Reflecting the Mind

Abstract

AbstractIndexicals (e.g.: ‘I’, ‘she’, ‘this’, ‘today’, ‘here’, etc.) designate something relative to the context in which they are used. This study shows how these expressions play a central role when dealing with such puzzling concepts as the nature of the self, the nature of perception, social interaction, psychological pathologies and psychological development.By highlighting how indexical thoughts are irreducible and intrinsically perspectival, this inquiry shows how we can depict someone else’s indexical thought from a third person perspective. To do so, the phenomenon of quasi-indexicality plays a central role: to represent Jane saying, ‘I am prosperous’, we use what Castañeda termed a quasi-indicatorin a report of the form ‘Jane said that she (herself)is prosperous’. It is argued that quasi-indicators play such an important role in our linguistic, social, and psychological life that they have a cognitive primacy over other mechanisms of reference. It emerges that quasi-indexicality is also a key notion when we cope to understand our mindreading capacity.Ultimately, this interdisciplinary approach recommends the view that indexicality and quasi-indexicality are two sides of the same coin. It is argued that indexicality and quasi-indexicality are best understood within the framework of direct reference, conceived from a Wittgenstein-inspired perspective.