Coherence and truthfulness in communication: Intracommunicational and extracommunicational indexicality

Abstract

AbstractThe aim of this article is to construct a model that demonstrates how human communication, involving all kinds of media, may not only correspond to but also put us in contact with what we perceive to be the surrounding world. In which ways is truthfulness actually established by communication? To answer this, the notion of indices is employed: signs based on contiguity. However, an investigation of indices’ outward direction – creating truthfulness in communication – also requires an understanding of their inward direction: establishing coherence. To investigate these two functions, further concepts and various elementary categorizations are proposed: it is argued that there are several types of contiguity and many varieties of indexical objects, which invalidates the coarse fiction–nonfiction distinction.