A Review of the Development of the Theory of Meaning in the West

Due to the close relation between language and thought, the philosophers and logicians in various periods pay much attention to the meaning of language. The philosophers in Ancient Greek, in Medieval and in Modern Times studied the meaning of language. This paper discusses the study of them in turn, and exposes the development road of the theory of meanin g from the meaning of words to the meaning of sentences, then to the context of language, then to behavior of talk. It proves the necessity and inevitability of combination of the theory of logic and real life.