display all the ideas for this combination of texts
4 ideas
| 22247 | Indexicality is not just a feature of language; examples show it also occurs in thought [Recanati] |
| Full Idea: People once took indexicality to be exclusively a property of language, ....but a series of examples seemed to establish that the thought expressed by uttering an indexical sentence is itself indexical (and is thus 'essential'). | |
| From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], 6.1) | |
| A reaction: Perry's example of not realising it is him leaking the sugar in a supermarket is the best known example. Was this a key moment for realising that philosophy of thought is (pace Dummett) more important than philosophy of language? |
| 22248 | How can we communicate indexical thoughts to people not in the right context? [Recanati] |
| 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? | |
| From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], 7.1) | |
| 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] |
| Full Idea: Mental files are entries in the mental encyclopedia, that is, concepts. Some, following Grice, say they are information collections, but I think of them as containers. Collections are determined by their elements, but containers have independent identity. | |
| From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], Pref) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] [Grice reference is 'Vacuous Names' (1969)] I agree with Recanati. The point is that you can invoke a file by a label, even when you don't know what the content is. |
| 22243 | The Frege case of believing a thing is both F and not-F is explained by separate mental files [Recanati] |
| Full Idea: Frege's Constraint says if a subject believes an object is both F and not-F (as in 'Frege cases'), then the subject thinks of that object under distinct modes of presentation. Having distinct mental files of the object is sufficient to generate this. | |
| From: François Recanati (Mental Files in Flux [2016], Pref) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] When you look at how many semantic puzzles (notably from Frege and Kripke) are solved by the existence of labelled mental files, the case for them is overwhelming. |