Character, Impropriety, and Success: A Unified Account of Indexicals

Mind and Language 30 (1):1-21 (2015)
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Abstract

Core indexicals like ‘I’, ‘here’, and ‘now’ sometimes appear to refer to an object, place, or time other than the speaker, location, or time of utterance. This presents well-known problems for Kaplan's view, which treats reference shifting as a violation of the character rules that give the meaning of indexicals. I propose a view according to which indexical reference is essentially a matter of the mutually-accepted perspective of interlocutors. It follows that contexts need not be ‘proper’ in Kaplan's sense, and a successful convergence of perspectives is needed for indexical reference to succeed. I provide reasons for embracing these conclusions

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Allyson Mount
Keene State College

Citations of this work

Intention, Convergence and Indexical Reference.Ankita Jha - 2023 - Journal of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research 40 (2):183-206.

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References found in this work

Demonstratives: An Essay on the Semantics, Logic, Metaphysics and Epistemology of Demonstratives and other Indexicals.David Kaplan - 1989 - In Joseph Almog, John Perry & Howard Wettstein (eds.), Themes From Kaplan. Oxford University Press. pp. 481-563.
Scorekeeping in a language game.David Lewis - 1979 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 8 (1):339--359.
Common ground.Robert Stalnaker - 2002 - Linguistics and Philosophy 25 (5-6):701-721.

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