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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 'The Inessential Indexical'

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]