Online research in philosophy

In this paper I shall focus on Castaneda's notion of quasi-indicators and I shall defend the following theses: (i) Essential indexicals (‘I’, ‘here’ and ‘now’) are intrinsically perspectival mechanisms of reference and, as such, they are not reducible to any other mechanism reference...

1. In ‘A problem for expressivism’ Frank Jackson and Philip Pettit argue ‘that expressivists do not have a persuasive story to tell about how ethical sentences can express attitudes without reporting them and, in particular, without being true or false’ (1998: 240). Briefly: expressivists say that ethical sentences serve to express non-cognitive attitudes, but that these sentences do not report non-cognitive attitudes. The view that ethical sentences do report non-cognitive attitudes is not Expressivism (and not non-cognitivism), but rather a version of cognitivism. According to (what we’ll call) Subjectivism, a typical ethical sentence like ‘Abortion is wrong’ reports the speaker’s non-cognitive attitude toward abortion; it says, in effect, that abortion is the object of some attitude of the speaker’s. Expressivists, by contrast, say that the sentence expresses a non-cognitive attitude toward abortion, but does not say that the speaker has it. Ayer put it this way: I can say that I am bored by uttering the sentence ‘I am bored’, but I can express boredom, without saying that I am bored, by yawning (Ayer 1952: 109).

Frege held that indexical thoughts could be retained through changes of context that required a change of indexical term. I argue that Frege was partially right in that a singular mode of presentation can be retained through changes of indexical. There must, however, be a further mode of presentation that changes when the indexical term changes. This suggests that indexicals should be regarded as complex demonstratives; a change of indexical term is like a change between 'that φ' and 'that ψ', where 'φ' and 'ψ' pick out relational properties that may nonetheless be conceived of by the thinker as intrinsic.

It has traditionally been maintained that every token of ‘I’ refers to its utterer. However, certain uses of indexicals conflict with this claim, and its counterparts with respect to ‘here’ and ‘now’, suggesting that the traditional account of indexical reference should be abandoned. In this paper, I examine some proposed alternatives and the difficulties they face, before offering a new account of indexical reference. I endorse Kaplan’s view that the reference of an indexical is determined on any occasion it is used by applying its character to a particular context, arguing that the problem cases show that this is not always the context of utterance. The task facing the semantic theorist is thus to explain what fixes the reference-determining context. I consider and reject both Predelli’s suggestion that the reference-determining context is the one intended by the utterer, and Corazza et al.’s proposal that the relevant context is fixed by conventions delivered by the utterance setting. The discussion of these two accounts reveals that an adequate theory of indexical reference should allow the speaker to use indexicals in novel ways, whilst holding that what a speaker can refer to with an indexical utterance is constrained by what an audience can understand. I develop an account based around these two requirements.

Eros Corazza presents a fascinating investigation of the role that indexicals (e.g. 'I', 'she', 'this', 'today', 'here') play in our thought. Indexicality is crucial to the understanding of such puzzling issues as the nature of the self, the nature of perception, social interaction, psychological pathologies, and psychological development. Corazza draws on work from philosophy, linguistics, and psychology to illuminate this key aspect of the relation between mind and world. By highlighting how indexical thoughts are irreducible and intrinsically perspectival, Corazza shows how we can depict someone else's indexical thought from a third-person perspective. The phenomenon of quasi-indexicality is introduced here: to represent Jane saying, "I am prosperous," we use what Castaneda termed a quasi-indicator in a report of the form "Jane said that she (herself) is prosperous". Corazza argues that quasi-indicators play such an important role in our linguistic, social, and psychological life that they have a cognitive primacy over other mechanisms of reference. Quasi-indexicality also emerges as a key notion when we come to consider our ability to understand other minds. Corazza argues that indexicality and quasi-indexicality are two sides of the same coin, best understood within the framework of direct reference.

The indexical thesis says that the indexical terms, “I”, “here” and “now” necessarily refer to the person, place and time of utterance, respectively, with the result that the sentence, “I am here now” cannot express a false proposition. Gerald Vision offers supposed counter-examples: he says, “I am here now”, while pointing to the wrong place on a map; or he says it in a note he puts in the kitchen for his wife so she’ll know he’s home even though he’s gone upstairs for a nap, but then he leaves the house, forgetting to remove the note. The first sentence is false by virtue of “here” not necessarily referring to the place of utterance, the second sentence, by virtue of “now” not necessarily referring to the time of utterance. We argue that these sentences express falsehoods only because the terms are being used demonstratively, not indexically – the distinction pertains not to words simpliciter, but to uses of words. When used indexically, the terms refer in accord with the indexical thesis; but when used demonstratively, their referents depend on how devices of ostension are used with their utterance – pointings, and the like. Thus Vision’s first sentence really says, “I am there now”, referring to the place on the map the finger is pointing to. As for his second sentence, we distinguish the time of utterance or production of a sentence from the time of its uptake. Due to the pragmatics of interpretation, the sentence really says “I” – the person ‘uttering’ the note – “am here” – here where the note is, with the note serving as a kind of proxy ‘finger’ – “now” – where “now” refers to the time of uptake of the note, i.e., when it is read. “I” refers indexically, “here”, demonstratively, and “now”, indexically, but indexically to the time of uptake. Since the sentence is not purely indexical, its falsehood doesn’t threaten the indexical thesis. A similar treatment is given of teletyped messages about the typer’s location.

