Husserl, Ajdukiewicz, and Blaustein on meaning

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HUSSERL, AJDUKIEWICZ, AND BLAUSTEIN ON MEANING

DANIELE NUCCILLI,

RAFAL LEWANDOWSKI

Annotation

husserl ajdukiewicz blaustein meaning

The aim of this article is to investigate the reception of Husserl's theory of meaning by Ajdukiewicz and Blaustein, two members of the analytically-oriented Lvov-Warsaw School, who, in different ways, were attracted to and confronted with Husserl's phenomenology. The discussed hypothesis is that Ajdukiewicz's interpretation of Logical Investigations, and his original theory of meaning influenced both Blaustein's critical reading of Husserl's theory of intentionality and his account of meaning-intention. After outlining the central elements of “First Logical Investigation” the paper shows how it is interpreted by Ajdukiewicz in his Lvov lectures on logic and in his directival theory of meaning. What emerges is a psychological-descriptive interpretation of Husserl's concept of meaning, and a reconsideration of his theory of intentionality within the inferential structure of beliefs in premises that motivates a person who speaks a language to believe in conclusions of a certain form. This leads Ajdukiewicz to his own original conventionalist account of meaning which is based on the identification of three main directives of meaning that represent the matrix of a given language, i.e., the grid in which each meaning finds its place. These elements allow one to demonstrate how Ajdukiewicz's interpretation resonates in Blaustein's critique of Husserl in his early writings, where, in addition to a psychological-descriptive reading of phenomenology we also find a conventionalist conception of meaning acts and signitive presentations. According to Blaustein, a sign can represent an object only through the conventions arising from the directives of meaning that belong to a given natural language.

Keywords: Husserl, Ajdukiewicz, Blaustein, Meaning, Phenomenology, Intentionality, Directival Theory of Meaning, Lvov-Warsaw School.

Анотація

ГУССЕРЛЬ, АЙДУКЕВИЧ И БЛАУШТАЙН О ЗНАЧЕНИИ

ДАНИЭЛЬ НУЧИЛЛИ, РАФАЛЬ ЛЕВАНДОВСКИ

Цель этой статьи состоит в исследовании рецепции гуссерлевской теории значения у Айдукевича и Блауштайна, двух представителей аналитически ориентированной Львовско-Варшавской школы, которые, пусть и по-разному, испытали влияние феноменологии Гуссерля и вступили с ней в полемику. Рассматривается гипотеза, согласно которой интерпретация «Логических исследований» у Айдукевича и его оригинальная теория значения повлияли как на критическое прочтение Блауштайном гуссерлевской теории интенциональности, так и на его интерпретацию интенции значения. После краткого очерка основных аспектов теории значения в «Первом логическом исследовании» в статье показано, как оно интерпретируется Айдукевичем в его львовских лекциях по логике и его директивной теории значения. Результатом становится дескриптивно-психологическая интерпретация гуссерлевского понятия значения и пересмотр его теории интенциональности в рамках дедуктивной структуры веры в посылки, которая мотивирует говорящую на том или ином языке личность к тому, чтобы верить в заключения определенной формы. Это приводит Айдукевича к его собственной оригинальной конвенционалистской интерпретации значения, которая строится на отождествлении трех основных директив значения, представляющих собой матрицу данного языка, то есть сеть, в которой каждое значение находит свое место. Это позволяет продемонстрировать, как интерпретация Айдукевича перекликается с критикой Гуссерля Блауштайном в его ранних работах, в которых, помимо дескриптивно-психологического прочтения феноменологии мы также находим конвенционалистскую концепцию актов придания значения и сигнитивных представлений. Согласно Блауштайну, знак может репрезентировать объект только посредством конвенций, проистекающих из директив значения, которые присущи данному естественному языку.

Ключевые слова: Гуссерль, Айдукевич, Блауштайн, значение, феноменология, интенциональность, директивная теория значения, Львовско-Варшавская школа.

