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Single Idea 18414

[filed under theme 19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 9. Indexical Semantics ]

Full Idea

Fregeans tend to treat as a fundamental tenet that sense determines reference; same sense, same reference. From that it follow trivially that indexicals don't have the same sense: different uses of 'I' have different referents, so sense must differ.

Gist of Idea

Fregeans say 'I' differs in reference, so it must also differ in sense

Source

Cappelen,H/Dever,Josh (The Inessential Indexical [2013], 04.6)

Book Ref

Cappelen,H/Dever,J: 'The Inessential Indexical' [OUP 2013], p.72

A Reaction

Interesting. Since it seems implausible that 'I' is profoundly different when two people use it, this seems to be a strong argument against Frege's distinction. But I rather like Frege's distinction, while being sceptical about 'I', so I'm baffled....

The 19 ideas from Cappelen,H/Dever,Josh

18404 It is assumed that indexical content is needed to represent the perspective of perception [Cappelen/Dever]
18405 A 'teepee' argument has several mutually supporting planks to it [Cappelen/Dever]
18406 The basic Kaplan view is that there is truth-conditional content, and contextual character [Cappelen/Dever]
18408 Indexicals are just non-constant in meaning, and don't involve any special concepts [Cappelen/Dever]
18407 Indexicality is not significantly connected to agency [Cappelen/Dever]
18411 It is proposed that a huge range of linguistic items are context-sensitive [Cappelen/Dever]
18413 Fregeans can't agree on what 'senses' are [Cappelen/Dever]
18414 Fregeans say 'I' differs in reference, so it must also differ in sense [Cappelen/Dever]
18417 Possible worlds accounts of content are notoriously coarse-grained [Cappelen/Dever]
18419 Folk Functionalism is a Ramsification of our folk psychology [Cappelen/Dever]
18420 We deny that action involves some special class of beliefs [Cappelen/Dever]
18421 Proprioception is only immune from error if you are certain that it represents the agent [Cappelen/Dever]
18422 Prioprioception focuses on your body parts, not on your self, or indexicality [Cappelen/Dever]
18423 All indexicals can be expressed non-indexically [Cappelen/Dever]
18425 We can acquire self-knowledge with mirrors, not just with proprioception and introspection [Cappelen/Dever]
18426 All information is objective, and purely indexical information is not much use [Cappelen/Dever]
18427 If some of our thought is tied to its context, it will be hard to communicate it [Cappelen/Dever]
18428 You don't remember your house interior just from an experienced viewpoint [Cappelen/Dever]
18429 Our beliefs and desires are not organised around ourselves, but around the world [Cappelen/Dever]