| Preface | xi |
| Chapter I. | The Scope of a Philosophy of Language | |
| Question 1. | What is the primary fact that a philosophy of language should try to explain or account for? | 4 |
| Question 2. | What aspects of language should a philosophical approach to the subject not attempt to deal with? | 6 |
| Question 3. | What, specifically, should be avoided in developing a philosophical theory of language? | 8 |
| Question 4. | How are the philosophical problems of language related to the concerns of the logician and the grammarian in dealing with language? | 10 |
| Chapter II. | The Primary Problem for a Philosophy of Language | |
| Question 1. | Can the problem of meaning be formulated in a way that is not prejudicial to any possible solution of it? | 16 |
| Question 2. | What different meanings of the word "meaning" must be noted to achieve a clearer statement of the problem of meaning? | 18 |
| Question 3. | What mode of meaning is peculiar to words and what mode of meaning do words share with other things? | 20 |
| Question 4. | Is there only one mode of meaning peculiar to words, or are there two? | 24 |
| Question 5. | Can ambiguities latent in the word "meaning" be avoided? | 27 |
| Question 6. | Does the eulogistic use of the word "meaningful" and the dyslogistic use of the word "meaningless" raise a problem for the philosophy of language? | 29 |
| Question 7. | Of the several modes of meaning (i.e., of signifying) that we have so far considered, and of the various uses of the word "meaning" that we have so far indicated, which concern the philosophy of language in dealing with its primary problem? | 34 |
| Chapter III. | The Solution of the Primary Problem | |
| Question 1. | Can meaningless notations acquire referential significance without the intervention of mind? | 39 |
| Question 2. | Can meaningless notations acquire referential significance by being imposed on things? | 44 |
| Question 3. | Can meaningless notations acquire referential significance by being imposed on ideas? | 49 |
| Question 4. | Why is it that meaningless notations can acquire referential significance in no other way than by being imposed on the objects of perception, memory, imagination, and thought? | 54 |
| Question 5. | Do meaningful words ever function in the acquisition of referential significance by meaningless notations? | 66 |
| Question 6. | How do the meaningless notations that become syncategorematic words acquire their syntactical significance, and how does that mode of meaning differ from the referential significance of categorematic words or name-words? | 70 |
| Chapter IV. | The Underpinnings of the Theory | |
| Question 1. | What posits are required for a solution of the problem of meaning? | 77 |
| Question 2. | As compared with really existent things, what mode of existence do subjective ideas have? | 83 |
| Question 3. | As compared with things and ideas, what mode of existence do apprehended objects have? | 88 |
| Question 4. | What relationships obtain between things and ideas, between ideas and objects, and between objects and things? | 92 |
| Question 5. | Does the distinction between three modes of being, appropriate to things, ideas, and objects, call for a distinction between modes of cognition? | 95 |
| Question 6. | Is human experience all of one piece, or can it be divided into objective and subjective experience? | 97 |
| Question 7. | How does human discourse deal with matters of subjective experience or with what is not experienceable at all? | 101 |
| Chapter V. | Two Difficult Questions | |
| Question 1. | How can two or more numerically distinct ideas be the means whereby one and the same object is apprehended? | 106 |
| Question 2. | How is the perceptual object related to the really existing thing which causes our perception of that object? | 111 |
| Chapter VI. | Discourse About Objects of Perception, Memory, and Imagination | |
| Question 1. | In our conversations about objects of perception are we also talking to one another about really existent things? | 124 |
| Question 2. | Can one and the same object of discourse be a perceptual object for one person, a remembered object for another, and an imagined object for a third? | 128 |
| Question 3. | Can we discourse about imaginary objects that are never objects of perception or memory? | 131 |
| Chapter VII. | Discourse About Objects of Thought | |
| Question 1. | Can the meaning of a common name be explained in any other way than by a universal object of thought as its referent? | 140 |
| Question 2. | Are universal objects of thought entities that also have real existence? | 146 |
| Question 3. | Can all universal objects of thought be instantiated by perceived or perceivable particulars? | 149 |
| Question 4. | How can two or more persons assure themselves that the conceptual object signified by a common name they are using is one and the same object for all of them? | 155 |
| Epilogue | 161 |
| Bibliographical Appendix | 173 |
