The phantom of plain meaning: a paradox?

AuthorBaker, Joe
PositionLetters - Letter to the editor

By describing plain meaning as a "phantom" in the January Florida Bar Journal (p.43), Steven Wisotsky revealed the indefiniteness of words and phrases. One might respond that proper names, at least, have plain, fixed meanings since they work like name tags. Consider the paradox the ancient Greeks discovered in the meaning of proper names, such as "The Ship of Theseus."

The Greeks revered and preserved Theseus' ship for centuries. Naturally enough, the wooden ship deteriorated, and the Greeks replaced decayed board with board, oar with oar, line and rudder with equivalent parts, to where they had replaced everything of the original ship. The paradox: After complete renovation, did "Ship of Theseus" refer to the same ship that Theseus commanded or a different one?

If the plain meaning of "Ship of Theseus" is the same ship, this assumes that nothing ever changes. That is obviously false. Everything changes, as did that ancient wooden watercraft.

If "Ship of Theseus" plainly means a different ship, this assumes we can never identify anything as the same over time. That is absurd and would make communication impossible.

The paradox disappears when we recognize that in natural languages we use proper names, and all words, like widely diverse beads to string together into different, recognizable patterns. Words in isolation...

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