INTRODUCTION

The publication of Logical Investigations in 1900-1901 attracted many scholars to Husserl who, starting with the Gottingen and Munich Circles, gave birth to the so-called “phenomenological movement.” At approximately the same time in Lvov, Twardowski, who, like Husserl, was a pupil of Brentano, gathered talented students and his teaching activity initiated the Lvov-Warsaw School (hereafter: LWS), an analytically oriented school of thought (сЈ Wybraniec-Skardowska, 2018, 6; Wolenski, 2017, 22)¹. This article explores how Husserl's Investigations and, more precisely, a theory of meaning developed there resonated in LWS. To that end, we focus on Ajdukiewicz and Blaustein who were members of LWS, and, in different ways, were attracted to and confronted with Husserl's phenomenology For an account on the relationship between the LWS and the Vienna circle see (Ajdukiewicz, 1935, 151-152; Wolenski, 1989b, 443-453). More on Ajdukiewicz and LWS, see: (Wolenski, 1989a, 64-68, 199-223). On Blaustein's position within LWS, see: (Plotka, 2020a, 141-167; 2023b).. Ajdukiewicz spent the academic year 1913/14 in Gottingen, where he participated in some workshops given by Reinach (Glombik, 2005, 3-4; Plotka, 2017, 79-91). Although during his stay in Gottingen, he was more impressed by Hilbert's formalism rather than by phenomenology, Investigations exerted a certain influence on his work, especially on his theory of meaning. Indeed, as we will see, references to Husserl's theory of intentionality can be found both in Ajdukiewicz's early theory of meaning, developed mainly in the lectures on logic held in Lvov in the 1920s and 1930s, and in its mature development, the directival theory of meaning (hereafter: DTM). Also because of Ajdukiewicz's mediation in 1925, Blaustein, his student at that time in Lvov, had the opportunity to attend Husserl's lectures in Freiburg for a few weeks. After his return to Poland, Blaustein published a monograph in Polish on Husserl's phenomenology, Husserlowska nauka o akcie, tresci i przedmiocie przedstawienia (Husserl's Theory of Act, Content, and Object of Presentation) (Blaustein, 1928). In this work, one finds a critique of Husserl's theory of presentations within which there is a critical assessment and original interpretation of the intentional theory of meaning that partly follows in the footsteps of Ajdukiewicz For a summary of Blaustein's work, see: (Pokropski, 2015, 93-103; Plotka, 2020b, 169-172; Plotka, 2023a, 89-114)..

The central aim of this paper is to highlight how Husserl's theory of meaning was used and interpreted by Ajdukiewicz and Blaustein. In particular, we will attempt to identify to what extent Husserl's Investigations influenced some aspects of Ajdukiewicz's DTM, and how Ajdukiewicz's reading of Husserl resonated in Blaustein's account of Husserl's phenomenology and his analysis of schematic and symbolic presentations. The relationship between Ajdukiewicz's DTM and the Investigations has already been considered in secondary literature (cf. Maciaszek, 2022; Olech, 2015). Additionally, central elements (Pokropski, 2015), methodological consequences (Plotka, 2020b), and problematic aspects of Blaustein's critique of the Husserlian method (Plotka, 2020a; Plotka, 2021) have already been highlighted. However, apart from a few brief mentions (Wolenski, 1989a, 310; Plotka, 2021), Blaustein's reception and his original reading of Husserl's theory of meaning intention, as well as its shared principles with the interpretation of Ajdukiewicz and his DTM, has never been considered. This is precisely what we intend to deal with in this paper Our perspective on this topic is inspired by Dummett's interpretation according to which the linguistic turn in analytic philosophy was prepared by Bolzano, Frege, Meinong and Husserl, who rejected the psychologistic understanding of the structures of thought (Dummett, 2014, 24, 121-122). This article can thus help shed light on another insight into the common origins of phenomenology and analytic philosophy..

To do this, in the second section we begin with analyzing the central points of Husserl's early theory of meaning intentionality taking into account mainly the “First Logical Investigation.” Then in the third section, we will analyze what influences of the Husserlian theory of meaning we find in Ajdukiewicz's early reflections on meaning and in his later DTM, pointing out how, although there are some continuities, Ajdukiewicz elaborates his original theory of meaning that is no longer assimilable to Husserl's. In section four, we deal with Blaustein's critical reading of Husserl's phenomenology, showing how this critique is influenced by Ajdukiewicz and how it is reframed, combining the perspectives of the two philosophers in its analysis of schematic and symbolic presentations.

HUSSERL ON MEANING IN LOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS

Husserl's theory of meaning intentionality is complex and was developed over a few decades. Our exposition in this section aims at presenting and analyzing first and foremost how it was presented in the “First Logical Investigation.” This limitation is necessary since, as becomes clear in the following sections, both Ajdukiewicz and Blaustein in their readings of Husserl's theory of meaning focus mainly on this text.

The phenomenon of meaning intention is accessible in linguistic communication when one expresses something to others by means of expressions. For this reason, Husserl begins the “First Logical Investigation” with an elaboration of what an expression (Ausdruck) is. At the outset, he distinguishes its main elements: a physical layer (or rather, as he puts it, a physical appearance, i.e., sound, or written shapes), a lived experience (Erlebnis) of meaning (a psychic act of meaning), and a meaning (Bedeutung) itself. He investigates the relationship between these elements: a physical layer expresses something only because the relevant lived experience gives meaning to it, i.e., endows it with intentionality as being “about something.” In this way, the expression becomes a psychophysical entity that expresses a meaning, and this meaning, in turn, refers to the meant object (Husserl, 2001, I, 191-198).

