The meaning of meaning

THE MEANING OF MEANING

C. K Ogden, 1889-1957, was educated 't Magdalene College,

Cambridge In 1909 he began work on a study of International Commuication and the influence of language on thought. He visited schools and universities throughtout Europe, in India, and in the United States to study language-teaching methods. Dr. Ogden then organized the Orthological Institute. He was inventor of the Basic English system, an 850-word vocabulary designed to be an international language In addition to books written in collaboration with J A Richards, Dr. Ogden is the author of The Meaning of Psychology (1926), System of Basic English (1934), General Basic English Dictionary (1942), and other books.

I. A. Richards was born in 1893 in Sandbach, Cheshire, England, and was educated at Clifton College In Bristol and at Magdalene College, Cambridge In 1922 he became lecturer in English and Moral Sciences at Cambridge, and four years later was made a Fellow of Magdalene College During this period he collaborated with C K Ogden on Foundations of Aesthetics (1921) and The Meaning of Meaning (1923) His later works include Principles of Literary Criticism (1925), Practical Criticism (1929, Harvest Book 16, 1956), Coleridge on Imagination (1935), The Philosophy of Rhet?ric (1936), How to Read a Page (1942), Speculative Instruments (1955) In recent years he has published two volumes of verse, Goodbye Earth and Other Poems (1958) and The Screens and Other Poems (1960), and a verse play, Tomorrow Morning, Faustus! (1962) The National Institute of Arts and Letters awarded him the Lomes Award for Poetry in 1962. He is now University Professor at Harvard University.

The

Meaning of Meaning

A STUDY OF THE INFLUENCE OF LANGUAGE UPON THOUGhT AND 0F THE SCIENCE OF SYMBOLISM

by

C. K. Ogden ' I. A. Richards

WITH SUPPLEMENTARY ESSAYS BY

B. Malinowski and F. G. Crookshank

Ph.D ,D.Sc.

MD,FRCR

A Harvest Book

Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.

NEW YORK

ISBN O-15-658446-8

MNOP

FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1923

PREFACE

To THE FIRST EDITION

THE following pages, some of which were written as long ago as 1910, have appeared for the most part in periodical form during 1920-22, and arise out of an attempt to deal directly with difficulties raised by the influence of Language upon Thought.

It is claimed th,t in the science of Symbolism,' the

study of that influence, a new avenue of approach to traditional problems hitherto regarded as reserved for the philosopher and the metaphysician, has been found. And further that such an investigation of these problems is in accordance with the methods of the special sciences whose contributions have enabled the new study to be

i The word Symbolism has certain historical associations through the various dictionary meanings of symbol.' which are worth noting In addition to its constant underlying sense of a sign or token (some-

thing 'put together') the term lias already enjoyed two distinct floruus

The first, traceable to Cyprian, applies to the Creed regarded as the

'sign' of a C2iristian as distinguished from a heathen, as when Henry VIII talks about "the three Creeds or Symbols" A mythological perversion of the derivation (1450 1550, Myrr ow Ladye III, 312) states that "Thys crede ys called S;nibolum, that ys to say a gatherynge

of morselles, for eche of the xii apostles put therto a morsel." Other historical details will be found in Schlesinger's Geschichte des Symbols

(1923)

Secondly, there is the widespread use of the adjective Symbolist in the nineties to characterize those French poets who were in revolt against all forms of literal and descriptive writing, and who attached symbolic or esoteric meanings to particular objects, words and sounds Sunilarly, art critics loosely refer to painters whose object is 'suggestion' rather than 'representation' or 'construction,' as symbolists

In the following pages, however, a standpoint is indicated from which both these vague captions can be allotted their place in the system of signs and symbols, and stress is laid upon those aspects of symbolism whose neglect has given rise to so many false problem, both in asthetics and in philosophy

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