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p There is a direct connection between scientism and one of the most important principles of neo-positivism: the principle of verification, according to which all the facts of consciousness which cannot be verified by the facts of experience ( understood as sensual experiences of the subject) are pseudo-statements, devoid of scientific meaning. In Richards’ theory of symbolism this principle is manifest in its central premise about the distinction between the symbolic (or referential) and emotive uses of signs. The symbolic use accords with the principle of verification, has referents in experience, and is consequently applicable in science. The emotive (or evocative) use does not accord with this principle, has no referent in experience, and is an unscientific means of using signs. There is a link between the theory of the two types of the use of the symbolic language and the basic idea of Richards’ communicative theory of art, that the specifics of poetry and art as a whole should be sought in their special use of words and signs.

p Peirce had pointed out previously that in their influence on the addressee signs may provoke various “significate effects": thoughts, actions and feelings. The authors of The Meaning of Meaning also suggest that “our interpretation of any sign is our psychological reaction to it" (2, 244). They regard this reaction to be the “meaning” of a sign. Further on they concentrate exclusively on an analysis of one of the varieties of signs-words.

p The reaction to a word, the authors argue, contains a number of components, which can be divided into two main groups constituting its symbolic (or referential) and emotive (or evocative) meanings.

p The meaning of a word in the most important sense’of the word “meaning” is that part of a total reaction to the 33 word which constitutes the thought about what the word is intended for and what it symbolizes. Thus thought (the reference) constitutes the symbolic or referential meaning of a word. Occasionally the authors treat “reference” as an attitude to our thought about something or other, but this distinction is not explained, and most of the time symbolic meaning simply signifies thought. Thoughts refer to objects outside us, and thus words designate objects through our thoughts about these objects. A total psychological reaction to a word also includes “feelings”, “emotions” and “ attitudes”, which constitute the emotive meaning of a word.

p Richards introduces an important distinction between the “meaning” of words and their “use”, or “functions”.  [33•1  He distinguishes two main types of the use (or two functions) of words: the symbolic (or referential) and the emotive (evocative). The first type characterizes the use of language in science, and is sometimes in fact called the scientific use of language. The second type characterizes the functions of words (signs) in poetry (art). Poetry is defined as the highest form of emotive language. It is interesting to see what criteria are advanced for the differentiation of these two types of the use of language.

p The first criterion is concerned with which meaning of the word the speaker is trying to convey in the process of its use (its functioning). When we use words to convey their symbolic meaning (their sense), to convey information, to communicate our thoughts about things, to symbolize attitude to referent, we are using them symbolically. This function may be realised basically through the symbolic meaning of a word, but Richards maintains that the emotive meanings of a word may also sometimes come to its aid.

p The emotive use of language is characterized by three main functions: (1) the expression of an attitude (feelings) to the listener, (2) the expression of an attitude (feelings) to the object (referent), (3) the production of the desired effect in 34 the listener (5, 181-82).  [34•1  The emotive use is exercised through the emotive meaning of words. Richards believes that in poetry language is used to provoke emotions and attitudes, and such is its function. This gives such communication a more profound character than that whose purpose is solely referential. It is this that distinguishes science and poetry, which, “in its use of words ... is just the reverse of science" (4, 33), i.e. they are used symbolically, to convey information. What relation does the emotive use of language in poetry (and in art as a whole) have to the symbolic meaning of words, to their sense and to the symbolic use of language?

