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The Problem of the Essential Indexical and Other Essays
No word in English is shorter than the word ``I.'' And yet no word is more important in philosophy. When Descartes said ``I think therefore I am'' he produced something that was both about himself and a universal formula. The word ``I'' is called an ``indexical'' because its meaning always depends on who says it. Other examples of indexicals are ``you,'' ``here,'' ``this'' and ``now.''
John Perry discusses how these kinds of words work, and why they express important philosophical thoughts. He shows that indexicals pose a challenge to traditional assumptions about language and thought. Over the years a number of these papers, now included in this book, have sparked lively debates and have been influential in philosophy, linguistics and other areas of cognitive science.
With seven new papers, including the previously unpublished ``What Are Indexicals?,'' the present volume expands on an earlier version of this book published in the early nineties. Also included are the well-known papers ``Frege on Demonstratives,'' ``Cognitive Significance and New Theories of Reference,'' ``Evading the Slingshot,'' ``The Prince and the Phone booth'' (coauthored with Mark Crimmins), ``Fodor on Psychological Explanations'' (coauthored with David Israel), and related papers on situation semantics, direct reference, and the structure of belief. This book also includes afterwords written by the author that discuss responses to his work by Gareth Evans, Robert Stalnaker, Barbara Partee, Howard Wettstein and others.
John Perry discusses how these kinds of words work, and why they express important philosophical thoughts. He shows that indexicals pose a challenge to traditional assumptions about language and thought. Over the years a number of these papers, now included in this book, have sparked lively debates and have been influential in philosophy, linguistics and other areas of cognitive science.
With seven new papers, including the previously unpublished ``What Are Indexicals?,'' the present volume expands on an earlier version of this book published in the early nineties. Also included are the well-known papers ``Frege on Demonstratives,'' ``Cognitive Significance and New Theories of Reference,'' ``Evading the Slingshot,'' ``The Prince and the Phone booth'' (coauthored with Mark Crimmins), ``Fodor on Psychological Explanations'' (coauthored with David Israel), and related papers on situation semantics, direct reference, and the structure of belief. This book also includes afterwords written by the author that discuss responses to his work by Gareth Evans, Robert Stalnaker, Barbara Partee, Howard Wettstein and others.
- GenresPhilosophy
428 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
29 people want to read
About the author
John R. Perry
137 books40 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
John R. Perry (born 1943) is Henry Waldgrave Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside. He has made significant contributions to areas of philosophy, including logic, philosophy of language, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind. He is known primarily for his work on situation semantics (together with Jon Barwise), reflexivity, indexicality, and self-knowledge.
John R. Perry (born 1943) is Henry Waldgrave Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Riverside. He has made significant contributions to areas of philosophy, including logic, philosophy of language, metaphysics, and philosophy of mind. He is known primarily for his work on situation semantics (together with Jon Barwise), reflexivity, indexicality, and self-knowledge.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 18, 2023
This is a useful collection of Perry's essays on the essential indexical, namely the first person deixis "I", with special attention from a Fregean analysis and in the semantics of propositional attitude report. This expanded edition has 7 more essays, 4 of which directly address indexicality. This work is helpful to anyone working on indexicality.
The original collection features the classic indexicality essays "Frege on Demonstratives", "The Problem of the Essential Indexical, "Castaneda on He and I". In "Frege on Demonstratives", demonstratives are a problem for Frege if his view on sense and reference identifies the sense of a sentence with a thought. Frege invokes an "incommunicable sense" for a sentence with an indexical while suggesting such a sense yields an incomplete sense and an object but not a complete Fregean thought. Perry thinks what is needed is to accept that sense serves only to determine reference and the context while the thought is identified by the incomplete sense of the sentence and the value of the demonstrative. In "Essential Indexical", the Essential indexical "I" poses a problem for traditional notion of proposition requiring absolute truth value of propositions while the sense of a sentence with an indexical such as "I am making a mess" does not offer a proposition that has absolute truth value. Its truth value is context sensitive depending on the referent in the context that the sense picks out. To address this problem, one can abandon this traditional notion of proposition, and switch to a relativised proposition according to which a proposition is a function from an index to a truth value relativised at time t, place l, or person p. With such notion of propositionality, Perry suggests a new class of proposition with "limited accessibility". Indexicality limits accessibility to the referent's indexicality. Only Perry can express "I am making a mess" if it is Perry making a mess. "The meeting starts now" has limited accessibility to the moment when the meeting starts. Modifying the notion of proposition is not sufficient to solve the problem of Essential indexical. One needs to be additionally cognizant of the ŕelation between the object of belief (proposition expressed) and the belief state (information in the proposition believed). In "Castenada on He and I", Perry examines Castenada's theory of reference on indexicals which is an adaptation of Fregean theory of reference. Castenada divides the sense of a proposition into the reference, which pertains the truth conditions of sentences imposing on the references of the expressions, and the psychological role, which is the mental/belief state a speaker is in based on the utterance of sentence.
