Polysemy

Polysemy (or the concept as I shall use it) is the view that all words or concepts have multiple meanings. This would seem nonsensical to some critics because the whole point of a concept is to isolate a single and precise meaning. Thus we might suppose that some word could be used to express multiple concepts; for example, “bank” can pick out a financial institution or land beside a river. (There is the further ambiguity of whether “bank” is therefore one word or two words.) But my long experience as both a wordsmith and a philosopher has convinced me that no concept itself is singular in its meaning.

            Insofar a this is an empirical issue I can at once point to an interesting empirical study that would seem to bear out my contention in spades, to wit:

Many social and legal conflicts hinge on semantic disagreements. Understanding the origins and implications of these disagreements necessitates novel methods for identifying and quantifying variation in semantic cognition between individuals. We collected conceptual similarity ratings and feature judgements from a variety of words in two domains. We analyzed this data using a non-parametric clustering scheme, as well as an ecological statistical estimator, in order to infer the number of different variants of common concepts that exist in the population. Our results show at least ten to thirty quantifiably different variants of word meanings exist for even common nouns. Further, people are unaware of this variation, and exhibit a strong bias to erroneously believe that other people share their semantics. This highlights conceptual factors that likely interfere with productive political and social discourse. (Marti, L., Wu, S., Piantadosi, S. T., & Kidd, C. (2023). Latent Diversity in Human Concepts. Open Mind: Discoveries in Cognitive Science, 7, 79–92. https://doi.org/10.1162/opmi_a_00072; thank you to Thomas Pölzler for alerting me to this article)

 

But I prefer simply to point to the ordinary dictionary, which provides multiple meanings for almost every word, and even distinct from cases of mere homonymy such as (river) “bank” and (savings) “bank.” I maintain that there is no instance of a word, at least in a nonartifically constructed language (but I suspect even there), that is not liable to correct but nevertheless distinct usages in everyday and even technical speech.

            Essentially, then, I am propounding a pragmatism, with its roots in Wittgenstein, according to which our purposes in using our words determine their meanings; and since people have very varied purposes in using words, and even (if this can be put nonquestion-beggingly) the same word, we can never hope to find a word (or concept) that has only one meaning.

            I know that my argument is not airtight and can really only be suggestive. But in a way that is a corollary of my claim, since any argument must consist of words, and hence will always be subject to multiple interpretations, according to which the argument will therefore be more or less cogent. But here is an example I have used previously to bring home my point. According to dictionary.com, the word “baby” means the following:

1)     an infant or very young child.

2)     a newborn or very young animal.

3)     the youngest member of a family, group, etc.

4)     an immature or childish person.

5)     a human fetus.

 

I submit that, even though the five meanings are quite different from one another and also have hugely different moral or practical implications, they are all intended to capture the essential nature of a baby and hence of a concept. In other words, it is not the case that “baby” in the sense of a human fetus and “baby” in the sense of a very young animal are like (river) “bank” and (savings) “bank.” These are not different words or concepts – “baby” and “baby” – but rather two uses for different purposes of one and the same word and concept.

Anyway, that is my claim and that is why I accept it. But I also see it as having tremendous implications for communication and knowledge and philosophy and human affairs generally. (In other words, I find it useful to conceive concepts in this way.) The practical upshot for me has been to understand every question about the truth of a proposition as having two answers: yes and no (or every question about the truth or falsity of a proposition as having two answers: yes and yes).

My stock example: Do unicorns exist? (i.e., Is it true that unicorns exist?) No if you are referring to the mythical magical horse. Yes if you are referring to an animal having a horn on its forehead. (Or yes and yes: It is both true and false that unicorns exist.) But the stakes are much higher with other examples, like: Is a human fetus a baby? Is a young animal a baby? I think the answer in all cases must be yes and no.

What I oppose, then, is the basic assumption of most inquiry (and, as a philosopher, I have mainly in mind the inquiries of philosophers) that there is a single correct answer to any and all questions. How much ink has been spilt in my field, for instance, on “What is morality?” or “Does God exist?” or “Is there an immaterial soul?” and on and on. Clearly in every case the answer is supposed to be singular. I reject that. I think the best one could ever hope to do is explain why one thinks the answer is this rather than that, or yes rather than no, or no rather than yes. Then it is up to your interlocutor or audience whether they are convinced or not. Or if a practical decision needs to be made by a group, a vote can be taken. And so forth.

An objector to my schema might claim that I have reduced the pursuit of truth to a competition of rhetoric. For example, each “side” wants to appropriate the emotion-laden word ”baby” to support its position on some contentious issue (abortion or vegetarianism etc.). Well, my response is: yes and no. Yes, I have no doubt that this is often the motive (conscious or unconscious) of the distinct uses of the term in question. But no, this does not have the implication the objector intends (namely, that we ought to dismiss my proposal), since the objection merely presumes that truth is univocal, whereas that is the very proposition I am disputing.

Here again also the meaning of a word is relevant. For the objector is using the word “rhetoric” pejoratively, whereas I see a perfectly legitimate use of rhetoric, and hence can conceive a nonevaluative sense of “rhetoric.” I find it useful to conceive rhetoric as the effective use of language in matters of persuasion. Then clearly rhetoric could on occasion be used to fool people, but it could also be used to convince people of what one believes to be true or right, or of what would in fact be best for everyone.

And thus I absolutely recommend that one “employ rhetoric” in all disputations where one feels something very important is at issue, for otherwise one puts one’s cause at a disadvantage. There is little glory in being right if you lose, despite the expressions we have for consoling losers, like “I’d rather be right than president” and “It’s not whether you win or lose but how you play the game.” But here too: yes and no. For certainly there will be circumstances when “standing on principle” despite the costs will serve a longer term practical interest. On the third paw: “Let justice be done though the heavens fall” is sometimes indeed a prescription for disaster. And on and on. I see no end to debate ever about anything. Well … yes and no.

Note: This essay pretty much recapitulates points made in “TwoMethods.”