Many historians focus primarily on authors' “intended meanings.” Yet all textual interpreters, including historians, need a second kind of meaning. I call this idea “extended meaning,” a new name for an old idea: “P means Q” is the same as “P logically implies Q.” Extended and intended meaning involve different kinds of understanding: even if we grasp exactly what authors meant, we miss something important if we overlook their errors, for example. Crucially, extended and intended meaning are not alternatives: just as some parts of texts cannot be understood without historical analysis, so too some parts of texts cannot be understood without philosophical analysis. Indeed, some historians are adept at using extended meanings to recover intended meanings. But the failure to make this explicit has led many historians to undervalue philosophical analysis. This article thus applies the idea of extended meaning to three practical questions: whether we can deviate from authors' intended meanings, whether we can use anachronisms, and how we can use extended meanings to recover intended meanings. The idea of extended meaning thus strengthens our theoretical foundations and offers valuable practical tools.

中文翻译：

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在思想史上的扩展意义和理解

许多历史学家主要关注作者的“预期意义”。然而，所有的文字解释者，包括历史学家，都需要第二种含义。我将此想法称为“扩展含义”，是旧观念的新名称：“ P表示Q”与“ P逻辑上表示Q”相同。扩展的含义和预期的含义涉及不同类型的理解：例如，即使我们确切地掌握了作者的意思，但如果忽略了他们的错误，我们也会错过一些重要的内容。至关重要的是，扩展的含义和预期的含义不是替代方案：就像没有历史分析就无法理解文本的某些部分一样，没有哲学分析也就无法理解文本的某些部分。确实，一些历史学家擅长使用扩展含义来恢复预期的含义。但是，未能做到这一点很明确，导致许多历史学家低估了哲学分析的价值。因此，本文将扩展含义的概念应用于三个实际问题：我们是否可以偏离作者的预期含义，是否可以使用时代错误，以及如何使用扩展含义来恢复预期含义。因此，扩展含义的思想加强了我们的理论基础，并提供了有价值的实用工具。