Husserl's theory of meaning intentionality clearly distinguishes a meaning from other elements of expression and the object that is meant. Thus, it leads to the question of the ontological status of meanings, and, therefore, to the problem of psychologism in logics considered in the “Prolegomena” of the Investigations. These highly critical considerations are one of the most influential elements of Husserl's philosophy, which has had an impact far beyond the circles of philosophers of the phenomenological movement More on this issue, see, e.g.: (Dummett, 2014).. In short, the critique concerns the possibility of a psychological interpretation of the laws of logic, and is based on the argument that psychologism confuses logical laws with the nomological laws, i.e., laws of nature (Husserl, 2001, I, 59-61) For more on the critique of psychologism in Investigations see: (Willard, 1984, 143-166).. Husserl holds that laws of logic are not nomological. Therefore, they do not apply to ordinary empirical entities (like processes of thinking) but to the realm of meanings. They govern the transformations of meaning structures. These structures and their simplest elements (nominal meanings) are abstract ideal entities that are irreducible to any ordinary spatiotemporal beings. Thus, understood meaning and its form is something in-between the psychic act of expressing (or understanding) of expression, the physical form of expression, and the extra-mental object meant by this expression (Husserl, 2001, I, 213-215). Meaning is the medium that belongs to the sphere which is different in nature from the world of physical or mental individual entities.

Husserl's concept of ideal meaning is akin to the Fregean concept of sense (Sinn) According to Frege, sense is something “in-between” that mediates the subject's intentional reference to the object of cognition/referent (Bedeutung) and in certain situations it itself becomes the very referent. It helps to explain how it is possible that two people may truly attribute exactly the same properties to the same object X while not realizing that they are thinking about the same X. Smith and McIntyre claim that Fregean sense plays the same function in intentional relation as Husserlian meaning. See: (Smith & McIntyre, 1982, 63-67, 81-82). On the similarities between Husserl and Frege see also: (Tugendhat, 1982, 109-112).. As suggested by some scholars Such an interpretation is adopted, for example, by Hopp (2020, 63-68). On the other hand, Zahavi claims that Husserl wants to take a middle path between psychologism and Platonism (Zahavi, 1992, 23)., it seems to yield logical Platonism in the theory of meaning. However, the issue turns out to be more complicated when we show the relationship between abstract meaning and the mental process (lived experience) that refers to extra-mental objects by virtue of meanings. Husserl states that the basic aspect of every lived experience of meaning is the so-called intentional essence (intentionales Wesen). Having such essence, the mental process is an intentional act, it has the property of being intentional. That is, it refers by means of a certain concept or description and in some way to an object meant; it is about it. The essence consists of a quality (Qualitat) and a matter (Materie). The former determines someone's cognitive attitude (e.g., wishing, asking, judging, willing, doubting), whereas the latter defines the concept or description under which the object is meant (properties of an object bound in a given ontological form). In the case of acts of linguistic expressions, the intentional essence is called the semantic essence (bedeutungsmafiiges Wesen), and its abstraction yields meaning (Husserl, 2001, II, 119-122, 144).

The concept of matter allows Husserl to distinguish between two basic types of intentional acts, nominal acts and propositional acts. Nominal acts are “single-rayed” since they refer to their object by means of a single, simple meaning Husserl distinguishes simple and complex meanings. These are meanings of respectively simple and complex expressions. Simple expressions are those that are indivisible into more simple ones. See: (Husserl, 2001, II, 50). They determine expressions of proper names and nominal names. In turn, propositional acts are “multi-rayed” since they refer to their object in such a way that their parts and aspects are intentionally directed towards different parts and aspects of the object. In this case, what is meant is expressed in a judgment or description (Husserl, 2001, II, 160-162). Therefore, using Searle's terminology (Searle, 2002, 78-79), proper names and nominal names inherit their derived intentionality from the original intentionality of nominal acts, and sentences and descriptions inherit their derived intentionality from the original intentionality of propositional acts. Sentences and descriptions are composed of names and other parts of speech, but the manner of this composition is not arbitrary. For any complex expression to be meaningful, and be able to satisfy the conditions of truth, it must comply with certain laws of formal grammar (logical syntax) and with the laws of logic sensu stricto. The same applies to the laws of transformations of intentional acts (combination of nominal acts into propositional acts) if these acts are to express these expressions. This parallelism between the laws of formal grammar and logic on the level of semantics, and the laws of transformations of acts on the level of consciousness is presupposed in Husserl's theory of meaning intentionality as one of the conditions of possibility of truth See more about this parallelism which, according to Investigations, also concerns laws of formal ontology (formal-categorial laws of every possible object of cognition) in: (Lewandowski, 2021).. However, this presupposition may lead to the conclusion that there is only one kind of law, and they are psychological, hence empirical. The confusion is compounded by the fact that in the first German edition of Investigations published in 1901, Husserl himself labels his method adopted in the work as descriptive psychology (Husserl, 2001, I, 176-177). Therefore, despite the criticism of psychologism in the First Volume of Investigations, the Second Volume faces the charge of returning to this position (Ingarden, 1992, 1-32; Szylewicz, 1993, 1-12; Byrne, 2020). As we will see in Sections 3.1 and 3.2, Ajdukiewicz is one of the scholars who presents a psych ologistic interpretation of Investigations. This is because he claims that phenomenology is a kind of descriptive psychology and meaning/species is a type of psychological act of meaning.

The considerations presented above bring us closer to the full theory of meaning in Husserl's Investigations. However, the overall picture of the meaning intentional relation (subject-act-meaning-object) must be completed by considering the physical layer of expression and its function of indicating the speaker's mental states. This, in turn, requires clarification of the function of sensory data in linguistic communication.

