Meaning As Adjustment

Discussion of the idea of meaning. The problem of meaning comes up in connection with the subject of conception. However no advance has been made when it is shown that meaning and conception are identical. Something more fundamental must be sought. This may be found in the instinctive reactions of the lower animals which reappear in the higher animals as adjustments and attitudes. An object may be given many different meanings and many different objects may get one and the same meaning. A piece of chinaware before you is conceived as a saucer and it is placed under your coffee cup. A few moments later the same piece of ware is conceived as an ash tray and you knock the ashes from your cigar into it. In each and every case the object becomes what it is conceived to be. What the object means is determined by the adjustment that is made to it. Each part of the body is bound up in its functional relationships with other parts of the body and all parts find their meanings through the reactions they invite. The body may be looked upon as a system of such reactions--a system of local signs--the meaning of one part or point coming out in the reactions of other parts. The local sign is the stimulus-evoking-reaction process reduced to its lowest terms. Such a process is an element or unit of consciousness. Every perception arises through a reaction that is characteristic of the object perceived. The meaning of the object, however, is not contained entirely in the adjustment that has taken place, but in other reactions that are about to take place. Each perception creates fresh situations and the meanings implied in them will be revealed in other adjustments. An attainment of complete or absolute meaning is never possible.