What sorts of things are meaningful? How do these things become meaningful? To whom are these things meaningful? These are all reasonable important questions to ask. We can look towards actual everyday events and find plenty of good answers.

We can offer an accurate account of some specific language use and in our doing so provide a prima facie example of shared meaning by virtue of our doing so. Each and every time someone offers an accurate account of Kant's Categories, the meaning that was first attributed by Kant is attributed once again by someone else. That meaning transcends Kant in the exact same way that the meaning of "hula hoop" transcends it's original usage by being the name of a referent(the thing called such). As long as same correlations are being drawn between the language use and other things, the meaning continues.

We can watch a user die and witness his/her meaningful creation remain. Historical accounts are more than adequate proof of this. We can know a user is dead and suspect that their creation has died alongside. It's very difficult sometimes to know if the original meaning of certain language use no longer exists. Such knowledge requires drawing the same correlations between the language use and other things as the speaker. It requires knowing what the speaker was talking about. In these cases, the speaker is dead.

We name something for the first time. By naming something we make both the names and their referents(something other than the name) meaningful. Naming practices are one way we attribute meaning. An original naming event happens when a capable creature draws a correlation between the name and it's referent. All subsequent and consistent/coherent use of that name maintains that meaningful correlation. We all learn to point at the tree when uttering "tree". This is rudimentary shared meaning:A plurality of creatures drawing correlations between the same things. In this case, it's a plurality of creatures drawing correlations between the name and it's referent(between "trees" and trees).

We all 'agree' that those things are trees and these things are not... by virtue calling those things "trees" but not these things. This agreement is necessary for language to proceed in it's evolutionary process. The 'agreement' need not be an intentional act. To quite the contrary, prior to the ability to voluntarily enter into an agreement about the referent of a name, one must already be deeply embedded in language use.

One must first learn how to pick stuff out to the exclusion of all other things prior to being able to take account of how we pick stuff out. We name and we describe. All of this is to create, further perpetuate, and/or build upon meaningful things.


Why does it seem so difficult to do this when talking about conceptions/uses/senses/etc, of the same term "meaning"? Is it not a reasonable question to ask someone when they're using the term "meaning" what they are referring to? Ought not the speaker know what they're referring to, when using the term as a noun? I mean, when we begin using pronouns like "it" as a means for referencing, if all we're are pointing to is the term "meaning", then we've got some serious explaining to do.

So, the persistence and/or continued existence of meaning is clearly not existentially dependent upon any individual user, but rather it is existentially dependent upon language being used in a consistent way. That consistent usage is satisfied - it happens - when a plurality of capable creatures draw correlations between the specific language use and other things.

This holds good for all uses of the term "meaning" as well.