What is Meaning?

Arsip Tulisan Yudi Ahmad Faisal

This essay argues that language in its essence has no exclusive right to create its own meaning. In other words, language spontaneously exists because of its attachment to external existences out of its own structure that makes language meaningful. These external vehicles are defined as a context where it experiences. As a result, language and context have a firm relationship that formulates and reveals the meaning through a dynamic process of their fusion.

The basic assumption that is inevitable in the discussion of understanding the meaning of language is the context that language attached itself. Based on that assumption, language by itself is a dynamic in nature in which it has evolved throughout the human history. Because of that, to understand the meaning, one must understand a context where the language is commonly used and experienced.

Furthermore, understanding language without engaging into a particular context is considerably problematic to understand the essential meaning of it. In the one side, language tries to approach meaning of a context, but on the other side it is kept away from a primary objective to its existence. Between language and context, there is a vital element that considerably exists in conveying context into a meaning. This is what so-called as a mind. Mind comprehends the meaning of a reality through language. This meaning is not subject to any logical or any grammatical judgments, it exists considerably in defining, interpreting, and understanding process of human being. As a result, these tree elements – language, context, and mind – are factors that should be figure out its natural relation to dismantle the mystery of the language’s meaning.

Language, Context, and Mind in understanding A Meaning

To illustrate how language interrelated with its context, one can consider an example of a statement that mentions: this is a key. One knows the key because it exists in his or her experience. And what is called a key, if there is no key. The second is an extreme example that signifies the importance of the context of language in which it is related. The case also exemplifies how language in the form of words becomes useless and meaningless if it does not refer to a particular context. How one knows that thing is a key? In such a case, word tries to approach the meaning of context. It represents that context, but it is not an integral part of such an external thing.

How context becomes an inseparable part of understanding the meaning of language? It can be observed from the fact that language is a dynamic existence which lives and flows according to times and circumstances. As time goes on, new words are coming in a certain circumstances, and the rest are leaving. Some of them are changing its basic meaning in a particular context and some of them are the same. Even tough, it is no sure whether there is comprehensive survey to clarify how much words are coming and changing or not, but it is enough to say that language is relied on an inevitable situation that understanding a language can be obtained through experiencing on such a particular situation. Because of that, to understand language is to understand how it is used in the real experience in which the origin and usage of language are consciously experienced1. Because of that it is essential to take into consideration two separate important things the words and the context. Both are inseparably interrelated. Each governs and affects the others in formulating a meaning that dwells in our mind. And finally, this meaning comes out from our own abstract idea. This argument has been introduced for example by John Locke2. The mind always tries to make a balance between language and its context. A dialogical relationship between language and context seems hardly to be achieved if there is no mind that seizes the connection between the two.

It can be argued that the idea of meaning lying within the mind becomes stronger if the context relentlessly strengthens that idea. But, one should take into consideration that language is sometimes meaningless if its context reveals the opposite fact. For example, when one says that war is for peace, but factual situations reveal adverse contexts. In such a situation, mind will judge that thing based on its own consideration in giving a meaning. The decision could become two different meanings. The first could be that every war is actually not for peace but for another illicit purposes then language becomes useless and meaningless. The second could be that the war is useful to apply peace and democracy in unstable regions then language becomes useful and meaningful. It can be understood for the above examples that language by itself seems not capable to mean true or false in a very exact way, event tough there is verifiable observation that tries to give a meaning on it. It can be argued that an incapable capacity of language occurs because the existence of mind that makes an understanding becomes relative.

Another explanation to sustain the above argument, when someone is pronouncing words, he or she is not merely focused on that words and expect those words reveal its essential meaning, rather the imagination spot in their mind will trace a concrete or an abstract objects that are associated to that words. Hence, the meaning reveals after their mind finds out appropriate objects. These objects seem the chief reason for the existence of the meaning after those things passed their subconscious experiences. As a result, the experience of understanding a meaning might be different from one person to another because it involves a personal consciousness driven by exercising his or her mind. Applying this argument seems that the meaning is kind of a private thing that is only happened to a particular person, or in other words, the meaning of a word is a kind of projection in which it could be different with another understanding that might occur. In this situation, it is understandable that the relativism notion with regard to the meaning of a word has appeared.

It has been argued that a dialogical relationship between language and context reveals facts. These facts are not logically verified based on certain scientific measurements, but those are deliberately existed by our mind. When language signifies the meaning of an object, it gives a name and a definition to that object. Prior to that, an object initially does not have any meaning, or in other words, not exist because it has no meaning. Hence when language describes it and gives a name of it, it becomes meaningful. Meaningful refers to something which is not representative of true or false.

As language pictures facts, it is representative of a structure of reality. Sometimes someone’s reality is not depicted in a very accurate way. The question of true or false in answering the essential meaning seems not appropriate in the discussion of one’s projection on the meaning of a particular context. Because it is all about projection hence the relativism context appears in discussing the essential meaning. Relativism comes out from a consequence when the meaning is recognized from a context, but that context does not necessarily convey the meaning. It also appears in our own mind consciously without any interference from the outsiders.

The above explanation seems similar to the idea of logical positivists to some extent. This approach is hardly to believe something which is beyond a logical overseen, for example the statement that says God creates human being. Such a statement would be useless based on the logical positivist approach. But, the paper has argued that the above arguments are seemingly appropriate for an explanation of language from the physical point of view, because of that it does not relevant to extent the arguments to a metaphysical stand point that occupies a sacred realm, for example religion. The paper would say the judgment of religion is not based on physical appearance of language rather it is based on belief in which it does not need any scientific observation and evidence.

Conclusion

The essay has argued that understanding the meaning of language must be related to a particular context in which that languages experiences and expresses itself. Without engaging into that context, one would face problematic situations in grasping the meaning.

Between language and context, there is a mind as a vital element that considerably exists in conveying context into a meaning. Mind consciously comprehends the meaning of a reality through language. This meaning is not subject to any logical or any grammatical judgments, it exists considerably in defining, interpreting, and understanding process of human being. As a result, these tree elements: language, context, and mind are key factors in understanding the meaning.

References

Locke, John. 1690. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book 3, Chapters 1 and 2,

Wittgenstein, Ludwig, Philosophical Investigation, p. 1 – 203.