The conversation began over marmalade.
Professor Quillibrace regarded this as entirely appropriate.
The most troublesome philosophical questions, he maintained, generally arrived disguised as breakfast.
Mr Blottisham was spreading marmalade on toast with unusual concentration.
Finally he spoke.
"Professor?"
"Yes?"
"Does language create reality?"
Professor Quillibrace lowered his teacup very carefully.
"My dear Blottisham..."
"Yes?"
"I should like to finish my toast before beginning the twentieth century."
Miss Stray laughed.
"It is a good question," she said.
"It seems so."
"Which usually means it isn't."
Blottisham looked mildly disappointed.
"I thought reality was simply there."
"It is."
"And language simply describes it."
"Sometimes."
"Sometimes?"
Professor Quillibrace buttered another piece of toast.
"Suppose I describe this."
He held up the marmalade jar.
"What is it?"
"A jar."
"What else?"
"A container."
"A breakfast item."
"Glass."
"A cylinder."
"A gift from your aunt."
Professor Quillibrace smiled.
"The object has not changed."
"No."
"What has changed?"
"The way we are looking at it."
Miss Stray nodded.
"The same object can belong to many different worlds."
Blottisham frowned.
"There is only one jar."
"There is."
"But there are many systems of meaning."
The room became quiet.
Professor Quillibrace walked to the blackboard.
He wrote one word.
TREE
"What is this?"
"A tree."
"Certainly."
"But a botanist sees something different from a carpenter."
"A poet."
"An ecologist."
"A child climbing it."
"A bird."
Blottisham blinked.
"It is still the same tree."
"Exactly."
"The reality has not altered."
"The worlds have."
Miss Stray smiled.
"I wonder whether we are confusing two different questions."
Professor Quillibrace looked pleased.
"As usual."
"The first question is:
What exists?"
"The second?"
"What does it mean?"
Blottisham sat very still.
"So existence and meaning are different."
"They are."
"The tree exists."
"Yes."
"But whether it is timber..."
"...or habitat..."
"...or beauty..."
"...or childhood memory..."
"...depends upon the world of meanings we inhabit."
Professor Quillibrace nodded.
"Very good."
Blottisham looked thoughtful.
"So language doesn't create the tree."
"No."
"But it helps create the tree I experience."
Professor Quillibrace smiled.
"I was hoping someone would say that."
Miss Stray poured more tea.
"I think we often imagine that meaning is hidden inside objects."
"It isn't?"
"Perhaps not."
"Where is it then?"
She looked around the room.
"In us."
"In language."
"In shared practices."
"In culture."
"In memory."
The room became unusually quiet.
Professor Quillibrace wrote another word.
MONEY
Blottisham smiled.
"We've discussed that."
"Indeed."
"What is money?"
"Paper."
"Sometimes."
"Numbers."
"Sometimes."
"Trust."
Professor Quillibrace looked up.
"Better."
Miss Stray added quietly,
"And agreement."
The room fell silent again.
"Without shared meanings..."
"Money disappears."
"The paper remains."
"The meaning vanishes."
Blottisham stared at the blackboard.
"So there are realities that depend upon language."
"There are realities that depend upon shared understanding."
Professor Quillibrace corrected gently.
"Language is one of the ways those understandings endure."
The clock ticked softly.
Outside the window a group of students crossed the quadrangle.
One waved.
Another bowed theatrically.
Two shook hands.
One removed a hat.
Professor Quillibrace pointed outside.
"What happened?"
"They greeted one another."
"Did they?"
"They moved their arms."
"Physically."
"But greeting..."
"...is meaning."
Miss Stray smiled.
"The movements are real."
"The greeting is also real."
"But in a different way."
Blottisham looked increasingly puzzled.
"So reality comes in layers."
Professor Quillibrace considered.
"I rather like that."
"The physical layer."
"The biological."
"The psychological."
"The social."
"The symbolic."
"And language belongs..."
"...primarily to the symbolic."
The fire crackled quietly.
After several minutes, Blottisham spoke again.
"I think I've been asking the wrong question."
"Oh?"
"I asked whether language creates reality."
"Yes."
"But perhaps I should have asked..."
He hesitated.
"...what sort of reality?"
Professor Quillibrace looked almost pleased.
"A much better question."
Miss Stray smiled.
"Words do not create mountains."
"No."
"But they create promises."
"Laws."
"Universities."
"Friendships."
"Money."
"Marriage."
"Citizenship."
"Music."
"History."
The room fell silent once more.
Professor Quillibrace slowly erased the blackboard.
Everything disappeared except two words.
MEANING MATTERS
Blottisham looked at them.
"So perhaps language is not a window."
"No."
"Nor a prison."
"No."
"Then what is it?"
Professor Quillibrace picked up his coat.
"It is the house in which human meanings learn to live together."
Miss Stray extinguished the lamp.
Outside, the ancient college stood exactly as it had before.
Stone.
Wood.
Glass.
Rain.
Inside those stones, however, another kind of architecture had been quietly built over centuries.
Not of bricks.
Not of timber.
But of conversations.
Shared understandings.
Promises.
Stories.
Questions.
And words.