Husserl claims that every genuine act of perception (seeing, hearing, smelling, etc.) brings to direct presentation an object previously only meant (only thought, expressed, comprehended, read about) and involves structures of meaning fulfilled with sensory data (sensations as presenting contents; prasentierende Inhalte). Hence, the sensory content plays a justificatory role for what was only meant. In this case, there is a coincidence (Deckung) of two different acts: the so-called signitive act (signitiver Akt) as an act of meaning, and the so-called intuitive act (intuitiver Akt or anschaulicher Akt) as an act of perceiving. To put it more precisely, the coincidence concerns their intentional essences, so that the intending meaning (intendierende Bedeutung) of the former is fulfilled with the fulfilling meaning (erfullende Bedeutung) of the latter, and the latter plays a justificatory role for the truth-claim of the former (Husserl, 2001, I, 191-192, 200-201; cf. Lewandowski, 2021, 99-102).

Husserl's concept of fulfillment does not belong to his theory of meaning, but it is essential to understand the function of the physical layer of expression in linguistic communication. In the case where the subject only thinks something to himself and does not communicate it to others, the physical layer of the expression is not important. This is because its relationship to meaning is conventional. It could change without changing the relevant meaning (as it happens when we translate a word from one language to another). In the case of speech, however, thanks to the listener's intuitive grasp of this layer, an additional function of expression in communication is realized. According to Husserl, an expression not only means and, through meaning, refers to its object, but it also indicates in a non-conceptual way the speaker's mental states (Husserl, 2001, I, 189-191). Thus, during a conversation, a listener realizes that he listens to a person who has mental states, and not just a puppet completely devoid of consciousness.

The overall picture of the Husserlian theory of meaning discussed so far includes three elements: ideal meaning, the semantic essence as an exemplification of ideal meaning in a particular act of meaning, and the function of expression to indicate the speaker's mental states. As we highlight in the next section, Ajdukiewicz and Blaustein examine the structure described by Husserl and both discuss the basics of Husserl's theory in order to use it and to rephrase it within their original explorations.

AJDUKIEWICZ'S EARLY THEORY OF MEANING AND HIS REFERENCES TO HUSSERL'S INVESTIGATIONS

Ajdukiewicz's early theory of meaning is developed mainly in his lectures on logic given at Jan Kazimierz University in Lvov in the 1920s and the beginning of the 1930s. Its mature formulation, DTM, can be found in his texts “On the Meaning of Expressions” (1931) and “Language and Meaning” (1934). In these texts, one can identify references, both direct and indirect, to Husserl's theory of meaning. In this section, we discuss Ajdukiewicz's early theory presented in his lectures on logic from 1924-1925 and 1930-1931, while in the next section, we focus on the DTM's texts. Although original texts of the Lvov lectures are missing, the 1924-1925 course is available in the form of a synopsis (Ajdukiewicz, 2017) composed by Stepan Oiesiuk, one of Ajdukiewicz's students. The synopsis of the 1930-1931 course is composed in two parts (Ajdukiewicz, 1993; 2014) by Kazimierz Szaiajka, who studied in Lvov at that time.

In both courses, Ajdukiewicz considers the problem of how names refer to their objects. In the 1924-1925 course he recalls Husserl and claims that by name we relate (ustosunkowujemy sig) to the named object, just like by the memory image of a physical object we relate to the represented object. The content of name itself mediates between a thinker (one who names) and the object, through it we intend towards an object. (Ajdukiewicz, 2017, 139)

In this early course, Ajdukiewicz differentiates logical (or semantic) and psychological accounts of names. From a logical point of view, a name, be it a noun, adjective, or some complex expression, is an object which has its meaning. In turn, from a psychological viewpoint, a name functions to invoke presentations (of the relevant object) and to express some thoughts. As a physical object, a name is also perceivable, and for this reason, it is accompanied by someone's mental phenomena (Ajdukiewicz, 2017, 139, 141). Given this dual perspective, Ajdukiewicz identifies a purely logical meaning of names and a psychological content of names (or concepts) which he labels the “psychological meaning” (in Polish: “znaczeniepsychologiczne”). Consequently, he specifies that the former should be understood as the connotation of the name (i.e., the totality of an object's properties by which one presents an object), while the latter is a mental presentation of the object as one speaks or hears the name with full understanding. Due to the psychological meaning of names, the so-called proper content (in Polish: “tresc wlasciwa”) of a name substitutes the proper content of an object to which the name refers. Ajdukiewicz describes this function as “substitution” (in Polish: “zastqpienie”). Finally, he defines three types of names taken from the perspective of their psychological meaning, i.e., imageries of objects, symbolic presentations of objects (unclear concepts), and clear concepts of the referent (Ajdukiewicz, 2017, 140-142)¹¹.

