Cappelen and Dever (henceforth C&D) ask whether there is any essential aspect of indexicals that distinguishes them from other linguistic or mentalist notions. [In the philosophical literature, words like I, you, now, tomorrow, here, that are called indexicals. On the standard theory (Kaplan 1989), the meaning of indexicals has two aspects: a variable aspect and a constant one. For instance, the constant aspect of the meaning of I is something akin to the person speaking, while the flexible aspect of its meaning is the person uttering this indexical on a specific occasion. (For an introductory discussion, see Braun (2012).)] The discussion, although generalizable, revolves around the indexical I and the corresponding modes of thinking of oneself from the `first person’ (or de se) perspective. This reflects a general orientation in the literature, which focuses for the most part on the egocentric aspect associated with these first personal notions.

So, the driving question of the book is whether there is a way of thinking of myself that is essential for thought and action–for thinking and acting as I do. It is something of a philosophical dogma that indexical modes of speaking and thinking are connected in a very special way to our capacity for thought and action. Let’s call this dogma the essential indexicality thesis. In the Inessential Indexical, C&D challenge this thesis, arguing that there is nothing essential (or unique) about how the indexical modes of thinking and speaking are connected to thought and action. In other words, both indexicals and non-indexicals are to be subsumed under more general (linguistic, cognitive or epistemic) phenomena.

One of the most forceful lines of argumentation proposed in the book pertains to the philosophy of language (an area that, so far, has led the study of indexicality). The idea of opacity plays a central role in C&D’s argumentation. Consider the following ‘Superman’ scenario. A person, say Lois, may well believe that Superman can fly, whilst ignoring that Clark Kent can fly, even if Superman = Clark Kent. In this situation the following may be both true.

(1)    Lois believes that Superman can fly.

(2)    Lois believes that Clark Kent cannot fly.

There is a clear sense in which Lois would not be inconsistent in holding these two beliefs. Hence, the meaning of the proper names Superman and Clark Kent cannot simply be the unique individual to which these proper names refer–call this individual s. Otherwise, Lois will end up believing contradictory propositions about s, namely that he can and cannot fly.

A famous proposal–due to Frege (1997); see also Zalta (2014)–is that certain words occurring in belief-environments change their denotation from their usual referent to a mode of presentation of that referent (or sense). The thought may seem straightforward, but working out in detail such a solution is not trivial. For our purposes, it is important to note that belief-environments are opaque: such environments add a new layer (a sense) between some words (e.g. Clark Kent) and their referents. [Other psychological attitude verbs such as know, desire, intend, plan etc. also introduce opaque contexts (but not all do, e.g. see is transparent, since it wouldn’t require a mode of presentation of the referent in the ‘Superman’ scenario).]

Now, one of the main points of the book is that the apparently essential indexicals are just a case of words in opaque environments. Many types of expressions are sensitive to opaque contexts, and indexicals are just one such type of expression (Herman Cappelen and Dever (2013), ch. 3). So, as far as the language of indexicality is concerned, there does not seem to be anything distinctive about indexicals. Let us consider several examples to illustrate the point.

Following one of John Perry’s (1979) examples, suppose that a certain shopper in a supermarket just bought a torn bag of sugar. Without realizing it, the shopper goes on with his shopping, continuously spilling sugar. On noticing that there is sugar all over the place, I start following the trail of sugar to let the shopper know about the problem. But there is an important detail I may be missing. I may well be looking for someone who spills sugar on a supermarket floor without realizing that I myself am doing it. Suppose this is the case in the present scenario. In a similar scenario, I may (for some odd reason) believe that Clark Kent is the shopper who is making a mess, without realizing that he is Superman. In both of these scenarios, I can find out the missing information. Namely, I can find out that I am the messy shopper, or that Superman is Clark Kent.

On getting to know one such identity statement, I can act differently than was able to beforehand, and, likewise, my actions will be explainable differently than in the case I missed the new piece of information. According to the essential indexicality thesis, this connection to action and explanation of action is something that is uniquely secured by essential indexicals. And the first ‘messy shopper’ scenario is supposed to show that. But the main point of the second (‘superman’) version of the ‘messy shopper’ scenario is that the indexical I and the proper name Superman have the same sort of impact on the belief ascriptions and on the potential explanation of my actions.

To connect the essential indexicality thesis with another important strand in the philosophy of language, consider the following examples.

(3)    Arguments against descriptivism

a.       Clark Kent is the man in the superman-costume.

b.       The man in the superman-costume is the man in the superman-costume.

c.       I am the man in the superman-costume.

Kripke (1980) has argued against descriptivism–roughly, Frege’s idea (earlier alluded to) that the meaning of a proper name is a mode of presentation given by a description of the form the F–using contrasting constructions similar to (3a) and (3b). Similarly, the advocates of essential indexicality have argued from contrasts such as those in (3c) to the conclusion that indexicals are essential. The idea is that we can doubt (3a) and (3c), but we cannot reasonably doubt (3b). Sentence (3b) is just saying the obvious thing that a given man is identical to himself.

C&D point out that although both kinds of cases are independently famous in the philosophy of language, the similarity between them has not been properly acknowledged.
The two cases involve basically the same strategy in order to show that certain expressions (indexicals and proper names) cannot have descriptive meanings. Crucially, this observation cannot be used to show that indexicals are special, because we can see that the same problem occurs with proper names. So, according to C&D, we have reason to believe that indexicals are not special, since they behave very similarly to proper names.

These lines of thought lead to the conclusion that there is no such thing as linguistic essential indexicality. It is to the merit of C&D that they take several other perspectives on indexicality throughout the book. The chapters where the linguistic perspective is most prominent are chapters 3, 4, and 9. Chapters 5 and 6 treat of the problem of indexicality from a more cognitive perspective, chapter 7 discusses the epistemological aspects of indexicality, and chapter 8 looks at the role of indexicality in perception.

Some readers will find the psychological and epistemological aspects of essential indexicality the most appealing, so a full investigation of the essential indexicality thesis should include these aspects too. On these topics, you can read the Inessential Indexical.
This would be rewarding for readers who have a prior background in contemporary philosophy. I found C&D’s book insightful, elegantly written, and particularly well structured. Whilst ‘first personal’ phenomena are rather elusive, the book offers a clear picture of the potential significance of perspectival notions for thought and action. The authors do an excellent job in spelling out the content and ramifications of the essential indexicality thesis, and make a strong case for an unorthodox view of the role of indexicality–a view that future writings on the topic should certainly address.

 

References

Braun, David. 2012. “Indexicals.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta, Summer 2012. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2012/entries/indexicals/.

Frege, Gottlob. 1997. The Frege Reader. Edited by Michael Beaney. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing.

Herman Cappelen, and Josh Dever. 2013. The Inessential Indexical. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Kaplan, David. 1989. “Demonstratives.” In Themes from Kaplan, edited by J. Almog J. Perry and H. Wettstein, 481–563. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kripke, Saul A. 1980. Naming and Necessity. Oxford: Blackwell.

Perry, John. 1979. “The Problem of the Essential Indexical.” Noûs 13: 3–21.

Zalta, Edward N. 2014. “Gottlob Frege.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta, Fall 2014. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2014/entries/frege/.

 

© 2014 Andrei Nasta

 

Andrei Nasta writes on philosophy of language and linguistics. website: http://www.nastaa.org/