On meanings
Are meanings constructed or found?
This is a very essential question, I believe. Everyday, we interact with people. We use expressions and utterances. But what do we mean when we use a word? Are we talking about the word itself or the meaning that the word implies? How do we know what that word means?
Meanings could be both constructed and found. But if you will insist, meanings are firstly constructed, then found. We all know what the word with letters O, N, and E means. It means the first number with actual value, after zero and before two. It refers to a singular entity. But the meaning of the word “one” was constructed before we found it. Somebody somewhere in sometime thought of the word and placed a meaning on it, just like other words we use everyday or occasionally. Once constructed, meanings are found. Probably the first place to find a meaning is the dictionary. But the real dictionary, I believe, is the society itself. Society, through the individuals, constructs the meanings, not only of words, but also of other things beyond words (e.g. actions).
But it is not society per se; it is the individuals within the society that create meaning. I can create my own meaning for a word. I can actually impose that meaning if I wanted to. Anyone can do the same. However, the question there is whether people will accept the meanings you have created. Of course at your level, you have already accepted your meaning, but on another level, that is somebody else not you or not your fictitious character in mind, it also have to be accepted.
Why is it necessary to be accepted? Meanings have to be accepted in order for them to operate. If we both agree that ONE means what I meant ONE to be, then it will mean the way it means. Otherwise, we would have different conceptions of ONE, which may not be bad at all, but may prevent us from arriving at anything we could want. But then, being accepted does not translate to being right. It is a different matter altogether. And with emphasis, right is, so far, hard to determine. Acceptance is something workable for the moment.
Why is right hard to determine? Why is acceptance workable? Because meanings are not necessarily right. They are constructions. They are impositions. And who has the monopoly of determining the “right” meaning or the “right” in itself? Acceptance, now, becomes a manageable alternative to the dichotomy of right and wrong, true and false.
So how do we evaluate given that things are either accepted or not and not determined as either right or wrong? There is an assumption: We have to evaluate. But do we really have to? You see, when you seek to evaluate, you assign values. Whoever evaluates assign the values. It is not a matter of everyone imposes his or her own “right” or “good” over something, which is evaluated. It is a matter of knowing what it is and accepting it. We go back to the previous question when we deal with this one. Who determines what when one evaluates? In fact, it is not always the case that things be labelled as good or bad or anything.
To sum up, meanings are firstly constructed, and then found. Meanings have to be accepted in order for them to operate. Meanings are not necessarily right or wrong; it is a matter of knowing what it is and accepting it.
