Single Idea 12995

[catalogued under 18. Thought / C. Content / 6. Broad Content]

Full Idea

The name 'gold' signifies not merely what the speaker knows of gold , but also what he does not know, which may be known by someone else: an inner constitution from which flow colour and weight, and generates other properties.

Gist of Idea

The name 'gold' means what we know of gold, and also further facts about it which only others know

Source

Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 3.11)

Book Reference

Leibniz,Gottfried: 'New Essays on Human Understanding', ed/tr. Remnant/Bennett [CUP 1996], p.354


A Reaction

[compressed] Thus in the course of defending true essences of gold (against Locke's claim that we are stuck with the nominal essence), Leibniz drifts into an externalist account of meaning. He mentions experts, as so often does Putnam.