Importance of Actual Reality

I had some trouble following Richards and Ogden's argument, but I'm going to do my best. The three of us are mostly likely going to spend the weekend together on the blog getting to know each other a little better.

A key difference between Locke, and Richards and Ogden appears to be their thoughts on the origin of "signs." Locke claims that an imperfection in language is that a symbol's (a word) "signification is supposed to agree to the real constitution of things....but this real constitution, or (as it is apt to be called) essence, being utterly unknown" (820).  According to Locke, man cannot know the entirety of a being; it can only know what it perceives of that being’s interactions with himself and other perceived beings in the world. A man can hear a “horse” neigh and see how it interacts with other animals, but he will never know what it truly means to be a horse. As a result, when he names such a being “horse”, he is conferring onto that symbol only what a man knows of a “horse”, which is an incomplete knowledge. The name, therefore, cannot really stand for a horse.

Richards and Ogden made a statement that reminded me of Locke’s claim on man’s inability to understand essence: “symbol and referent, that is to say, are not connected directly” (1275). Richards and Ogden use the example of “a man mows a lawn” to illustrate this statement. They explain that a lawnmower is actually cutting the grass, but the sentence doesn’t need the "lawnmower" word to be present to be understandable. The sentence itself is a symbol which references the mental image of a man using a lawnmower to mow a lawn. The sentence calls together all the components of the image—the man, the lawn, and the mower—without having to represent each player individually. The “referent” is the action of the man mowing the lawn. The symbol is the sentence “a man mows a lawn.” The symbol calls up a mental image (“Thought or Reference”) which represents the referent—the real act. Similar to Locke, Richard and Ogden are saying that a word cannot stand for the real thing it represents. A “horse” is not actually a horse. The symbol can only refer to a collection of perceived ideas that man shares on the idea of a “horse” or of a man mowing a lawn.

Richards and Ogden say that the imperfection of language lies in that a symbol cannot directly relate it to the referent. It cannot be a "horse." For Locke, however, the imperfection lies in man's inability to perceive the reality of the "horse" or the "lawnmower." For Locke, a referent can't exist in the same way that it exists for Richards and Ogden. Richards and Ogden might say that a "thought or reference" refers to a referent in reality, but Locke would ask what is reality? How can the sentence "a man mows a lawn" succeed in being communicable if man can't truly understand what it means for a lawnmower to mow a lawn? In other words, Richards and Ogden acknowledge that men's perception of reality can greatly differ and therefore their references do not always align, but they don't address man's inability to truly understand a referent. The imperfection lies in the symbol's relation to the referent, not the referent itself. I think it's best demonstrated through the following statement: "The handiness and ease of a phrase is always more important in deciding whether it [a symbol] will be extensively used that its accuracy" (1275). Instrumentality is key to Richards and Ogden. Instrumentality is too a concern of Locke's, but he is also concerned about the referent's accuracy. Locke believes language is instrument to knowledge, and if knowledge is the pursuit of truth, then accuracy must play a key role in deciding what words are to be used. 

What do Richards and Ogden believe language is instrument to?