This paper presents a framework of four types of meaning and understanding in the history of political thought and intellectual history. Previous frameworks have overlooked a whole type of meaning – the type often prioritised by political theorists and philosophers. I call this “extended meaning.” Correcting a wrong turn in philosophy of language in the 1950s, I show how extended meaning has robust intellectual foundations, and I illustrate its value for textual interpreters. Even historians often need extended meaning, for example to help resolve ambiguous passages. So, the main types of meaning are not alternatives: scholars interested in one kind of meaning still need others. This paper thus celebrates both diversity and unity.

本文提出了政治思想史和知识史上四种意义和理解的框架。先前的框架忽略了一种完整的意义-政治理论家和哲学家通常优先考虑这种意义。我称其为“扩展含义”。我纠正了1950年代语言哲学的一个错误转折，展示了扩展意义如何具有强大的知识基础，并且说明了其对文本解释器的价值。甚至历史学家也常常需要扩展含义，例如帮助解决歧义的段落。因此，意义的主要类型不是替代的：对一种意义感兴趣的学者仍然需要其他意义。因此，这篇论文既庆祝了多样性，又庆祝了团结。