p First let us have a look at the role of the symbolic meaning of words (their sense) in poetry. Many commentators note that Richards asserted in his early works that in poetry language may be used purely emotively, without referring to the sense of the words. There are indeed statements in Richards’ works from which it follows that he recognizes the possibility of using words in poetry without referring to their sense. Thus, in The Meaning of Meaning he discusses how it is possible in the emotive use of words not to have recourse to their symbolic meaning and to attain the desired goal by the direct effect of the words. In the perception of verse the actual sound of the words operates before their meaning, as does their tone in ordinary speech. There are great works of music and painting which have no representation, this latter corresponding to thought in poetry. While admitting the possibility of using language emotively in poetry without referring to the sense of the words, Richards does not however deny the significance for poetry either of the sense of words or of statements (which can be true or false), neither does he deny the significance of representation for painting. What 35 role does Richards in fact accord them in his aesthetics? The authors of The Meaning of Meaning rightly believed there is an element of reference inherent in practically every use of words, at least by civilized adults. These two functions usually occur together, but nevertheless they are in principle distinct (2, 150). This led the authors to the correct conclusion that in poetry the emotive use of words coexists with the symbolic use. And insofar as the latter is realised predominantly through the sense of the words the thoughts which are provoked by a reading of poetry are occasioned above all by their sense. Thus the sense of words and statements in poetry conveys information, in this way exercising the symbolic use of language.

p While recognizing the inseparability of these two functions the authors emphasized that the main function of poetry is the emotive, and the symbolic function here plays a subordinate role. The main function of the language of poetry is fulfilled on condition the right attitude is found and the desired emotions provoked, and in this case any symbolic function the words may have will be merely instrumental and “subsidiary to the evocative function" (2, 150). Thus, in poetry the symbolic meaning of words, their sense, by and large serves not to convey information, but to provoke emotions.

p This idea, which receives clear formulation in as early a work as The Meaning of Meaning, was emphasized by Richards later too, and in particular in Speculative Instruments (8, 42).

p As the second criterion for their distinction between the two types of the use of language the authors of The Meaning ot Meaning advance the question which follows from the neo-positive principle of verification: “is such a statement true or false?" If the question is appropriate it means that it is a symbolic use, and if not, an emotive use. The authors, admittedly, make the reservation that the question of the truth, in the strictest sense of the word, of a statement cannot really be asked with respect to the emotive use of words, but they argue that the question is at least obliquely possible.

p There has been much discussion and disagreement around Richards’ theory, advanced in Science and Poetry, that in 36 poetry statements are in fact pseudo-statements (4, 70).   [36•1  In our opinion, Richards wished to use this term to emphasize the essential distinction between the use of statements in poetry and their application in science. Statements in science are used for information. The emotional effects they might cause are not of importance to science. Science requires that its statements be non-ambiguous, logical and true. True statements are verified by their correspondence with the “facts”. They also occur in poetry: “I didn’t and couldn’t mean,” writes Richards, “that ... they are not statements at all" (8, 148). But these statements only have an emotive use. Their task is not to inform. Richards is hostile to the “ message-hunting" in poetry, to the intellectual reaction, which can often obstruct emotional appreciation. The task of statements in poetry is to act on the emotions, to order them, and to organize impulses and attitudes. “The point is that many, if not most, of the statements in poetry are there as a means to the manipulation and expression of feelings and attitudes, not as contributions to any body of doctrine of any type whatever" (5, 186). Statements in poetry are not logical inferences, logic here is subordinate to feelings. In another context, such as in science, pseudo-statements can be true or false, but in poetry they are neither one thing nor the other. Their correspondence to fact is at times hard to establish. A possible reason for this is that “facts” can be made up, and that pseudo-statements themselves have a generalized and “vague” character, with insufficiently clear spacial and temporal coordinates. It does not matter in poetry how wide the differences are in the reference if the poem achieves its effect by provoking the desired emotions and attitudes. Attitudes are broader and more generalized than references, and are not always pointed at the same things to which statements refer. It is possible to talk of the truth and falsity of pseudostatements, but in a different, poetic sense. Pseudo-statements are true if they serve certain desired attitudes, linking 37 them together. The truth of these pseudo-statements is entirely determined by their effect in releasing or organizing our impulses and attitudes (4, 70-71). Utterances which are false from a scientific point of view, may be poetically true. For example, the old necromantic theories are valuable because they make possible a complex play of emotions, and the development of our feelings. Their loss brings with it the danger of emotional starvation or a one-sided exercise of the most trivial impulses. But Richards warns against the view that poetry is a negation of science. Erroneous statements should not be introduced into poetry, it should not be used for the creation of a new mythology or a return to childhood: this profanes poetry and is a hazardous venture. Richards argues against the common view of poetry as a correlative of science. Poetry, he believes, serves other goals than science, it has its own function.

