This document summarizes John Locke's ideational theory of meaning. According to Locke's theory, meaning is based on ideas in the mind that are formed through sense perception and experience, rather than innate ideas. Words signify these ideas, and ideas indirectly signify real-world objects. Locke believed language allows us to communicate our thoughts by representing them with words that stand for smaller components of thought called "Lockean ideas". However, some objections to Locke's theory are that ideas can vary between individuals whereas meaning is a public phenomenon, and that some meaningful sentences do not correspond to actual mental experiences.

1. Ideational
Theory of
Meaning
Presented by: Tehreem Sajjad
Class: BS English VI ( Morning)
Presented To: Ma’am Javeria
Subject: Semantics and Pragmatics

2. Ideational
Theory of
Meaning
 This theory of meaning was developed by John
Locke.
 He thought that meaning of linguistic ideas are
ideas in mind
 He postulated that mind is blank sate without
any innate ideas.
 He said that we are born without ideas and that
knowledge is instead determined only by
experience derived from sense perception.
 Language is artificial tool used by us to convey
hidden meanings.
 We use language to record our thoughts.

3. According to
Locke:
 Language allows us to reveal our minds to other
person, since we cannot immediately perceive
anyone thoughts completely, we require some
medium through which this communication can
take place.
 Words are mere marks(forms), they don’t mean
any in themselves.
 Thoughts are divided into smaller components:
called Lockean ideas, and words stand for these
smaller components.

4. Words signify
Ideas:
 These ideas represent things outside mind.
 This means that a word primarily signifies an
idea and then indirectly signifies an
object/objects in the world through some
medium(idea).
 Locke said that we construct all of our ideas
from experience through sense perception.

5. Lockean idea:
 It seems to be the best word to stand for
whatever is the object of understanding when a
man thinks. He has used it to express whatever
is meant by ‘notion’.
 Lockean idea can be both:
• Mental action
• Mental Objects
 These ideas are subjective and they vary from
one individual to another.

6. Intentionality:
 Words are about kinds of things the associated
ideas pick out/ are about. How Lockean ideas
reach beyond themselves?
 Example:
 Syrus is a dog. Lets say it has something to do
with my formation of idea of dog. This would
explain why my idea ‘dog’ is also about Syrus.
Likewise ‘Fido’ is a dog that I never saw. But it
resembles to Syrus and other dogs I have seen.
That’s why my term ‘dog’ also donates Fido.

7. Objection I:
• If an ideational theory is precise enough to be
test then it must specify what sort of mental
entity (idea) is?
• Then it will run into trouble. Mental images are
more detailed than meanings. A whole thought
might do, like meaning of complete sentence.
But no every sentence can express actual
thought of a person.

8. Objection II:
 Meaning is public and social phenomenon. If an
English word has meaning for entire speakers of
that community but it might not be understand
by some speakers of that community.
 But ideas, feelings in mind are subjective and
vary from person to person and it also depends
upon background of speakers.

9. Objection III:
 There are meaningful sentences that do not
represent any actual idea or mental state.
 So there are some meaningful sentences whose
content is never experienced by anyone. They
are meaningful but do not corresponds any
mental entities.

10. Why am I
interested in
Locke’s
theory?
After an overview of some other theories of
meaning, I found this one more attractive for
reading because of theory of idea. I can relate this
to my own experience. After analysing its
components and objections, I am better able to
interpret it. I deciphered it with the help of
examples to make it easy for myself.
References:
www.slideserve.com
www.prezi.com