 Stevenson intends to provide a theory of emotive and descriptive meaning in the “pragmatic” or “psychological” sense, where this sense of ‘meaning’ invokes the work of Charles Morris. In Foundations of the Theory of Signs (1938), Morris had suggested a tripartite division of the study of signs into (i) syntax, the study of the relations among signs; (ii) semantics, the study of the relations among signs and their designations or denotations; and (iii) pragmatics, the study of signs as they are used by members of a community in order to “meet more satisfactorily their individual and common needs” (10), that is, the study of signs as they are used to coordinate mental and social life. Taking his cue from Morris, Stevenson seeks to provide a theory of meaning in terms of the “psychological reactions” of those who use the signs (1944, 42), and, then, to distinguish emotive and descriptive meaning by the different types of psychological reaction associated with the use of emotive and descriptive language respectively.