The 1924-25 lectures contain both a psychological and logical approach to the problem of names. This dual approach may suggest that Ajdukiewicz does not reduce logical entities to psychic ones. However, it does not mean that he adopts logical Pla In Husserl's terms, one may rephrase class no. 1 as a composition of semantic essence and (imaginative) sensory content of the act of imaginary (indirect) intuitive presentation of an object named. Class no. 2 is a composition of the semantic essence and sensory contents of a listener's intuitive act of directly apprehending the physical layer of expression. Class no. 3 is a semantic essence of a signitive act of someone who uses, e.g., the name “bachelor” while understanding it as referring to unmarried men. In this point, Ajdukiewicz seems to refer to the concept of ideal meaning. tonism. He refers to Lesniewski's critique of the concept of general objects (Ajdukiewicz, 2017, 142) and, inspired by Husserl's Investigations, probably rejects nominalism in favor of moderate realism (Olech, 2015, 141-146). Nonetheless, he attributes, we argue, such a reduction to Husserl himself. This claim can be indirectly justified by the fact that Ajdukiewicz refers to Husserl's theory in the context of his own reflections on the psychological aspects of the problem. This issue, however, is not crystal clear.

In the 1930-1931 course, Ajdukiewicz once again refers to Husserl's theory of meaning intentionality explicitly calling it a descriptive psychology (Ajdukiewicz, 2014, 155-157). In accordance with Husserl's “First Logical Investigation,” he invokes a distinction between sensory data (presenting content, in Polish: “tresc prezentujqca”) and an intention (Ajdukiewicz, 2014, 152-154). Ajdukiewicz notices that in a situation of perceiving or imagining an object sensory data apprehended (or penetrated) by intention form a (direct or indirect) presentation of this very object. However, in the case of purely linguistic references to the object, sensory data form a direct presentation of another object, i.e., the physical layer of an expression, while intention is directed to an object meant that is absent (Ajdukiewicz, 2014, 153-155) So, respectively, we have here classes nos. 1 & 3 described above.. Intention, in Husserl's terminology, is here the semantic essence of an act of meaning.

The 1930-1931 course may suggest that Ajdukiewicz's account of meaning intentionality is akin to that of Husserl. Yet, this is problematic as he also was critical of the Husserlian viewpoint on meaning. For instance, he claims that Investigations does not explain the possibility of assembling expressions into larger wholes. Therefore, they do not consider the syntax of the language (Ajdukiewicz, 2014, 156-158; 1993, 163-164). This criticism is misplaced, since, as shown in the second section, Husserl explicitly discusses laws of formal grammar and laws of logics sensu stricto as determining the syntax and logical forms of complex expressions. As we will see in the next section, in any case, Ajdukiewicz in a consequential way to this critique, integrates and reworks the Husserlian theory of meaning by applying it to the problem of the syntactic structure of language understood as a whole.

AJDUKIEWICZ'S DTM

As shown, in his early lecture courses on logic, Ajdukiewicz uses Husserl's theory of meaning to examine how names refer to their objects. In the 1924-1925 and 1930-1931 courses, this relation is generally spelled out by Ajdukiewicz in terms of a semantic relationship between a sign and its object. In his articles from the 1930s which develop DTM, however, he presents a detailed theory of how this relationship should be understood within the broader framework of the set of conventions and syntactic structures of natural languages For more of Ajdukiewicz's DTM, see: (Wojcicki, 1999; Maciaszek, 2022; Grabarczyk, 2019).. In this section, we will analyze and discuss central claims of this theory, highlighting their connections with Husserl's theory of meaning In Maciaszek's (2022, 163) view, in “On the Meaning of Expressions” Ajdukiewicz proposes a very original reinterpretations of Husserl's theory of meaning. For more on Ajdukiewicz's account of Husserl, see: (Olech, 2015)..

In “On the Meaning of Expressions,” Ajdukiewicz addresses the problem of the meaning starting from the search for the conditions that allow us to define what it means to speak a given language (Ajdukiewicz, 1978, 5 ff.). To address this problem, he focuses on the analysis of mental acts experienced while speaking and criticizes the concept of linguistic associationism. Evidencing how experiencing a thought associated with an uttered expression is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for using that expression as the expression of a given language he refers explicitly to “The First Investigation” (cf. Husserl, 2001, I, 303 ff.). According to him, the credit of Husserl's theory of meaning consists in having identified in the act of meaning not only the appearance of a sense-content when a written or verbal expression is seen/ heard but also the appearance alongside this content of an intention. This intention is not reduced to the verbal expression or written sign but aims at an object meant, it constitutes a unitary total act with the sense-content. Transposing the problem to the level of linguistic practice, Ajdukiewicz states that

the meaning of an expression (as an expression-type) of a language for Husserl would be that type of intention which must be attached to the sense-content so that the inscription (or string of word-sounds) is used as an expression of that specific language. (Ajdukiewicz, 1978, 14)

