Although words properly and immediately signify only the speaker’s ideas, speakers tacitly and unexaminedly refer their words to the ideas they suppose others have under the same names, relying on common usage rather than checking whether their ideas truly match.

By John Locke, from An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

Key Arguments

  • Locke concedes that while words 'can properly and immediately signify nothing but the ideas that are in the mind of the speaker', men nonetheless 'in their thoughts give them a secret reference to two other things', the first being other men's ideas.
  • Speakers suppose 'their words to be marks of the ideas in the minds also of other men, with whom they communicate', since otherwise they 'should talk in vain' and be as if 'to speak two languages'.
  • In practice, people 'stand not usually to examine, whether the idea they, and those they discourse with have in their minds be the same', but assume that using words 'in the common acceptation of that language' suffices.
  • They therefore 'suppose that the idea they make it a sign of is precisely the same to which the understanding men of that country apply that name', even though that identity of ideas is rarely verified.
  • This 'secret reference' to others' supposed ideas underlies ordinary communication but also lays the groundwork for misunderstanding when ideas diverge while words remain the same.

Source Quotes

Words are often secretly referred first to the ideas supposed to be in other men’s minds. But though words, as they are used by men, can properly and immediately signify nothing but the ideas that are in the mind of the speaker; yet they in their thoughts give them a secret reference to two other things. First, They suppose their words to be marks of the ideas in the minds also of other men, with whom they communicate: for else they should talk in vain, and could not be understood, if the sounds they applied to one idea were such as by the hearer were applied to another, which is to speak two languages.
But though words, as they are used by men, can properly and immediately signify nothing but the ideas that are in the mind of the speaker; yet they in their thoughts give them a secret reference to two other things. First, They suppose their words to be marks of the ideas in the minds also of other men, with whom they communicate: for else they should talk in vain, and could not be understood, if the sounds they applied to one idea were such as by the hearer were applied to another, which is to speak two languages. But in this men stand not usually to examine, whether the idea they, and those they discourse with have in their minds be the same: but think it enough that they use the word, as they imagine, in the common acceptation of that language; in which they suppose that the idea they make it a sign of is precisely the same to which the understanding men of that country apply that name.
First, They suppose their words to be marks of the ideas in the minds also of other men, with whom they communicate: for else they should talk in vain, and could not be understood, if the sounds they applied to one idea were such as by the hearer were applied to another, which is to speak two languages. But in this men stand not usually to examine, whether the idea they, and those they discourse with have in their minds be the same: but think it enough that they use the word, as they imagine, in the common acceptation of that language; in which they suppose that the idea they make it a sign of is precisely the same to which the understanding men of that country apply that name. 5.

Key Concepts

  • But though words, as they are used by men, can properly and immediately signify nothing but the ideas that are in the mind of the speaker; yet they in their thoughts give them a secret reference to two other things.
  • First, They suppose their words to be marks of the ideas in the minds also of other men, with whom they communicate: for else they should talk in vain, and could not be understood, if the sounds they applied to one idea were such as by the hearer were applied to another, which is to speak two languages.
  • But in this men stand not usually to examine, whether the idea they, and those they discourse with have in their minds be the same:
  • but think it enough that they use the word, as they imagine, in the common acceptation of that language;
  • in which they suppose that the idea they make it a sign of is precisely the same to which the understanding men of that country apply that name.

Context

Book III, Chapter II, §4, where Locke introduces the first of two 'secret references' speakers make when using words: an assumed alignment of ideas across different minds via shared language.