Yet this might perhaps be regarded as something of an overstatement. The
words alone, without the use of images, may cause appropriate emotions
and appropriate behaviour. The words have been used in an environment
which produced certain emotions; by a telescoped process, the words
alone are now capable of producing similar emotions. On these lines it
might be sought to show that images are unnecessary. I do not believe,
however, that we could account on these lines for the entirely different
response produced by a narrative and by a description of present facts.
Images, as contrasted with sensations, are the response expected during
a narrative; it is understood that present action is not called
for. Thus it seems that we must maintain our distinction words used
demonstratively describe and are intended to lead to sensations, while
the same words used in narrative describe and are only intended to lead
to images.
We have thus, in addition to our four previous ways in which words can
mean, two new ways, namely the way of memory and the way of imagination.
That is to say:
(5) Words may be used to describe or recall a memory-image: to describe
it when it already exists, or to recall it when the words exist as a
habit and are known to be descriptive of some past experience.
(6) Words may be used to describe or create an imagination-image: to
describe it, for example, in the case of a poet or novelist, or to
create it in the ordinary case for giving information-though, in the
latter case, it is intended that the imagination-image, when created,
shall be accompanied by belief that something of the sort occurred.
These two ways of using words, including their occurrence in inner
speech, may be spoken of together as the use of words in "thinking."
If we are right, the use of words in thinking depends, at least in its
origin, upon images, and cannot be fully dealt with on behaviourist
lines. And this is really the most essential function of words, namely
that, originally through their connection with images, they bring us
into touch with what is remote in time or space. When they operate
without the medium of images, this seems to be a telescoped process.
Thus the problem of the meaning of words is brought into connection with
the problem of the meaning of images.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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