This conception of meaning helps Ajdukiewicz to rethink J. S. Mill's connotational theory According to Mill some terms besides having a denotation, also have a connotation, i.e., the name “man” denotes an indefinite number of individuals but is applied to them because it implies that they possess certain attributes, such as corporeality, being a rational animal etc. (cf. Mill, 1978, 31). In this regard Ajdukiewicz writes: “The name therefore is said to signify the subjects directly, the attributes indirectly, it denotes the subjects, and implies or involves or indicates or as we shall say henceforth connotes, the attributes. It is a connotative name” (Ajdukiewicz, 1978, 18).. In fact, in his view, a sentence such as “Socrates is a man” must be accompanied by the belief that Socrates has a body, that he is a rational being, etc., and this belief has the same characteristics of the relation between the belief in premises and the belief in conclusions of a logical inference. Speaking a certain language thus means to have “[dispositions to accept certain sentences [...] on the basis of other experiences, e.g. on the basis of certain other beliefs” (Ajdukiewicz, 1978, 20). The meaning of a sentence does not lie in the properties of the objects to which it refers but in the way they are described and conceptualized, and this happens through the actualization of belief, i.e., the motivation that supports the mental act, and the experience of the sentence uttered (Maciaszek, 2022, 186).

According to Ajdukiewicz the basic types of these motivation relations can be identified with three types of meaning directives: axiomatic, deductive, and empirical (Ajdukiewicz, 1978, 59-60). Every language has rules of meaning that are specific to it and that constitute it as that particular language. It is these rules that force us to accept certain expressions in the given language as having meaning and to reject those in the given language that do not (Coniglione, 2010, 65). Peculiar to this concept is the matrix of language. The matrix corresponds to the total scope of the meaning-rules and is elaborated out of the signs of the language and out of the perceptual data. Ajdukiewicz describes the matrix of a language as a table of three parts in which each part corresponds to the sum of the scope of one type of meaning-rules. Meanings can be determined through their placement within this matrix (Ajdukiewicz, 1978, 58), and for this reason could be defined as places in the network of sentences that are enclosed in the directives (Grabarczyk, 2019, 44). This implies that the meaning of a given expression must be relativized to the structure it is embedded in because the notion of a placement in the structure or a distribution pattern in the structure makes sense only when the structure in question is specified. In this way, Ajdukiewicz fills what he highlighted as gaps in Husserl's theory of meaning intentionality, as we pointed out in the last section.

In general, the Husserlian perspective not only helps Ajdukiewicz to distance himself from the theory underlying classical associationism and connotational theory (Maciaszek, 2022, 185) but also serves to support his own conception of meaning that underlies his DTM. In the introductory part of “Language and Meaning” Ajdukiewicz specifies that:

The meaning one attaches to an expression depends on the type of ideas in whose assertion he uses--or ought to use--the expression in question. By the meaning of an expression, therefore, a coordination is established between the expression and a “type” of idea. (Ajdukiewicz, 1978, 40)

As highlighted by Olech (2015, 141), Ajdukiewicz understands the meaning of an expression as a type of idea which meaning-intentions of people who comprehend the expression fall into. However, compared to Husserl's position he applies the concept of inference to the use and structure of language. If for Husserl the acceptance of inferences depends on the insights into meanings of premises and conclusions that are conceived as ideal entities, for Ajdukiewicz, the belief in premises motivates a person who speaks a language to believe in conclusions of a certain form (Maciszek, 2022, 182). This perspective allows Ajdukiewicz to formulate a transubjective theory of meaning that involves neither ontologically, the hypostatization of meanings, nor linguistically, the reduction of meaning to the mere communicative content of expression, but precisely to the set of directives of meaning that we find in DTM (Marsonet, 1986, 41).

BLAUSTEIN'S ACCOUNT OF HUSSERL'S THEORY OF MEANING INTENTIONALITY

Although Blaustein has never developed a full-fledged theory of meaning, there are some parts of his writings devoted to this issue that can help us understand his position. Of particular interest in this regard are his doctoral dissertation Husserl's Theory of Act, Content, and Object of Presentation Defended under the supervision of Twardowski in 1927 and published in 1928 in Lvov. and his work O przedstawieniach schematycznych i symbolicznych (On Schematic and Symbolic presentations) (1931). In this section, we will focus on the former, and in the next section, on the latter.

In his dissertation, Blaustein, after reconstructing the basics of Husserl's theory of intentionality, especially concerning the problem of content of presentations, highlights some critical points of Investigations and Ideas I In the writings of the first theoretical period of his research activity, the one just after his visit to Freiburg in 1925, Blaustein is generally critical towards Husserl's phenomenology (Blaustein, 1928; Blaustein, 1928/1929; cf. Plotka, 2021, 252; Pokropski, 2015, 94). and emphasizes the necessity of framing phenomenology within the Brentanian project of a descriptive psychology, abandoned by Husserl since the early Gottingen years (Blaustein, 1928, 5; cf. Plotka, 2021; Plotka, 2023b). Like Ajdukiewicz, he addresses the issue of meaning starting from the psychological-descriptive side, identifying meaning in Husserl's Investigations with the intentional essence of the act. In this regard, Blaustein writes:

Whenever I use an expression, I experience certain acts. The in concrete meaning of this expression is in this case, according to Husserl, the intentional essence of this act. For this reason, Husserl describes the intentional essence as “the meaning essence.” (Blaustein, 1928, 49)

