J Constable, of Magdalen, Cambridge, writes,
"I have been working recently on [...] C. K. Ogden and
I. A. Richards's once widely read book The Meaning of
Meaning [...] for an edition of Richards' writings
[...], and it seems to me that this study probably
deserves an honourable mention in any history of the
development of pragmatics [...] (see, for example,
the authors' [...] 'causal' approach to meaning). I
would [...] be interested to know whether The
Meaning of Meaning has been or still is particularly
important for any of you".
Well, for what it's worth, it has been important to *me*, although I don't
own a complete copy of the text, do I? (Typical!). (The book is in safe and
sound in the public library nearby). Just some relevant photocopies of parts
I once found of relevance! But, yes, I share your evaluation.
As a philosopher with Gricean background, I always found I A Richards and C
K Ogden of great interest. London-born Charles Keith (?) Ogden is usually
given less importance, although it's him who (first) translated Ludwig
Wittgenstein's "Tractatus" (Now, wasn't that a "task"!), allowing "Witters"
to get
1. a PhD in Cambridge
2. a Full Professorship in Philosophy
3. British nationality
(at a time when Wittgenstein was persecuted by the Nazis in Austria). Ogden
was also the creator of "Basic English" (I have his edition of the "New
Testament" in Basic English, but God! - give me King James anytime!).
Cheshire-born Ian Alexander (? I'm just guessing his first names here!)
Richards was associated with Robin G Collingwood, who was Oxford, rather,
but, in his "THE NATURE OF HISTORY", Collingwood deals with Richards, and
Ogden, and these causal theorists.
There's also a forgotten member of this "group". Lady Violet Welby (I guess
she was neither Oxford nor Cambridge, but, like Ogden, London!). I have
somewhere her "What is Meaning". Quite a proto-Gricean this lady was!
The second edn. of Ogden/Richards's book became quite a mandatory reading
material for any UCL/SOAS linguist after Branislaw Malinowski published his
boring Appendix there - Malinowski being associated with JR Firth and with
the best tradition of English Linguistic Functionalism.
Richards is more connected with Literary Criticism proper, right? (I note
you are a reader in English. Richards was a Magdalenite as well, right?). He
certainly influenced Sheffield-born W Empson, who has dealt at length with
IA Richard's theory in some of his books (Not 7 Types of Ambiguity).
In philosophical circles, Ogden/Richards are considered kind of mandatory
for any serious study of meta-ethics, qua representatives of emotivism, i.e.
the idea that, relevantly speaking,
1. "The Meaning of Meaning" is a good book.
means (no more, no less than):
2. I approve of "The Meaning of Meaning".
The main emotivist representative is an American, C L Stevenson ("Ethics and
Language"), and Richards lectured a lot in USA so Stevenson may well have
been influenced by him. Also other American members of what was called the
school of General Semantics. There's one with a Japanese surname).
My guess is, though, that the emotivist movement was quite strong in England
as well, and we don't need Stevenson to bring it to history.
English philosopher H.P.Grice ((H. Paul), yes, he of the "be relevant"
conversational maxim) discusses Stevenson in his "Meaning" (in Studies in
the Way of Words).
And I've found another interesting historical connection:
H. L. A. (Herbert Lionel Adolphus?) Hart, who was, like Grice, an Oxonian
philosopher, mentions Grice on Meaning in his (Hart's) review of John
Holloway's Language & Intelligence, published for the Scotland-based
"Philosophical Quarterly". (As I recall, the title of Hart's review is
"Words and Signs". It's a "critical review). This has been studied as well
by philosopher Peter A. Facione in USA, who has traced some very interesting
proto-Gricean "doctrines").
I've never been able to trace this book by John Holloway, though, but it
seems he belonged to this Emotivist School so well represented (if not
started) by Ogden & Richards.
Holloway (in England) and Stevenson (in USA) were, it seemed, strong
adherents of the "causal theory of meaning". Both Hart and Grice tried to
"refine" what they thought were too rude or rough statements, and the rest,
as they say, is history...
Best, and good luck with your edition of Richards's essays...
JL
(Mr)
Buenos Aires, Argentina
The Grice Circle
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