Kaplan, D. 1989, Demonstratives

17
Demonstrati ves
An Essay on t he Semantics, Logi c,
Metaphysi cs, and Epi st emol ogy of
Demonstrati ves and Ot her
Indexicals
Davi d Kapl anl
I This paper was prepared for and read (with omissions) at a symposium on Demon-
stratives at the March 1977 meetings of the Pacific Division of the American
Philosophical Association, The commentators were Paul Benacerraf and Charles
Chastain, Much of the material, including the formal system of section XVIII, was
originally presented in a series of lectures at the fabled 1971 Summer Institute in
the Philosophy of Language held at the University of California, Irvine. ( ) 1977
by David Kaplan.
481
Ta b l e o f Cont ent s
Preface
I. I n t r o d u c t i o n
H. D e m o n s t r a t i v e s , Indexicals, and Pure Indexicals
Two Obvious Principles
I V. R e m a r k s on Ri gi d Designators
V. A r g u m e n t for Principle 2: Pure Indexicals
VI. Te r m i n o l o g i c a l Remarks
VI. (i ) C o n t e n t and Circumstance
VI. (i i ) Ch a r a c t e r
VII. E a r l i e r Attempts: I ndex Theory
VIII. M o n s t e r s Begat by Elegance
IX. A r g u m e n t for Principle 2: Tr ue Demonstratives
IX. (i ) T h e Arguments
IX. (i i ) T h e Fregean Theory of Demonstrations
IX. (i i i ) T h e Fregean Theory of Demonstratives
IX. ( i v) Ar g u me n t Against the Fregean Theory of
Demonstratives
X. F i x i n g the Reference vs. Supplying a Synonym
X. (i ) Re i c h e n b a c h on Token Reflexives
XI. T h e Meaning of Indexicals
XII. D t h a t
XIII. C o n t e x t s , Trut h, and Logical Truth
XIV. S u m m a r y of Findings (so far); Pure Indexicals
XV. F u r t h e r Details: Demonstratives and
Demonstrations
XVI. A l t e r n a t i v e Treatments of Demonstrations
XVII, Epi s t emol ogi c al Remarks
XVIII. T h e Formal System
XIX. R e m a r k s on the Formal System
XX. A d d i n g 'Says'
XXI. R u s s e l l on Egocentric Particulars and Thei r
Dispensability
XXII, O n Proper Names
482
483
489
489
492
492
498
500
500
505
507
510
512
513
514
516
516
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
527
529
541
546
553
557
558
Demonstratives 4 8 3
Pr ef ace
In about 1966 I wrote a paper about quantification into epistemological
contexts. Ther e are very di ffi cul t metaphysical, logical, and epistemo-
logical problems involved in providing a treatment of such idioms which
does not distort our intuitions about thei r proper use and whi ch is up
to contemporary logical standards. I di d not then, and do not now,
regard the treatment I provided as f ul l y adequate. And I became more
and more intrigued wi th problems centering on what I would like to call
the semantics of direct reference. B y thi s I mean theories of meaning
according to which certain singular terms refer directly wi t hout the me-
diation of a Fregean Sinn as meaning. I f there are such terms, then the
proposition expressed by a sentence containing such a term would involve
individuals directly rather than by way of the "i ndi vi dual conepts" or
"manners of presentation" I had been taught to expect. Let us call such
putative singular terms ( i f there are any) directly referential terms and
such putative propositions (i f there are any) singular propositions. Even
i f English contained no singular terms whose proper semantics was one
of direct reference, coul d we determine t o introduce such terms? An d
even i f we had no directly referential terms and introduced none, is there
a need or use for singular propositions?
The feverish development of quantified modal logics, more generally,
of quantified intensional logics, of the 1960s gave rise t o a metaphysical
and epistemological malaise regarding the problem of identifying individ-
uals across worldswhat, in 1967, I called the problem of "Trans-Worl d
Heir Lines." Thi s problem was really just the problem of singular propo-
sitions: those which involve individuals directly, rearing its irrepressible
head i n the possible-world semantics t hat were then (and are now) so
popular.
It was not that according to those semantical theories any sentences
of the languages being studied were themselves taken t o express si n-
gular propositions, i t was j ust t hat singular propositions seemed t o be
needed in the analysis of the nonsingular propositions expressed by these
sentences. For example, consider
(0) 9 s ( F x A - O F ) .
