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# Ambiguity

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One and the same word can have many distinct meanings; so the word is, as we say, ambiguous.

For example, the word 'meaning' itself can mean 'extension' or 'intension'. The word 'unclear' can mean 'ambiguous' or 'vague'.

Here is a more ordinary example of an ambiguous work: 'bank'. As a noun, this can mean either a financial institution where one deposits money or the edge of a river; it can mean other things still when used as a verb. The different meanings that a word can have are its senses. So 'financial institution' is one of the senses of the word 'bank', and 'edge of a river' is another sense. So if a word is ambiguous, then it has more than one sense. Sometimes there are some rather fine distinctions that can be drawn between different senses of the same word. For example, take the word 'good'; this can mean 'useful' or 'functional', as in "That's a good hammer," or 'exemplary', as in "She is a good student," or 'moral', as in "She is a good person." No doubt 'good' has other senses as well.

In philosophy, it is extremely important, before one starts trying to come to grips with some deep, important philosophical concept?, that one pin down the sense of the word one uses to describe the concept. For example, in a discussion of the concept of goodness, we might ask, "What does 'good' mean?"--but we cannot even begin to answer until we have said which sense of 'good' we mean. So, discussions of philosophical concepts, in the Anglo-American philosophical tradition at least, and especially since the first decades of the twentieth century, have often begun with discussions about the different senses in which a word may be used. This was a notable feature especially of the philosophy of [J. L. Austin]?.

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Last edited August 10, 2001 7:19 pm (diff)
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