For the ‘Use Theory of meaning’ language is both dynamic and social in character. How is this position implicated in the generation of the problem of the objectivity of meaning?

For the ‘Use Theory of meaning’ language is both dynamic and social in character. How is this position implicated in the generation of the problem of the objectivity of meaning?

Wittgenstein in the Philosophical Investigation adopts a use version of meaning. Words and sentences gain their meaning through use; the way they are employed or applied in expressions. This theory represents word/sentences as tools in a tool box and capable of being put to different uses.

The meaning of linguistics expression is to be elucidated in terms of the use of that expression, in terms of the way it is employed by users of the language. In the background is the pragmatic view of the nature of language; looks at the sentence as an instrument, and at its sense as its employment. To know what an expression means is to know how it may or may not be employed. The meaning of a word is simply the rules which govern its use, and to ask for its meaning is to ask for the rules. A sentence is meaningful if it has a use, we know its meaning if we know its use.

It is quite often not the case that each expression has only one meaning and only one use. ‘can you reach the salt’ sometimes means ‘please pass the salt’, sometimes ‘are you able to reach as far as the salt’ and perhaps sometimes ‘I challenge you to try and reach as far as the salt’. It is rarely the case that two sentences are used alike in every sentence without altering linguistic act potentials. Thus, corresponding to the above case of sentence-multivocality we have the fact that ‘can you reach the salt’ or ‘salt please’, are used to perform the same linguistic act in many context but not in all. Meaning does not attach to the particular activities, sounds, marks on paper or anything else with a definite spatiotemporal locus. It is a fundamental mistake to say that one gives a word a meaning on a certain occasion by using it with a certain intention or purpose or the words one use lose its meaning if one misuse them. A word is a common possession of the linguistic community, and it has the meaning(s) it has by the virtue of some general facts about what goes on in that community. Hence, we are to look for general trends in linguistic behaviour if we are to exhibit the meaning of a word as function of what the speaker do with them.