Note 158 — LECTURE X THE MEANING OF IDEAS AS DETERMINED BY SETTINGS

I intentionally do not here say idea of a horse because the use of the preposition (while, of course, correctly used to distinguish horse as an idea from a material horse, or the former as a particular idea among ideas in general) has led, as it seems to me, insidiously to specious reasoning. Thus Mr. Hoernlé (Image, Idea and Meaning, Mind, January, 1907) argues that every idea has a meaning because every idea is an idea of some thing. Although this is true in a descriptive sense, psychologically idea-of-a-horse is a compound term and an imagined horse. The idea itself is horse. The speciousness of the reasoning appears when we substitute horse for idea; then the phrase would read, a “horse is always a horse of something.” I agree, of course, that every idea has a meaning, but not to this particular reasoning by which the conclusion is reached, as when, for example, Mr. Hoernlé when traversing James’ theory cites “image of the breakfast table” to denote that the breakfast table is the meaning of the image. The image is the (imagined) breakfast table. They are not different things as are leg and chair in the phrase, “leg of the chair,” where chair plainly gives the meaning to leg.