The only truly meaningless notations are either nonsense words or contradictions in terms. A square circle is inconceivable, unthinkable, and we can have no idea of it and no object of thought which we can grasp arising from its consideration. But we have already seen that except for Proper names and common names for objects perceived, all other common names have designative references that are NOT also existentially denotative. Nearly every object of memory or imagination that we can name, certainly about all the objects of conceptual thought that we can name, the question as to whether it exists in reality may be asked. The elimination of referential significance that is not also existentially denotative would make it impossible to ask such questions.
Much modern philosophy is the stuff of enthusiasms.
Serchez la fan. Of course, but as Locke dug himself deeper into his pit of selective meanings, others can do no better. The defence of Hobbes actually crosses the line of common sense. They assert that all other words have only sense - no reference. Adler is not altogether correct in stating that a contempt for the past was all that led men to eschew scholastic philosophy.