Perceptual Concepts : In Defence of the Indexical Model François

1. Indexicality in language and thought As expression types, indexicals do not refer. Only tokens of an indexical refer, because indexical reference is achieved through relations between tokens of the indexical and other entities in the context of tokening ; entities which gain their status as referent in virtue of standing in these relations to the relevant token. For example, a token of 'I' refers to the person who stands in the appropriate relation to that token in the context of tokening, that of being its utterer or producer ; a token of 'here' refers to the place where the token is produced ; and so on and so forth. Correlatively, only a token of an indexical sentence expresses a proposition. A type indexical, and the type sentence in which it occurs, only possess a linguistic meaning (a 'character'), which Kaplan describes as a rule mapping tokens of the indexical expression/sentence to the 'contents' they carry in context. Thus the character of 'I' is the rule that (a token of) 'I' refers to the person who produces it, the character of 'here' is the rule that a token of 'here' refers to the place where it is tokened, and so on and so forth. Since the character of an indexical encodes the relation that must hold between a token of the indexical and an entity for that entity to be assigned to this token as its referent, indexicals are aptly called 'token-reflexives' : their linguistic meaning reflects the relations which hold between their tokens and their referents. Besides Kaplan (to whom we owe the character/content distinction) and Reichenbach (to whom we owe the idea of token-reflexivity), another theorist of indexicality who deserves mention is C.S. Peirce. Peirce introduced the type/token discussion into the philosophy of language, and he offered a tripartite classification of signs into icons, indices, and symbols. A symbol is a sign that signifies by convention, while an index signifies in virtue of 'existential relations' to entities in the context in which the sign is tokened. (Icons can be ignored in the context of the present discussion.) As a sign of fire, smoke is an index ; it signifies in virtue of its causal relation to fire. The word 'fire' is a symbol : it is a sign of fire in virtue of the