Analysis Of Quinn Behaviorist Theory Of Meaning

Meaning of language is an essential problem in linguistic philosophy. Linguistic philosophers study meaning of language from different points of view and have different theories of meaning. Quine also has an original idea of meaning.Quine was influenced by behaviorism, empiricism, pragmatism, and holism. Quine criticized the referential theory of meaning and the ideational theory. Quine objected to considering meaning as substance and proposed that we should discard meaning, which could be replaced by significance and synonymy. Quine regarded language as a social activity. Meaning,as the attribute of language, should be explained by behavior. Quine's behaviorist theory of meaning was based on the stimulus-response model. Stimulus meaning is the key notion in his theory of meaning. According to stimulus meaning, Quine divided sentences into two groups: occasion sentences and standing sentences. In his theory of meaning, Quine applied stimulus meaning to different kinds of the sentences. Quine believed that meaning of language was obtained from observation, and the unit of meaning was not a word or sentence, but the whole science. Behaviorism and totality are the main characteristics of Quine's theory of meaning.