¹ Signs, Language and Behavior, p. 346.

² Collected Papers of C. S. Peirce, Vol. V, p. 258.

³ Mind and the World Order, p. 140. For an adequate statement of Lewis' view concerning the relationship between knowing, meaning, and prediction, one should read Chapter V, Mind and the World Order, and Chapters I, II, VII, and IX of his book, Knowledge and Valuation.

⁴ Knowledge and Valuation, p. 3.

⁵ “Testability and Meaning,” Philosophy of Science, Vol. 3, No. 4, p, 420.

⁶ “Logical Positivism,” by Albert E. Blumberg and Herbert Feigl, in Journal of Philosophy, Vol. XXVIII, No. 11, p. 293.

⁷ “Operationalism must be understood to state that a concept has no meaning unless its definition formulates performable operations, unless in short the propositions in which the term occurs are empirically verifiable. Thus to see what is meant by ‘operationally meaningless’ we must make clear what is meant by the ‘impossibility’ of verification.”

“Operationalism in the first instance would hold that a term is meaningless unless its definition formulates operations which determine its application; in the second instance it would assert furthermore that the meaning of a term is the occurrence of a specified event [not the operation] under the conditions [operations] specified.” “Some Remarks in Defense of the Operational Theory of Meaning,” by George Boaz and Albert E. Blumberg, Journal of Philosophy, Vol. XXVIII, No. 20, pp. 545, 548.

“The operational meaning of ‘matter’ is very clear if we speak of a piece of iron or wood or meat as being matter. Such a piece is identified as being ‘matter’ by giving us the experience of resistance against penetrations, of temperature, of color, of observable motion, etc.” “Foundations of Physics,” by Philipp Frank, in International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, Vol. I, No. 7, p. 57.

See also especially, The Logic of Modern Physics, by P. W. Bridgman, also by thesame author, “Operational Analysis,” Philosophy of Science, Vol. 5, pp. 114–131; Knowledge and Valuation, by C. I. Lewis, p. 195 ff; An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science, by A. C. Benjamin, pp. 154–158; “A Critique of Operationalism in Physics,” Philosophy of Science, Vol. 4, No. 4, pp. 456–470, by R. B. Lindsay.

⁸ Here we use the word “event” instead of “sense data,” “sense experience,” etc., in order to get away from static terms which suggest that “reality” and meaning are to be found in the fixed. Also, in speaking of controlled behavior we mean an ongoing act of which the symbolic process is a part. Roughly speaking, controlled behavior means behavior taking place according to a plan, and this is a case in which symbols call out an overt response and stimulate one to act with reference to possible future events. The symbolic process is the beginning of an overt act in that it is the stimulus for it, and it also stands for the kind of later events which will fit into that kind of act.

⁹ According to Rudolph Carnap's view held several years ago, “If we believe that propositions such as, say, … ‘in twelve years the polar star will have changed its position relative to the axis of the earth by four minutes’ have any other signification than a re-assertion of my momentary impressions, we are entirely mistaken. I see a sparkling spot on a black line and some numbers on a brass instrument is all that astronomy aims to say; and it can not wish to say more because that would be impossible.” From “Logistic Empiricism in Germany …,” by Hans Reichenbach, Journal of Philosophy, Vol. XXXVI, No. 6, 1936, p. 149.

Although I have read nothing to the contrary, nevertheless I do not want to propose that this is Carnap's present view. However, that view does follow necessarily from the assumption that the locus of meaning (including the meaning of prediction) is found in immediately present sense experiences (or simply sense experiences, which are of necessity present). Probably Hume is the father of this belief which, as we can see from Carnap's statement, leads to a reductio ad absurdum, and the reason it does so is that it leaves the temporal dimension (and therefore change, behavior and future reference) out of meaning or signification. C. I. Lewis, in Mind and the World Order, has shown conclusively that meanings (and knowledge) cannot be confined to the present.

¹⁰ For the sake of keeping the issue clear, we lay to one side the problem of absolute verification and confutation with their entailed problem of probability, but do not intend, thereby, to deny their reality or claim to have solved them. However, we believe they can be solved from our standpoint in a more satisfactory way than they have been so far.

¹¹ Strictly speaking, symbols cannot refer to or signify particulars as particular. Rather only the type can be symbolized, and corresponding to type or universal is response in the form of habit. In our system the Whiteheadean “eternal objects” are meanings of things only in relation to habits, and if we can “recognize” them and say “there it is again,” as Whitehead says, it is only because we can take cognizance of the organization of behavior as it exists in the form of habits of response, for only through a relatively stable organized pattern of response can the fleeting events take on the form of objects or things or “substances.”

¹² Here we are using “means” in its ordinarily proposed sense, namely, it refers to instruments, pointer readings, and discrete sense experiences well delimited in the sense that they are received as psychological atoms.

¹³ See Bridgman's “The Operational Theory of Meaning,” The Philosophical Review, Vol. 46, pp. 644–649.

¹⁴ For a criticism of the operational theory, see A. C. Benjamin, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Science, pp. 154–158.

¹⁵ Especially C. W. Morris, whose “Foundations of the Theory of Signs,” International Encyclopedia of Unified Science, Vol. 1, No. 2, and Signs, Language and Behavior are indispensable to an understanding of the social context of meaning. Also John Dewey and Ernest Nagel. Finally, it seems to me that if the implications of the writings of G. H. Mead are worked out, we will have an adequate conception of the meaning of prediction, universality, truth, etc. I am greatly indebted to his writings and to his teaching. The following quotations give an illustration of what is meant:

“We have seen that mental processes have to do with the meanings of things, and that these meanings can be stated in terms of highly organized attitudes of the individual. These attitudes involve not only situations in which the elements are simultaneous, but also ones which involve other temporal relationships, i.e., the adjustment of the present response to later responses which are in some sense already initiated. Such an organization of attitudes with reference to what we term objects is what constitutes for us the meanings of things.” G. H. Mead, Mind, Self and Society, p. 125.

“Ideas are preeminently subjective because they are the structure of the symbols of things, and their meanings rest upon our responses by which we formulate our hypothetical plans of action.” G. H. Mead, The Philosophy of the Act, p. 115.

“We are testing the hypothesis not by a world of ultimate reality but by a world within which we are living and acting successfully except at the point which has become problematic.” Ibid., p. 280.

“It is, in my opinion, a legitimate doctrine which I will not now develop that it must be possible to regard the hypothetical sub-experiential objects as the statements of the methods and formulas for the control of objects in the world of actual experience, in other words, that so-called objects which lie beyond the range of possible experience are in reality complex procedures in the control of actual experience.” Ibid., p. 292.

¹⁶ Especially Rudolph Carnap, Herbert Feigl, Albert E. Blumberg, George Boaz, Carl G. Hempel, A. J. Ayer, and Hans Reichenbach who, it seems to me, is by no means a strict logical positivist.

¹⁷ It seems to me that Y. H. Krikorian, in his article, “Meaning and Behavior,” Philosophy of Science, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 83–88, has stated very well the basic distinction between conduct involving meaning (“behavior” in C. W. Morris' sense) and conduct without meaning. He has suggested what seems to me to be beyond question, namely, that almost all empiricists who follow Hume closely neglect the temporal dimension of intelligent conduct. He writes: “The first thing to notice about meaning as anticipatory response is that temporally it is futuristic. Response on the anticipatory level is not reflex, but is ordered with reference to the future.” p. 84.