Description versus Meaning

Description and Specification

What is description?

In [3], the description is described as ...

By the 'description' of an object, we mean an acc full and so definite that one to whom the object unfamiliar can nevertheless, given skill and mater construct it from the verbal formula.

The best object description is the specification ...

Every discriminable part or feature of the object unambiguously named; there is a one-to-one correlation of symbols and the empirical items symbolized; and the logical order of the specification is the order of easiest reconstruction.

Titchener in [3] describes "Psychological description" in the following words ...

The psychological description is analytical, in that the given consciousness or part-consciousness or part-consciousness is analyzed into its elementary constituents, into sensation, images, attitudes, etc.; it is also abstractive, in that the inseparable attributes of these elements or of their groups (quality, intensity, a form of combination, etc.)  are specified in the report.

Description and specifications are used in any science and technology discipline. The specification is the form of description.

However, description and specification are never easy; the verbal formulas of the most highly trained observers are likely to be imperfect; every new investigation leads to a new result. Moreover, descriptions and specifications are often warped assumptions. Titchener is correctly pointing that we have several conditions like secondary criteria, stimulus error, logical reflection, laboratory atmosphere, education tradition, pleasure-pain dogma, associationism, sensationalism, intellectualism, and many more.

Meaning and Truth

There are multiple theories of meaning described in [5], however, the meaning is the truth about some objects, affairs or phenomenons. The meaning is typically described by Description using words or symbols in human language supported by pictures, drawings, figures, formulas, graphs, etc. trying to use as full as possible Specification to specified the meaning as close as possible to the truth observed from the external reality.

The next question is what is the truth. Consensus theory holds that meaning and truth are whatever is agreed upon—or, in some versions, might come to be agreed upon—by some specified group. Such a group might include all human beings, or a subset thereof consisting of more than one person, typically subject matter experts.

Sources:

[1] Metaphysics, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphysics

[2] Ontology, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology

[3] E. B. Titchener. (1912). Description vs. Statement of Meaning, The American Journal of Psychology, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Apr., 1912), pp. 165-182 (18 pages) Published by University of Illinois Press, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1412839, https://doi.org/10.2307/1412839

[4] Karl Pearson. (1900). The Grammar of Science, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grammar_of_Science, https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139878548

 [5] Meaning (philosophy), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meaning_(philosophy)

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