This definition is embedded in Blaustein's general critique of Husserl's conception of the structure of acts. Following the above quotation, the general structure of intentional acts, when they serve as meaning expressions, would consist of the intentional essence, which represents the quality together with the matter, and the meaning essence of an act as the intentional content. However, from the point of view of the descriptive content of the act, according to Blaustein, it is difficult to understand the difference between the intentional essence and the whole act (matter - quality). Certainly, Husserl justifies the distinction between intentional essence and matter - quality by the fact that there are acts that differ even though they have the same matter and quality, and therefore he identifies intentional essence as the essential and same element of presentations of different types. However, this means contemplating within the act additional components besides the intentional essence. These components are precisely the sensations (in the case of the meaning intention, the sentence uttered or the signs written) that are then interpreted and apprehended by the intentional act. The extension of the descriptive content of lived experience to the presenting content (i.e., sensations) which characterizes the concept of fulfillment seems problematic to Blaustein (Blaustein, 1928, 48). According to him, presenting content is external to the ego while what is part of the ego and, consequently of intentionality, are an act's quality and matter (cf. Blaustein, 1928, 65) For an in-depth account of Blaustein's critique of Husserl's early theory of intentional act, object, and content see (Piotka, 2020b; Pokropski, 2015)..

This problem also carries over to the level of meaning essence. As we described in Section 2, in lived experience Husserl not only contemplates meanings in concreto, i.e., the real psychic part of the mental act that follows the use of an expression and the way the object is intended in every occurrence but also meaning in abstracto, i.e. the kind of meaning that is “identical in those multiple, individual acts and it is represented by their meaning essences” (Blaustein, 1928, 49). The ideal meaning represents as a content of presentation the identical fulfillment for different acts with the same intended object. i.e., the same matter. Therefore, here emerges the issue of justifying something external to the act. To explore this problem, Blaustein draws on Husserl's “First Investigation” and, in particular, on the threefold function of the expressions that are detected according to which “an expression expresses an act, means content and refers to the object” (Blaustein, 1928, 49; cf. Husserl, 2001, I, 303). Recalling the terminology and issues we have seen in Ajdukiewicz, Blaustein rephrases this triple function as follows: “An expression announces the meaning intention, means meaning and denotes the intended object” (Blaustein, 1928, 49). This redefinition is functional to his critique of the way Husserl understands the distinction in the content of the act between the ideal meaning and the intended object. For Husserl, this distinction is made necessary by the fact that a whole series of words can have the same meaning but different objects or different meanings but the same object and thus the object is never the same as the content. However, Blaustein does not find justifiable precisely this need to abstract from the way the meaning denotes the object, that is, from the matter of the act. Ideal meanings in Husserl's work are something that in expression mediates the relation between the meaning intention and the intended object and that is not reducible to the signitive essence, that is, the actual experience of the meaning of a word (Blaustein, 1928, 49). This implies a form of hypostatization of meaning that does not convince Blaustein (Plotka, 2021, 257). In Husserl's perspective, the signitive essence, i.e., the combination of matter and quality, is the subset of the “intentional essence of the act” (cf. Plotka, 2020b). However, since the intentional essence or just the act's matter is a meaning that belongs to the intention of the word and since both intentional essence and act's matter are psychic and real, it raises the problem of explaining how the ideal content is to be found in a psychic act. If the intentional essence or matter of the act is something psychic and real, according to Blaustein, we are not allowed to speak of something ideal (Blaustein, 1928, 48).

The critique of the intentional essence and ideal meaning as a fulfillment in the lived experience implies Blaustein's non-acceptance of Husserl's hypothesis that there can be identical intentional content in different lived experiences since in his view the meaning of an expression is always a flowing and temporally determined psychic act (Blaustein, 1928, 88). For Blaustein, therefore, the meaning act takes place in the intentional relationship between psychic content and expression; any reference to concepts such as meaning in specie cannot be justified from the perspective of descriptive analysis of what is actually present in lived experience. This critique of Husserl, as we explore in the next section, is congruent with his perspective on meaning that emerges in his analysis of schematic and symbolic presentations.

BLAUSTEIN ON MEANING AND HIS REFERENCES TO AJDUKIEWICZ

in On Schematic and Symbolic Presentations there is more information about Blaustein's basic view on the problem of meaning. The main theme of this work is the psychological analysis of cognition of objects given through schemas and symbols, i.e., the analysis of schematic and symbolic presentations. Yet, as Blaustein shows, schematic and symbolic presentations have a lot in common with signitive ones. Therefore, his analysis of the former makes it possible to conclude what he thinks about the latter. Consequently, it also allows us to consider how deep this thinking is rooted in Ajdukiewicz's ideas.

