[subversion]

Originally Posted by <<>>

Ow hoh! You have made the question that enters the discussion in the terrible world which is the philosophy of language. Too complex, too boaring, too technical is this philosophy. Philosophers of language started to differentiate and ended up with a long list of terms: symbol, sing, signal, significant... Too many, too mathematical for philosophy.

But I agree. The meaning of a word, the dictionary meaning, is not defined by the word or by the object it refers to, or by the mind that contains it. For example, my name, Guille, doesn't have it's meaning, doesn't contain it, and what it refers to, which is me, is not in itself either, and what it means in my mind, or in yours, isn't in it... It seems nothing really determines the meaning of a word or a sentence.

You're right, the word Guille doesn't contain you. But the word Guille still contains itself, the word Guille. And the meaning of the word Guille is also self contained. And you are also self contained, because you contain yourself. So everything contains itself. This is self-evident. In fact, I will now call this self-evidence, the fact that something contains itself.