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Single Idea 18402

[filed under theme 18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 9. Indexical Thought ]

Full Idea

The present suggestion is that indexical concepts are ineliminable because without them agency would be impossible: when I imagine myself divested of indexical thoughts employing only centreless mental representations, I am deprived of the power to act.

Gist of Idea

Indexical concepts are indispensable, as we need them for the power to act

Source

Colin McGinn (Subjective View: sec qualities and indexicals [1983], 6)

Book Ref

McGinn,Colin: 'The Subjective View' [OUP 1983], p.104

A Reaction

A nice clear statement of the view developed by Perry and Lewis. I agree with Cappelen and Dever that it is entirely wrong, and that indexical thought is entirely eliminable, and nothing special.

Related Idea

Idea 18407 Indexicality is not significantly connected to agency [Cappelen/Dever]

The 19 ideas from 'Subjective View: sec qualities and indexicals'

22415 Relativity means differing secondary perceptions are not real disagreements [McGinn]
22416 Phenomenalism is correct for secondary qualities, so scepticism is there impossible [McGinn]
22413 Being red simply consists in looking red [McGinn]
22414 You don't need to know how a square thing looks or feels to understand squareness [McGinn]
22412 Lockean secondary qualities (unlike primaries) produce particular sensory experiences [McGinn]
18410 Indexical thought is in relation to my self-consciousness [McGinn]
22417 Indexicals do not figure in theories of physics, because they are not explanatory causes [McGinn]
22418 I can know indexical truths a priori, unlike their non-indexical paraphrases [McGinn]
22420 The indexical perspective is subjective, incorrigible and constant [McGinn]
18402 Indexical concepts are indispensable, as we need them for the power to act [McGinn]
22421 Could there be a mind which lacked secondary quality perception? [McGinn]
22424 Secondary qualities contain information; their variety would be superfluous otherwise [McGinn]
22425 The utility theory says secondary qualities give information useful to human beings [McGinn]
22423 Touch doesn't provide direct experience of primary qualities, because touch feels temperature [McGinn]
22426 We can perceive objectively, because primary qualities are not mind-created [McGinn]
22422 Maybe all possible sense experience must involve both secondary and primary qualities [McGinn]
22427 To explain object qualities, primary qualities must be more than mere sources of experience [McGinn]
22428 You understood being red if you know the experience involved; not so with thngs being square [McGinn]
7629 We see objects 'directly' by representing them [McGinn]