducing the
belief, and if it does not do so something will have gone wrong
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H. P. GRICE
with the fulfillment of A's intentions. Moreover, A's intending
that the recognition should play this part implies, I think, that
he assumes that there is some chance that it will in fact play this
part, that he does not regard it as a foregone conclusion that the
belief will be induced in the audience whether or not the intention
behind the utterance is recognized. Shortly, perhaps, we
may say that "A meantNN something by x" is roughly equivalent
to "A uttered x with the intention of inducing a belief by means
of the recognition of this intention." (This seems to involve a
reflexive paradox, but it does not really do so.)
Now perhaps it is time to drop the pretense that we have to
deal only with "informative" cases. Let us start with some examples
of imperatives or quasi-imperatives. I have a very avaricious
man in my room, and I want him to go; so I throw a pound note
out of the window. Is there here any utterance with a meaningN ?
No, because in behaving as I did, I did not intend his recognition
of my purpose to be in any way effective in getting him to go.
This is parallel to the photograph case. If on the other hand I
had pointed to the door or given him a little push, then my
behavior might well be held to constitute a meaningfulNN utter
ance, just because the recognition of my intention would be
intended by me to be effective in speeding his departure. Another
pair of cases would be (i) a policeman who stops a car by standing
in its way and (2) a policeman who stops a car by waving.
Or, to turn briefly to another type of case, if as an examiner
I fail a man, I may well cause him distress or indignation or
humiliation; and if I am vindictive, I may intend this effect and
even intend him to recognize my intention. But I should not be
inclined to say that my failing him meantNN anything. On the
other hand, if I cut someone in the street I do feel inclined to
assimilate this to the cases of meaningNN, and this inclination
seems to me dependent on the fact that I could not reasonably
expect him to be distressed (indignant, humiliated) unless he
recognized my intention to affect him in this way. (Cf., if my
college stopped my salary altogether I should accuse them of
ruining me; if they cut it by 2/6d I might accuse them of insulting
me; with some intermediate amounts I might not know quite
what to say.)
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MEANING
Perhaps then we may make the following generalizations.
(i) "A meantNN something by x" is (roughly) equivalent to
"A intended the utterance of x to produce some effect in an
audience by means of the recognition of this intention"; and we
may add that to ask what A meant is to ask for a specification of
the intended effect (though, of course, it may not always be
possible to get a straight answer involving a "that" clause, for
example, "a belief that . . .").
(2) "x meant something" is (roughly) equivalent to "Somebody
meantNN something by x." Here again there will be cases
where this will not quite work. I feel inclined to say that (as
regards traffic lights) the change to red meantNN that the traffic
was to stop; but it would be very unnatural to say, "Somebody
(e.g., the Corporation) meantNN by the red-light change that the
traffic was to stop." Nevertheless, there seems to be some sort of
reference to somebody's intentions.
(3) "6x meansNN (timeless) that so-and-so" might as a first shot
be equated with some statement or disjunction of statements
about what "people" (vague) intend (with qualifications about
"recognition") to effect by x. I shall have a word to say about
this.
Will any kind of intended effect do, or may there be cases
where an effect is intended (with the required qualifications)
and yet we should not want to talk of meaningNN? Suppose I
discovered some person so constituted that, when I told him that
whenever I grunted in a special way I wanted him to blush or to
incur some physical malady, thereafter whenever he recognized
the grunt (and with it my intention), he did blush or incur the
malady. Should we then want to say that the grunt meantNN
something? I do not think so. This points to the fact that for x
to have meaningN,, the intended effect must be something which
in some sense is within the control of the audience, or that in some
sense of "reason" the recognition of the intention behind x is for
the audience a reason and not merely a cause. It might look as if
there is a sort of pun here ("reason for believing" and "reason
for doing"), but I do not think this is serious. For though no
doubt from one point of view questions about reasons for believing
are questions about evidence and so quite different from questions
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H. P. GRICE
about reasons for doing, nevertheless to recognize an utterer's
intention in uttering x (descriptive utterance), to have a reason
for believing that so-and-so, is at least quite like "having a
motive for" accepting so-and-so. Decisions "that" seem to involve
decisions "to" (and this is why we can "refuse to believe" and
also be "compelled to believe"). (The "cutting" case needs
slightly different treatment, for one cannot in any straightforward
sense "decide" to be offended; but one can refuse to be
offended.) It looks then as if the intended effect must be something
within the control of the audience, or at least the sort of
thing which is within its control.
One point before passing to an objection or two, I think it
follows that from what I have said about the connection between
meaning,, and recognition of intention that (insofar as I am
right) only what I may call the primary intention of an utterer
is relevant to the meaning,, of an utterance. For if I utter x,
intending (with the aid of the recognition of this intention) to
induce an effect E, and intend this effect E to lead to a further
effect F, then insofar as the occurrence of F is thought to be
dependent solely on E, I cannot regard F as in the least dependent
on recognition of my intention to induce E. That is, if (say) I
intend to get a man to do something by giving him some information,
it cannot be regarded as relevant to the meaning,, of
my utterance to describe what I intend him to do.
Now some question may be raised about my use, fairly free,
of such words as "intention" and "recognition." I must disclaim
any intention of peopling all our talking life with armies of
complicated psychological occurrences. I do not hope to solve
any philosophical puzzles about intending, but I do want briefly
to argue that no special difficulties are raised by my use of the
word "intention" in connection with meaning. First, there will
be cases where an utterance is accompanied or preceded by a
conscious "plan," or explicit formulation of intention (e.g.,
I declare how I am going to use x, or ask myself how to "get
something across"). The presence of such an explicit "plan"
obviously counts fairly heavily in favor of the utterer's intention
(meaning) being as "planned"; though it is not, I think, conclusive;
for example, a speaker who has declared an intention
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MEANING
to use a familiar expression in an unfamiliar way may slip into
the familiar use. Similarly in nonlinguistic cases: if we are asking
about an agent's intention, a previous expression counts heavily;
nevertheless, a man might plan to throw a letter in the dustbin
and yet take it to the post; when lifting his hand he might "come
to" and say either "I didn't intend to do this at all" or "I suppose
I must have been intending to put it in."
Explicitly formulated linguistic (or quasi-linguistic) intentions
are no doubt comparatively rare. In their absence we would
seem to rely on very much the same kinds of criteria as we do
in the case of nonlinguistic intentions where there is a general
usage. An utterer is held to intend to convey what is normally
conveyed (or normally intended to be conveyed), and we require
a good reason for accepting that a particular use diverges from
the general usage (e.g., he never knew or had forgotten the
general usage). Similarly in nonlinguistic cases: we are presumed
to intend the normal consequences of our actions.
Again, in cases where there is doubt, say, about which of two
or more things an utterer intends to convey, we tend to refer to
the context (linguistic or otherwise) of the utterance and ask
which of the alternatives would be relevant to other things he is
saying or doing, or which intention in a particular situation
would fit in with some purpose he obviously has (e.g., a man who
calls for a "pump" at a fire would not want a bicycle pump). Nonlinguistic
parallels are obvious: context is a criterion in settling
the question of why a man who has just put a cigarette in his
mouth has put his hand in his pocket; relevance to an obvious
end is a criterion in settling why a man is running away from a
bull.
In certain linguistic cases we ask the utterer afterward about
his intention, and in a few of these cases (the very difficult ones,
like a philosopher asked to explain the meaning of an unclear
passage in one of his works), the answer is not based on what he
remembers but is more like a decision, a decision about how what
he said is to be taken. I cannot find a nonlinguistic parallel
here; but the case is so special as not to seem to contribute a vital
difference.
All this is very obvious; but surely to show that the criteria
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MEANING
for judging linguistic intentions are very like the criteria for
judging nonlinguistic intentions is to show that linguistic intentions
are very like nonlinguistic intentions.
H. P. GRICE
St. John's College
Oxford
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