The best starting point for reconstructing Blaustein's theory is the concept of sign. It is the counterpart of the concept of simple expression in Husserl's and Ajdukiewicz's theories. From the way Blaustein characterizes schemas and symbols we may infer that, according to him, a sign is a psychophysical entity that is a product of the psychophysical activity of a human (Blaustein, 1931, 70). This entity fulfills the function of a sign because it is an object that represents another object, namely an object signed (Blaustein, 1931, 101-102). The representation is possible because of the two-tiered structure of the underlying lived experiences. Blaustein refers here to Twardowski but the affinity to Ajdukiewicz, and to Husserl is clear. A sign as a physical object is presented to subject X in an act of presentation (in Polish: przedstawienie) by means of the presenting content (tresc prezentujqca) which makes a sign directly present to X.This act, in turn, provides the psychological basis (podstawa psychologiczna) for the subsequent act of signitive presentation (przedstawienie sygnitywne) of an object signed/represented by this sign. In this way, the second act, which does not have its own presenting content, inherits it from the first one, and no elements of this presenting content have counterparts in the properties of the object signed (so they all are inadequate to it), but all have them in the sign as a physical object (Blaustein, 1931, 4-15, 25). Consequently, as Blaustein puts it, a sign itself becomes a closer object (przedmiot blizszy) of a signitive presentation and an object signed/represented becomes a distant object (przedmiot dalszy) of this presentation (Blaustein, 1931, 26).

The signitive presentation characterized in this way is, according to Blaustein, a kind of psychological presentation which, in turn, also includes presentations by symbols and by schemas (Blaustein, 1931, 99-100). The difference between the first kind and the others is that in the case of purely signitive presentation an object A represents object B if A has a property that one has decided (by convention) to use to represent B, and only because of this property one presents himself B by means of A. Therefore, this kind of presentation is based on convention (Blaustein, 1931, 112-113).

The fact that signitive presentation is a kind of psychological presentation and that Blaustein identifies the act of signitive presentation with the concept by means of which an object is meant/signified (Blaustein, 1931, 29), suggests that according to him the meaning of expression is a psychic type of act of expression (or its understanding). This, in turn, points to the notion of psychological meaning introduced by Ajdukiewicz and his psychologistic interpretation of Husserl's Investigations.

Reflections on the conventional nature of signitive presentation lead Blaustein even further in the direction of Ajdukiewicz's theory of meaning, specifically his DTM. Blaustein, inspired by it, identifies the conventions that make a given sign represent an object signed with a set of meaning directives (Blaustein, 1931, 111-113). In the case of a given natural language, this set functions only as the subset of the broader set of meaning directives of this whole language. In this point, Blaustein combines the basic aspects of DTM with Karl Buhler's concept of the representational field. The representational field of a sign as representing object P1 is a composed representing object P2 of which P1 is a part and outside of which it does not have a representing function. The typical example of P1 as a part of P2 is a simple expression of given natural language as a part of this language. The expression P1 plays its representative role only within language P2 and directives determining the use of P1 function only as a subset of directives of whole language P2 (Blaustein, 1931, 118).

CONCLUSIONS

This paper aimed to show how Husserl's theory of meaning was interpreted by two members of the LWS-Ajdukiewicz and Blaustein-and to understand to what extent it resonated in their own conceptions of meaning. They both deal with “First Logical Investigation,” and adopt elements of Husserl's theory of meaning, although in general they maintain a critical attitude toward some aspects of the phenomenological method. In his DTM Ajdukiewicz, referring to Husserl, incorporates an anti-associationist account of meaning as an intermediary object between expression and the type of idea that manifests itself to the mental act. Though, he never identifies the idea with the presentation of a fulfilled meaning in intuition but rather he leads the definition of meaning back to the directives of language practice that support the mental act and the experience of the sentence uttered. According to Ajdukiewicz, an expression does not derive its intentionality from an ideal meaning understood as an entity irreducible to actual lived experience and only exemplified in the intentional essence of particular acts. Rather expression derives its intentionality from a structure internal to linguistic practice, which through the directives of language allows two speakers of the language to understand the mental act underlying the uttered expression. This position is consistent with the distinction in Ajdukiewicz's Lvov lectures on logic between a purely logical and a psychological dimension of meaning and with the delimitation of phenomenology to the descriptive-psychological dimension of meaning.

Like Ajdukiewicz, Blaustein, his student in Lvov at the time of lectures on logic, understands the phenomenological method first and foremost as a psychological-descriptive method. For him, the problem remains that of conceiving the ideal meaning as real parts of an act and for this reason criticizes Husserl's account of intentional essence and the hypothesis of a matter of acts identical in different psychic acts (meaning in specie). According to his analysis the meaning of an expression can be reduced to the flowing and temporally determined psychic act. In the way he rephrases Husserl's conception of the triple function of expression as something that announces the meaning intention, means meaning, and denotes the intended object, one can recognize Ajdukiewicz's linguistic mark, although he did later develop his own original conception of meaning that would bridge the gap between Husserl's phenomenology and Ajdukiewicz's DTM. In Blaustein's description of schematic and symbolic presentations we find a conception of intentionality similar to the one he extrapolated from Husserl's Investigations, in the case of pure signitive presentations, however, we find a conventionalist account of the relationship between the expression and the intended object that closely resembles Ajdukiewicz's DTM. This suggests that although Ajdukiewicz's interpretation of Husserl's Investigations and his own DTM played a key role in Blaustein's interpretation of intentionality, then the latter found his own way of understanding meaning that seem to be no longer assimilated to either Husserl's or Ajdukiewicz's perspective.

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