There is a wealth of indexicality issues treated in this collection of 21 essays on indexicality. Several of them take unique approaches of examining the essential indexical that are worth mentioning. In "Thought without Representation", the essential indexical "I" is examined from the perspective that propositions containing "I" are expressed without knowledge of self. The proposition "I see a chair" does not offer information about myself. Self-knowledge can be selfless. It is possible to have information of a thing without a representation of it. There are two ways unarticulated (or unrepresented) constituents can be supplied by a proposition. One way is for the unarticulated constituents to be built into to the meaning in any context of use, such as "I am sitting" means that which is sitting is the speaker". Another way is the meaning of them identify a certain relationship to the speaker. In the case of "I" the relationship is of identity. Another essay is "Cognitive Significance and New Theories of Reference" which analyses the relation between cognitive significance and the semantics of referential propositions via Kaplan's direct theory of reference. In the new theory of direct reference, utterances with demonstratives referring to the same referent express the same proposition,e.g. "I live in Cincinnati" said by Rose, "you live in Cincinnati" said to Rose, "Pete Rose lives in Cincinnati" said by a third person. Perry discusses Wettstein's suggestion that cognitive significance of beliefs produced in such propositions are distinct from the semantics of the referential theories of those propositions, and it is not the business of semanticists to worry about cognitive significance. Perry doesn't agree with Wettstein approach because the truth content or condition of coreferring propositions does connect to cognitive significance though he does not think one needs to abandon the new theory of reference. In the classic essay "Circumstantial Attitude and Cognitive Benevolence", Perry explores the interesting notion of cognitive benevolence in self-knowledge. Cognition consists in efficient and benevolent cognition. By "efficient", Perry means people act in similar and law like manner in the same cognitive states. By "benevolent", people can act in a way that benefits the goals of their beliefs and desire. If you see a cup of water and are thirsty, you act in law-like efficient way to drink the water instead of pouring it on the ground, and in benevolent action to properly drink it instead of pouring it on yourself due to bad aim. Perry also considers how benevolent actions adapt to contextual variation.
The 4 new essays on indexicality in the expanded edition offers more updated study of indexicality beyond Fregean analysis. In "What are Indexicals?", Perry offers a quick survey and analysis of the indexicals characteristics of context-dependence and token-reflexivity. Indexicals use context semanticaly by using their word meanings to fix designation of specific utterances of them in terms of facts in the context about those specific utterances. Token-reflexivity is about the truth conditions of utterances containing indexicals, considered with just the meaning without the context fixed, would be propositions about just the utterances of the indexicals, but not the full content of the propositions expressed (which requires facts from the context). So reflexivity is just about the indexical utterance. In "Myself and I", Perry revisits "I" as unarticulated constituent and reflexivity using an analysis of agent-relative knowledge which is knowledge of a particular agent. This sort of knowledge can be expressed by a sentence containing a demonstrative for a place or object without any term about the speaker. Self-knowledge is a kind of agent-relative knowledge which the agent has a self- attached knowledge of himself without necessarily a knowledge "about" himself. This knowledge only requires reflexive relational awareness of the objects referred to the agent, but not knowledge concerning the agent. If I utter "I made a mess", I expressed self-attached knowledge of a mess attributed to me though I can have amnesia of who I am. In "Reflexivity, Indexicality, and Names", Perry examines the cognitive significance of David Kaplan's singular propositions, propositions containing indexicals, pronouns, demonstratives, proper names, and descriptions that contribute