Putting Semantics in its Place

Semantics is not a stand-alone discipline; it is interlocked with various other areas of study that borrow from it, and it from them. If you decide to pursue this study further, Figure 1.2 should be a helpful roadmap or at least provide some idea of where the major boundaries are.

Figure 1.2: Semantics in relationship to other branches of metaphysics.

Semantics is about meaning, and about distinguishing things that are close in meaning from each other. As such, we should spend a moment clarifying semantics by distinguishing it from several other terms that are related.

• Metaphysics—Metaphysics attempts to explain the fundamental nature of everything, in particular the relationship of mind to matter. This is the more traditional definition and is not to be confused with many popular definitions that deal with occultism and mysticism.

• Epistemology—Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that studies the nature of knowledge. This is more concerned with how we know things than with what things mean.

• Mereology—You may not think there could be a branch of study devoted to the relationship of parts to wholes, but there is and this is it. The relationship to semantics is a bit complex. At one level mereology informs us whether we are attempting to understand the meaning of something in its entirety or whether understanding its constituent parts is sufficient. On the other hand we need to apply semantics to the many mereological distinctions to understand what it means to include something, be part of something, or contain something.

• Phenomenology—Phenomenology is a philosophy based on the belief that reality is composed of objects and events as they are perceived by a human mind. The sophists believe that "man is the measure of all things" and that reality is as we perceive it to be. "Idealism," the belief that the only real world is the "ideal" world and that the physical world is constantly changing, is a form of phenomenology.

• Linguistics—Linguistics is the study of language, and generally is a broader concept and includes semiotics. Linguistics also covers many other disciplines not related here, such as the study of sounds.

• Ontology—Ontology is a branch of metaphysics that deals with structures of systems. Currently, it is associated with organization and classification of knowledge. It is closely related to semantics, the primary distinction being that ontology concerns itself with the organization of knowledge once you know what it means. Semantics concerns itself more directly with what something means.

• Semiotics—Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols as used in language. It is a broader study than just the study of meaning in that it incorporates syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.

• Syntax—Syntax as a philosophical study is concerned with first-order logic, or how to construct very basic grammars. It forms the basis for formal semantics.

• Pragmatics—Pragmatics is a branch of semiotics concerned with the relationship between language (or signs) and the people using them. How does social context interact with meaning? The word pragmatic is often used to mean practical. This is an important body of work relative to semantics, especially as we come to apply semantics in a predominantly social context (business).

• Cosmology—Cosmology is a subdiscipline of metaphysics that concerns itself with the nature of being. It is concerned with how the universe works, not with what our terms mean. It has come to be associated more with astronomy of late. Relative to semantics, it asks "Why?," whereas semantics asks "What?"

• Philosophical theology—Philosophical theology is the branch of metaphysics that deals with the relationship of a deity relative to the phenomenology of the world. It has historically been a trump card in the discussion of semantics, in that the meaning of things we deal with in semantics could be construed to have a meaning not available to us but only to a divine creator.

I hope that this overview is useful in describing a few of the other fields that have been closely related to semantics over its long history.