According to Hector-Neri Castañeda, indexical reference is our most basic means of identifying the objects and events we experience and think about. Its tokens reveal our own part in the process by denoting what are "referred to as items present in experience" (Castañeda 1981, 285-6). If you hear me say, "Take that box over there and set it next to this box here," you learn something about my orientation towards the referents in a way that is not conveyed by, "Take the red box and set it next to the blue box." My indexical tokens express what they do not only because they issue from a unique spatio-temporal perspective that I happen to occupy, but also because they reflect my encounter with referents that are differently situated in that perspective. From your perspective, my here might be your there, my you your she, and within my own, a this differs from a that and one this diverges from another. Encounter and orientation within a perspective are the essential ingredients in indexical identification without which particular 'this's, 'that's, 'then's, 'here's, and 'beyond's would be denuded of individuating powess.1 There are several consequences of this description. First, indexical reference is ephemeral because perspective is constantly changing, rendering the indexical status of an entity relative to a given perspective temporary: 1 A this quickly turns into a that, and soon enough it is lost to experience and is not even a remote that; a you goes away and is replaced by another . . . Nothing is really an enduring you -- except God perhaps for the abiding mystic. (Castañeda 1989a, 69) Second, indexical reference is irreducible since non-indexical mechanisms of reference fail to express the subject's involvement or encounter with the referents that indexicals convey. Nor can the various indexicals be reduced to each other.2 Third, because each perspective is unique, indexical reference is essentially subjective..

In 'You and She*' (ANALYSIS 51.3, June 1991) C.J.F. Williams notes the importance of reflexive pronouns in attributions of propositional attitudes, and claims to improve upon an earlier account of Hector-Neri Castaneda's in [1]. However, to the extent which his remarks are accurate, they reveal nothing that Castaneda hasn't already said, while insofar as they are new, they obliterate distinctions vital to Castaneda's theory. Castaneda called these pronouns quasi-indicators and noted that they function as linguistic devices used for attributing indexical reference to others. For example, in hearing Arthur say 'I am wise' we would report his claim in English with, (1) Arthur thinks that he himself is wise. where 'he himself' is a quasi-indicator used to attribute to Arthur reference to himself qua self -- an expression that Castaneda abbreviated with 'he*.' Note that (1) is quite different from, (2) Arthur thinks that I am wise for 'I', functioning here as an indexical term, represents only the speaker's reference. Nor can (1) be identified with, (3) Arthur thinks that Arthur is wise. for this fails to represent the indexical character of Arthur's thought. Thus, (3) falls short of the informational content of (1). Moreover, as Williams, echoing Castaneda, points out, Arthur might not know that he himself is Arthur, or that he is named 'Arthur.' Hence, (3) might be false even if (1) is true. Williams observes that 'she' can also be used in oratio obliqua to report an indexical 1 usage, e.g., in (4) Arthur told Mary that she ought to talk to Shirley Makepeace's..

When you use the word “I” it designates you; when I use the same word, it designates me. If you use “you” talking to me, it designates me; when I use it talking to you, it designates you. “I” and “you” are indexicals. The designation of an indexical shifts from speaker to speaker, time to time, place to place. Different utterances of the same indexical designate different things, because what is designated depends not only on the meaning associated with the expression, but also on facts about the utterance. An utterance of “I” designates the person who utters it; an utterance of “you” designates the person to whom it is addressed, an utterance of “here” designates the place at which the utterance is made, and so forth. Because indexicals shift their designation in this way, sentences containing indexicals can be used to say different things on different occasions. Suppose you say to me, “You are wrong and I am right about reference,” and I reply with the same sentence. We have used the same sentence, with the same meaning, but said quite different and incompatible things.

It is widely agreed that the references of indexical expressions are fixed partly by their relations to contextual parameters such as the author, time, and place of the utterance. Because of this, indexicals are sometimes described as token-reflexive or utterance-reflexive in their semantics. But when we inquire into how indexicals help us to identify items within experience, we find that while utterance-reflexivity is essential to an interpretation of indexical tokens, it is not a factor in a speaker's identificatory use of indexicals. Tokens cannot be interpreted unless they are first produced, and obviously the speaker who produces them does not depend upon utterance parameters in order to identify their referents in the way that hearers do. Consequently, the standard reflexive accounts of indexicals are of little use in explaining the speaker's identificatory use of indexicals, and must be either replaced or complemented by a further theory of the role of indexicals in thought. This paper provides an account of indexical identification that is attentive to a speaker's as well as a hearer's identification and reveals how indexicals are inextricably perspectival.