Berkeley’s Theory of Signification

Abstract

Two components of what has come to be called the “picture theory of meaning”¹ are that the non-syncategorematic terms of a language are meaningful if and only if they have sensible referents (“ideas” in the Berkeleyian sense) and those sensible referents are the “meanings” of the terms. A superficial reading of Berkeley would suggest that he holds a view somewhat like the above, but such as interpretation of his views would be completely misleading. There are, it is true, entries in the early philosophical notebooks which directly suggest such an interpretation, but the later works such as the Principles of Human Knowledge, The Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous and the Alciphron, make it abundantly clear that this is not Berkeley’s considered view.² It is therefore surprising that modern commentators still attribute to him that particular theory of meaning.³ The error is a serious one, for it is precisely the Lockean or “picture theory” that Berkeley finds at the root of misunderstandings concerning the function of general terms in language, and at the root of misunderstandings concerning the nature of scientific knowledge. Berkeley has Euphranor tell us, in the Alciphron, that it is that conception of language which requires that every substantive name marks out and exhibits to the mind one distinct idea separate from all others, (AL-VII-5).