Meaning (philosophy)

In philosophy—more specifically, in its sub-fields semantics, semiotics, philosophy of language, metaphysics, and metasemantics—meaning "is a relationship between two sorts of things: signs and the kinds of things they intend, express, or signify".

The types of meanings vary according to the types of the thing that is being represented. There are:

• the things, which might have meaning;
• things that are also signs of other things, and therefore are always meaningful (i.e., natural signs of the physical world and ideas within the mind);
• things that are necessarily meaningful, such as words and nonverbal symbols.

The major contemporary positions of meaning come under the following partial definitions of meaning:

• psychological theories, involving notions of thought, intention, or understanding;
• logical theories, involving notions such as intension, cognitive content, or sense, along with extension, reference, or denotation;
• message, content, information, or communication;
• truth conditions;
• usage, and the instructions for usage;
• measurement, computation, or operation.