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Full Idea
Indexical thoughts create an obvious problem with regard to communication. How can we manage to communicate such thoughts to those who are not in the right context?
Gist of Idea
How can we communicate indexical thoughts to people not in the right context?
Source
François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], 7.1)
Book Ref
Recanati,François: 'Mental Files in Flux' [OUP 2016], p.111
A Reaction
One answer is that you often cannot communicate them. If I write on a wall 'I am here now', that doesn't tell the next passer-by very much. But 'it's raining here' said in a telephone call works fine - if you know the location of the caller.
| 22242 | Mental files are concepts, which are either collections or (better) containers [Recanati] |
| 22243 | The Frege case of believing a thing is both F and not-F is explained by separate mental files [Recanati] |
| 22245 | A linguistic expression refers to what its associated mental file refers to [Recanati] |
| 22246 | A train of reasoning must be treated as all happening simultaneously [Recanati] |
| 22247 | Indexicality is not just a feature of language; examples show it also occurs in thought [Recanati] |
| 22248 | How can we communicate indexical thoughts to people not in the right context? [Recanati] |
| 22249 | The Naive view of communication is that hearers acquire exactly the thoughts of the speaker [Recanati] |
| 22250 | There are speakers' thoughts and hearers' thoughts, but no further thought attached to the utterance [Recanati] |