reference to objects in propositions. The cognitive significance can be further distinguished into "cognitive motivation", the beliefs and desires that motivates a speaker to select a certain sentence to express his singular proposition, and "cognitive impact" the beliefs and desires in the audience that a certain singular proposition expressed by a sentence would produce. In "Rip Van Winkle and Other Characters", it is a discussion of belief retention of sentences containing indexicals based on a well known David Kaplan's essay "On Demonstratives". Kaplan's semantic theory of indexicals and sentences containing them is based on the concepts of "content", and "character" and context. The content pertains to the proposition expressed in a statement (or utterance). The content or proposition expressed in a statement does not only depend on the linguistic meaning or character of the statement but also on the context. In Kaplan's essay, he considers the interesting example of Rip Van Winkle who holds the belief that "Today is a nice day" on 3 July 1776. He fell asleep and woke up 20 years and 2 days later on 5 July 1796. Realising he at least slept over the night, he utters "Yesterday was a nice day". The proposition expressed based on the context would be "4 July 1796 was a nice day". Does this example show he lost the belief that 3 July 1776 was a nice day? Perry develops an approach on mistaken information updating which agrees with Kaplan that there was no loss of the original belief. Rip van Winkle was mistaken about the information of the context updated. He did not realise the context was 20 years later. The character or meaning of "Yesterday was a good day" is not a way of indicating his original belief that "3 July 1776 is a nice day", but a merely mistaken character to identify the original belief.
Needless to say this collection of essays offers an embarrassment of richness of the variety of essential indexicality issues treated. It is a welcome resource for anyone who studies indexicality or theory of reference in general
The original collection features the classic indexicality essays "Frege on Demonstratives", "The Problem of the Essential Indexical, "Castaneda on He and I". In "Frege on Demonstratives", demonstratives are a problem for Frege if his view on sense and reference identifies the sense of a sentence with a thought. Frege invokes an "incommunicable sense" for a sentence with an indexical while suggesting such a sense yields an incomplete sense and an object but not a complete Fregean thought. Perry thinks what is needed is to accept that sense serves only to determine reference and the context while the thought is identified by the incomplete sense of the sentence and the value of the demonstrative. In "Essential Indexical", the Essential indexical "I" poses a problem for traditional notion of proposition requiring absolute truth value of propositions while the sense of a sentence with an indexical such as "I am making a mess" does not offer a proposition that has absolute truth value. Its truth value is context sensitive depending on the referent in the context that the sense picks out. To address this problem, one can abandon this traditional notion of proposition, and switch to a relativised proposition according to which a proposition is a function from an index to a truth value relativised at time t, place l, or person p. With such notion of propositionality, Perry suggests a new class of proposition with "limited accessibility". Indexicality limits accessibility to the referent's indexicality. Only Perry can express "I am making a mess" if it is Perry making a mess. "The meeting starts now" has limited accessibility to the moment when the meeting starts. Modifying the notion of proposition is not sufficient to solve the problem of Essential indexical. One needs to be additionally cognizant of the ŕelation between the object of belief (proposition expressed) and the belief state (information in the proposition believed). In "Castenada on He and I", Perry examines Castenada's theory of reference on indexicals which is an adaptation of Fregean theory of reference. Castenada divides the sense of a proposition into the reference, which pertains the truth conditions of sentences imposing on the references of the expressions, and the psychological role, which is the mental/belief state a speaker is in based on the utterance of sentence.
There is a wealth of indexicality issues treated in this collection of 21 essays on indexicality. Several of them take unique approaches of examining the essential indexical that are worth mentioning. In "Thought without Representation", the essential indexical "I" is examined from the perspective that propositions containing "I" are expressed without knowledge of self. The proposition "I see a chair" does not offer information about myself. Self-knowledge can be selfless. It is possible to have information of a thing without a representation of it. There are two ways unarticulated (or unrepresented) constituents can be supplied by a proposition. One way is for the unarticulated constituents to be built into to the meaning in any context of use, such as "I am sitting" means that which is sitting is the speaker". Another way is the meaning of them identify a certain relationship to the speaker. In the case of "I" the relationship is of identity. Another essay is "Cognitive Significance and New Theories of Reference" which analyses the relation between cognitive significance and the semantics of referential propositions via Kaplan's direct theory of reference. In the new theory of direct reference, utterances with demonstratives referring to the same referent express the same proposition,e.g. "I live in Cincinnati" said by Rose, "you live in Cincinnati" said to Rose, "Pete Rose lives in Cincinnati" said by a third person. Perry discusses Wettstein's suggestion that cognitive significance of beliefs produced in such propositions are distinct from the semantics of the referential theories of those propositions, and it is not the business of semanticists to worry about cognitive significance. Perry doesn't agree with Wettstein approach because the truth content or condition of coreferring propositions does connect to cognitive significance though he does not think one needs to abandon the new theory of reference. In the classic essay "Circumstantial Attitude and Cognitive Benevolence", Perry explores the interesting notion of cognitive benevolence in self-knowledge. Cognition consists in efficient and benevolent cognition. By "efficient", Perry means people act in similar and law like manner in the same cognitive states. By "benevolent", people can act in a way that benefits the goals of their beliefs and desire. If you see a cup of water and are thirsty, you act in law-like efficient way to drink the water instead of pouring it on the ground, and in benevolent action to properly drink it instead of pouring it on yourself due to bad aim. Perry also considers how benevolent actions adapt to contextual variation.
The 4 new essays on indexicality in the expanded edition offers more updated study of indexicality beyond Fregean analysis. In "What are Indexicals?", Perry offers a quick survey and analysis of the indexicals characteristics of context-dependence and token-reflexivity. Indexicals use context semanticaly by using their word meanings to fix designation of specific utterances of them in terms of facts in the context about those specific utterances. Token-reflexivity is about the truth conditions of utterances containing indexicals, considered with just the meaning without the context fixed, would be propositions about just the utterances of the indexicals, but not the full content of the propositions expressed (which requires facts from the context). So reflexivity is just about the indexical utterance. In "Myself and I", Perry revisits "I" as unarticulated constituent and reflexivity using an analysis of agent-relative knowledge which is knowledge of a particular agent. This sort of knowledge can be expressed by a sentence containing a demonstrative for a place or object without any term about the speaker. Self-knowledge is a kind of agent-relative knowledge which the agent has a self- attached knowledge of himself without necessarily a knowledge "about" himself. This knowledge only requires reflexive relational awareness of the objects referred to the agent, but not knowledge concerning the agent. If I utter "I made a mess", I expressed self-attached knowledge of a mess attributed to me though I can have amnesia of who I am. In "Reflexivity, Indexicality, and Names", Perry examines the cognitive significance of David Kaplan's singular propositions, propositions containing indexicals, pronouns, demonstratives, proper names, and descriptions that contribute reference to objects in propositions. The cognitive significance can be further distinguished into "cognitive motivation", the beliefs and desires that motivates a speaker to select a certain sentence to express his singular proposition, and "cognitive impact" the beliefs and desires in the audience that a certain singular proposition expressed by a sentence would produce. In "Rip Van Winkle and Other Characters", it is a discussion of belief retention of sentences containing indexicals based on a well known David Kaplan's essay "On Demonstratives". Kaplan's semantic theory of indexicals and sentences containing them is based on the concepts of "content", and "character" and context. The content pertains to the proposition expressed in a statement (or utterance). The content or proposition expressed in a statement does not only depend on the linguistic meaning or character of the statement but also on the context. In Kaplan's essay, he considers the interesting example of Rip Van Winkle who holds the belief that "Today is a nice day" on 3 July 1776. He fell asleep and woke up 20 years and 2 days later on 5 July 1796. Realising he at least slept over the night, he utters "Yesterday was a nice day". The proposition expressed based on the context would be "4 July 1796 was a nice day". Does this example show he lost the belief that 3 July 1776 was a nice day? Perry develops an approach on mistaken information updating which agrees with Kaplan that there was no loss of the original belief. Rip van Winkle was mistaken about the information of the context updated. He did not realise the context was 20 years later. The character or meaning of "Yesterday was a good day" is not a way of indicating his original belief that "3 July 1776 is a nice day", but a merely mistaken character to identify the original belief.
Needless to say this collection of essays offers an embarrassment of richness of the variety of essential indexicality issues treated. It is a welcome resource for anyone who studies indexicality or theory of reference in general
May 17, 2022
Clever unpacking of the special status of indexical knowledge and a refreshing gradation from epistemology to philosophy of mind.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews