Meaning, Meaning and Meaning

We have described so far two levels of meaning: common sense and theory. The first is the everyday thinking and acting we carry out. In some sense, common sense is only completed by the objects of the world around us. We do not, for example, change a car wheel in theory. We could, perhaps, describe what to do, but only when confronted by the flat tyre and spare in reality do we act. We know what to do not because of some abstract set of ideas, but because we have before us nuts, wheels, a jack and a spanner.

In a sense, the level of common sense is also Polanyi’s level of tacit knowing. This is not exclusive – there are many things that I know which are not related to the everyday world around me – but I might not be able to articulate, in the world of common sense, what to do without the spanner and jack before me. I can show you, but not tell you where to put the jack, perhaps.

Nevertheless, there is another level, the level of theory. In a modern motor vehicle, someone will probably have sat down with a pen and paper (or a computer) and worked out where the best lifting points for the vehicle would be, how sturdy the jack has to be for safety and so on. This is the level of theory: abstract thinking from first principles to get some results which are generally useful, such as ‘the metal of the jack has to be this thick’. This starts from the abstract, from the theoretical thinking about the forces and materials involved in jacking up a car.

The level of common sense is related to the objects around us, the objects of everyday life and their relation to us. We have a task, and we have some tools and we apply these to the task in front of us. The job may be easier or more difficult depending on the tools we have before us. Consider how much easier changing a wheel is for a mechanic at a fully equipped garage that it is on your own front drive. But the point is that these tools are focused on doing that job.

The level of theory relates objects to each other and themselves. We start with considering the weight distribution of a vehicle and the necessity of lifting a corner of it. This is more abstract thinking: the colour of the car, the precise nature of the puncture and so on are not interesting or useful in this problem. What we need here is an idea of the forces involved in lifting the car, not whether we might scratch the paintwork. The forces and objects interact with each other, not with us (at least, not directly).

As with this sort of abstraction, so with scientific theories. What counts in a scientific theory is the interaction of objects with themselves and with each other. Two billiard balls interact to have a collision and their behaviour is modified by the impact of one on the other. This has nothing to do with any human observer. At least, as far as we know, the interaction would be the same if no-one was watching it. The theory, in this case, the laws of motion, momentum and inertia, relate the bodies, the billiard balls, to each other, not to the human watching.

At this stage, we can develop our theories and then relate them back to the concrete world around us. We can both catch a ball, in the realm of common sense, and also calculate its trajectory given some initial conditions giving the velocity, angles and initial location, say the direction to the thwack that the ball receives from a cricket bat. This calculation may be less than helpful in actually catching the ball, but it allows us to understand the motion of the ball under a variety of circumstances, some of which may pertain to our situation.

The level of theory, then, gives us the tools to tackle questions of objects related to themselves, such as balls under a given impetus of energy and direction, or giraffes and how they have evolved to survive in a given environment. How we go about tackling these more theoretical problems is an interesting question in itself, however. There is another potential intellectual move from the theoretical, asking how things are related to themselves and other objects, to asking how we work out how those theories can be established.

The question of how theories are established is the level of method. The question is not ‘how do these balls interact?’ but ‘how do we establish how these balls interact?’ The relevant method here is that of the physical sciences. Scientific method supplies a framework for answering the question of how we go about solving theoretical questions. For many scientists, it is not an explicit question. While it may be that they do implicitly subscribe to ‘scientific method’, not too many practising scientists actually consider method per se. They get on with the business of science, using and developing theories and relating them to measurements.

Nevertheless, this third level, that of method, as a level of reflection on theoretical activity is an important one for the integrity of the sciences and, indeed, any other human activity. Human thought and activity is not permeated by relativism, subjectivity and a whole range of false claims, barefaced denials of the facts and evasion. If we have no means of reflecting on our activities, that is if we have no way of pondering how we go about thinking about some of these issues, then we have no way of establishing the falseness of some claims and the accuracy or authenticity of some others.

The problem is that reflection on theory, considering method and how it yields something looking like truth is hard work. Most of us feel, most of the time, that we have neither the time, energy nor information and understanding to establish the truth or otherwise of claims we hear. By the time we do manage any reflection, the world has moved on anyway and we look out of date and out of touch. That does not mean that such reflection is unnecessary, but it does mean that nailing down outright falsehood is a lot more difficult than it perhaps should be.