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    "I" is an indexical expression. — Carmelics
    Statements
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    Perspectives
    108,905
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    42
    Home/Philosophy of Language
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    "I" is an indexical expression.

    Philosophy of Language
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    2 reasons against

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    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Mary said "I am hungry," meaning Mary is hungry — not that Sam is hungry.
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    • 2.Sam's report that Mary said Sam is hungry is false.
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    • 3.The falsity of Sam's report shows that "I am hungry" has a different content out of Mary's mouth than out of Sam's mouth.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.On Frege's view, 'I' has a peculiar sense that each person grasps immediately and solely from the first-person perspective.
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    • 2.If 'I' carried only a context-shifting reference rule (as indexicals do), it could not explain the distinctive epistemic role of first-person thought that makes 'I am in pain' cognitively irreducible to 'NN is in pain'.
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    • 3.An expression whose semantic contribution is exhausted by a context-to-referent rule cannot account for the irreducible first-person mode of presentation, so 'I' must have stable sense beyond mere indexicality.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Castañeda's theory of 'quasi-indicators' shows that first-person self-reference in indirect discourse resists substitution by any third-person term, including indexicals like 'he'.
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    • 2.If 'I' behaved as a standard indexical, its content in reported speech could be captured by a coreferring expression like 'she' or 'that person,' but 'Mary believes she* is hungry' is not equivalent to 'Mary believes I am hungry' even when 'she*' is bound to Mary.
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    • 3.The irreducible reflexivity of first-person belief reports demonstrates that 'I' tracks something beyond the context-relative reference that defines indexicality.
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    Topics

    Philosophy of Language

    Related

    An expression that shifts its content depending on the context of utterance is a...An expression whose semantic contribution is exhausted by a context-to-referent ...Castañeda's theory of 'quasi-indicators' shows that first-person self-reference ...If "I am hungry" has different content depending on who utters it, then "I" has ...
    +7 moreShow less
    If 'I' behaved as a standard indexical, its content in reported speech could be ...If 'I' carried only a context-shifting reference rule (as indexicals do), it cou...Mary said "I am hungry," meaning Mary is hungry — not that Sam is hungry.On Frege's view, 'I' has a peculiar sense that each person grasps immediately an...Sam's report that Mary said Sam is hungry is false.The falsity of Sam's report shows that "I am hungry" has a different content out...The irreducible reflexivity of first-person belief reports demonstrates that 'I'...

    Similar

    An expression that shifts its content depending on the context of utte...84%The indexical expression 'I', when uttered in a fixed context, continu...82%It is unclear what the Sinn of an expression really is78%Sentences are a type of expression.78%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: meaning
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    The report is obviously false; Mary said that Mary is hungry, not that Sam is. The falsity of Sam’s report suggests that “I am hungry” has a different content out of Mary’s mouth than out of Sam’s; and this, in turn, suggests that “I” has a different content when uttered by Mary than when uttered by Sam. Hence, it suggests that “I” is an indexical.
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit