Indexical Representation and Deflationary Semantics

Abstract

In the present chapter, I will argue that it is possible to extend deflationary semantic theories in such a way as to explain our use of truth-conditional semantic concepts in connection with indexical concepts and indexical thoughts. Indexical concepts include I, you, he, she, it, here, there, now, then, yesterday, two years ago, this rabbit , and the table on your left . They also include all tensed verbal concepts. Indexical thoughts include I love you, she is having a bad hair day , and I used to play tennis with that man . Roughly speaking, a concept counts as indexical if its reference or denotation depends, at least in part, on features of the context in which the concept is entertained. And a thought counts as indexical if it is necessary to take features of the context into account in determining whether the thought counts as true. On the other hand, a concept or a thought counts as eternal if its truth-conditional semantic properties are independent of contextual features. Indexical representations pose a variety of challenging problems for deflationary theories. As I see it, however, it holds quite generally that deflationary theories possess the resources to cope with these problems. That is to say, as I see it, where D is any reasonably powerful deflationary theory, it is possible to extend D to a theory that explains the basic features of our semantic thought and talk about indexical representations.