Essay 8 - The Construction of Meaning (Level I)

I have an epistemological tiger by the tail here as I try to explain the construction of meaning. I hope you will bear with me. Philosophers, theologians, linguists, and many others have been working on this for millennia and it is still far from understood. But that does not mean we cannot say anything about it even if we grossly oversimplify.

Imagine one of our hominid ancestors, hundreds of thousands of years ago, crossing the savanna on a hot day. It sees a tree and it sees a lion. The lion roars and our ancestor scurries up the tree to get away. After doing this several dozen times our hominid ancestor associates the tree with safety and the lion with danger. Eventually concepts are formed. The tree concept has certain properties, and the lion concept has other properties. If our ancestors had evolved enough to have acquired primitive language, they may associate a sound with the concept.

Now when the ancient hominid sees the tree, it means something - safety. This is Level I meaning where the meaning is conveyed by the object. That is, the tree is a safe place, and it becomes a signifier for safety in the mind of the hominid. Other things, such as a small underground tunnel might also signify safety. So, the concept becomes a category which contains things that provide safety when a lion is around.

Similarly, when the hominid sees a lion, it means something very different – danger. Other things might be associated with that category as well. For example, a hyena or a large snake or even another hominid from a different group might also signify danger.

We can think of this first level of meaning as an attempt at intellectual economy. Rather than trying to remember what each tree or hole in the ground is potentially for, we just put it in a named grouping and infer things about it. Similarly, if the hominid sees a lion, snake, or hyena it knows to get out of there.

This essay is 346 words long and the audio is a little over 3 minutes.