p Thus Richards recognizes, especially in later works, that reference which carries information and knowledge plays a certain role in poetry, but he emphasizes its subsidiary position with respect to the emotions and attitudes. We should note that the authors of The Meaning of Meaning and Richards in his other early works are not always consistent in putting across this point of view. Alongside true statements about the link between the emotive and symbolic functions of language we find in The Meaning of Meaning assertions of quite another type-assertions that, if these functions are not confused, the exercise of one function need not in any way interfere with the exercise of the other; that as science frees itself from the emotional outlook so does poetry abandon the “obsession” of knowledge and symbolic truth; that it is not necessary to know what things are in order to take up fitting attitudes; and that it ought to be impossible to talk about poetry as though capable of giving “knowledge” (2, 158-59). Man’s emotional development, maintains the author of Science and Poetry, does not depend on the achievement of scientific objectivity in knowledge. In his later works, such as Speculative Instruments, Richards does however give a more consistent account of knowledge’s proper place in art.

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p In addition to those mentioned above there is a third criterion advanced for the distinction of two types of the use of language. It has to do with the causal theory of meaning. Communication, according to Richards, presupposes that the ideas of one person act on another, and this person experiences something similar to the experience of the first person. It follows from this that to the psychological reactions that the listener has to a word (i.e. to its meaning) there are similar corresponding states in the mind of the speaker. It is these that are the immediate reasons for the use of the word in question. “Between a thought and a symbol causal relations hold. When we speak, the symbolism we employ is caused partly by the reference we are making and partly by social and psychological factors-the purpose for which we are making the reference, the proposed effect of our symbols on other persons, and our own attitude" (2, 10-11). The symbolic use of words is operated by thought, and in particular by thought about some specific object, while all the other reasons cause emotive use. Emotive words, when considered .with respect to their psychological reasons, are expressive.

p In Richards’ theory the use of words is also considered in connection with the contextualist theory of meaning or the theory of interpretation, set forth both in The Meaning of Meaning and in his later works. This theory holds that the sign is to be defined as something which was once a part of the context, acting on the mind as a whole. When the sign appears again the result is such as if the rest of the context was present with it. The context acts on the use of words, on their meanings: words, as signs, act through their context. The view that meanings appertain to words in isolation is tantamount, Richards argues, to an acceptance of the mystical theory of names (7, 132). Each word is situated, as it were, in two contexts. Its meaning belongs to the class of things, which it designates (i.e. to the concept), and to the word order, i.e. to the text (contemporary linguistics uses the terms paradigm and context in this sense). The tension between them is a possible cause of polysemanticity, and ambiguity is a specific feature of poetic language. The contextual character of 39 meaning is responsible for its metaphorical properties, which is a feature not only of the emotive, but also of the symbolic use. This is an omni-present principle of language and of thought, which uses metaphors as models of things.  [39•1 

p Richards’ theory of the two types of the use of language and its application to poetry contains some valuable elements. His very inquiry into the specific nature of poetry (and of art in general), particularly in comparison to science, sheds light on the use (or function) of words (or signs), and is very fruitful. It has been further developed in the semiotic theories of art. A correct scientific interpretation of the emotive function of language in art admits the thesis that the symbolic function (connected with the designation of suprapersonal meanings and concepts), so specific to science, may also play an important, albeit subordinate, role in art. However, these views, along with his accurate thesis about the importance of the scientific theory of communication to the theory of art, were denied their due development by the influence of neo-positivist ideas. Richards patently displays the neo-positivist tendency of exaggerating the role of the linguistic problems of art and turning them into the central concern of aesthetics. In essence Richards tried to turn literary criticism into a division of linguistics. Moreover, his opposition between the “egocentric” language of art and the language of science, which refers to external objects of reality, provided the theoretical foundation for “pure descriptivism" (in the spirit of the Prague linguistic circle).

p The theory about the two different uses of language (and about the criteria for this division) and, in particular, the interpretation of this theory as related to art, were subjected to serious criticism by, amongst others, Richards’ followers. M. Black, the most influential of the neo-positivists, pointed out that Richards had not carried through the distinction 40 between presentation and statements. It follows from Richards’ theory that any reference in art is simultaneously assertion, and the absence of an assertion means that the reference is also absent. It is true. Black agrees, that poetry may “state” nothing, but this does not imply that there is no reference in this case. Reference here functions in the form of presentation (representation, depiction). Richards’ error in this matter, the critic believes, was one of the reasons for his underestimation of the importance of intellectual understanding as a factor in aesthetic appreciation, and for his underestimation of the cognitive factor in aesthetics in general (18, 207-08).

p Thomas C. Pollock agrees that Richards’ theory of the use of language has certain merits, but is of the opinion that “as a theoretical basis for the study of literature, it can best be described quite simply as inadequate" (15, 8). First, not all types of the use of language can be accommodated in these two groups, there are also “mixed” groups, but Richards does not analyse these; secondly, we cannot agree that in the majority of more complex poems the words are used primarily to produce effects in emotion and attitudes; thirdly, the distinction he makes is particularly inadequate for the language of prose fiction and drama; fourthly, Richards does not consider more complex evocative units than the word. Pollock considers the most misleading feature of this theory to be its “elementalism”. In his use of this term the author actually has in mind the fact that the psychological theories employed by Richards-associationism and psychological functionalism (James, Dewey, Angell et al.) were varieties of the psychology of elements. Despite his avowal that he regards man as an integral whole, Richards divided his psychological functions into two types. He denned the symbolic use of language in terms of intellectual psychological elements (thought, reference), and the emotive in terms of nonintellectual elements (emotion, attitudes). Richards’ classification divides the human essence into the intellect, on the one hand, and the emotions, on the other. Richards is mistaken when he argues that content in literary communication can be explained in terms of non-intellectual psychological elements, 41 such as emotion and attitude. Analogous accusations of “ elementalism" have been made by J. Spaulding.  [41•1 

p Even Hotopf, Richards’ staunch disciple, while he believes that criticism of Richards is as a rule the result of an incorrect understanding of his ideas, himself criticizes Richards’ explanation of the use of language. First, he does so from the viewpoint of the purpose of an utterance, arguing that the alternative division made by Richards is narrow, since it is possible to have a neutral exposition (not persuasive), which at the same time is not scientific, e.g. the language of instructions. Secondly, there cannot be a sharp division between the emotive and referential uses of language from the point of view of psychological practice either. There can be no such thing as a pure referential use, for it will always contain certain human interests, the satisfaction of the speaker’s requirements. Hotopf holds that the thesis that poetry is purely emotive, only concerned with the harmonising of the personality, is an extreme view, and perhaps the “main weakness of Richards’ theory" (13, 50, 245-46).

p Many critics (Ransom, Barfield, Eastman et al.) have pointed out that Richards’ theory of the two types of the use of language leads to the nominalistic tendencies in his aesthetic views: art for him is not connected with objects of the real world. Richards considered the function of poetry only from the point of view of its stimulation attitude and organization of human behaviour without having recourse to the world of things, without comparing poetry and reality, relating all epistemological problems to the competence of science thereby opposing it to poetry. The scientism of neo-positivism, which pays lip service to science, indeed denies its cognitive powers. This can be seen in the well-known neopositivist teaching that sensuous data are the only reality which science is concerned with. The same holds true for the conception of conventionalism, which argues that statements 42 in science are the result of arbitrary agreement. Richards acts in full accordance with these neo-positivist theories when he characterizes science as a fiction, as a “myth”, placing it on a par with religion (6, 177). Black was quite correct when he termed this attitude to science idealistic.

Many of Richards’ commentators, while they correctly see the weaknesses of his philosophical and aesthetic position fail to appreciate that these weaknesses issue from the “basic error" of Richards’ neo-positivist position. This error consists, first of all, in his ignoring the problems of the theory of reflection, and the epistemological questions of art, regarding them as devoid of scientific sense, and secondly, in his failure properly to understand the socio-historical essence of art and the communicative processes which correspond to its nature.