This sentence would not be taken by anyone to express a singular propo-
sition., But i n order to evaluate the truth-value of the component
DF
484 Da v i d Kaplan
(under some assignment of an i ndi vi dual t o the variable ' x' ), we must
first determine whether the proposition expressed by i ts component
F r
while Frege's solution: t hat a
, a n d [ 3 ,
t h o u g h
r e f e r r i n
g
t o
t h e
s a m
e
t h i n
g ,
do so by way of different senses, woul d be blocked. Al so: because of the
fact that the component of the proposition is being determined by the
individual rather than vice versa, we have something like a violation of
the famous Fregean di ctum that there i s no road back f rom denotation
to sense [propositional component]. (Recently, I have come to think that
i f we countenance singular propositions, a collapse of Frege's intensional
ontology into Russell's takes place.)
I can draw some l i t t l e pictures t o give you an idea of the two kinds
of semantical theories I want to contrast.
(under an assignment of an i ndi vi dual to the variable ' x' ) is a necessary
proposition. So in the course of analyzing (0), we are required t o deter-
mine the proposition associated wi t h a formula containing a free vari -
able. Now free variables under an assignment of values are paradigms
of what I have been cal l i ng directly referential terms. I n determining
a semantical value for a formul a containing a free variable we may be
given a value f or the vari abl ethat is, an i ndi vi dual drawn f rom the
universe over which t he variable is taken t o rangebut nothing more.
A variable's first and only meaning is i ts value. Therefore, i f we are to
associate a proposition (not merely a truth-value) wi t h a formula con-
taining a free variable (wi t h respect t o an assignment of a value t o the
variable), t hat proposition seems bound t o be singular (even i f valiant
attempts are made to disguise thi s fact by using constant functions t o
imitate i ndi vi dual concepts). The poi nt is, t hat i f the component of the
proposition (or the step i n the construction of the proposition) whi ch
corresvonds t o the singular t erm i s determined by the i ndi vi dual and
the i ndi vi dual is directly determined by the singular termrather than
the i ndi vi dual being determined by the component of the proposition,
which is directly determined by the singular termthen we have what I
call a singular proposition. [Russell's semantics was like the semantical
theories f or quantified intensional logics t hat I have described i n t hat
although no (closed) sentence of Pri nci pi a Mathernatica was taken t o
stand for a singular proposition, singular propositions are the essential
building blocks of all propositions.]
The most i mport ant hol d-out against semantical theories t hat re-
quired singular propositions is Alonzo Church, the great modern cham-
pion of Frege's semantical theories. Church also advocates a version of
quantified intensional logic, but wi th a subtle difference that finesses the
need for singular propositions. ( I n Church's logic, given a sentential for-
mula containing free variables and given an assignment of values to the
variables, no proposition is yet determined. A n additional assignment
of "senses" t o the free variables must be made before a proposition can
be associated wi t h the formula.) I t i s no accident t hat Church rejects
direct reference semantical theories. F o r i f there were singular terms
which referred di rectl y, i t seems l i kel y t hat Frege's problem: how can
= , i f true, differ i n meaning from r
a = c e ' , c o u l d
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.
Fregean Pi ct ur e
LANGUAGE
(singular term) d e n o t e s
(This relation is defined
as the product of the other
two relations)
PROPOSITIONAL COMPONENT
Sense ( a concept, something
like a description in purely
op q u a l i t a t i v e language)
2
(This relation is, in general,
empirical; the individual who falls
under the concept, i.e., who, uniquely,
' ' has the qualities)
INDIVIDUAL
486 Da v i d Kaplan
Di r ect Ref er ence Pi ct ur e
PROPOSITIONAL COMPONENT
LANGUAGE
(singular term)
(This relation is determined
by the conventions or rules
of the language)
refers
INDIVIDUAL
(These pictures are not entirely accurate for several reasons, among
them; that the contrasting pictures are meant to account for more than
j ust singular terms and t hat t he relation marked 'refers'
involve a ki nd of Fregean sense used t o fi x the referent.)
I won' t go i nto the pros and cons of these two views at thi s time,
Suffice i t t o say t hat I had been raised on Pregean semantics and was
sufficiently devout t o wonder whether t he ki nd of quantification i nt o
modal and epistemic contexts t hat seemed t o require singular proposi-
tions really made sense. ( My paper "Quanti fyi ng I n" can be regarded
as an attempt to explain away such idioms for epistemic contexts.)
2 But there were pressures f r om quarters ot her t han quantified i n-
tensional l ogi c i n favor of a semantics of di rect reference. F i r s t of
all there was Donnellan' s fascinating paper "Reference and Defi ni te
Descri pti ons."
3 T h e n
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in 1958 i n which he argued wi t h respect t o certain natural ki nd terms
like ' tiger' and ' gold' , that i f their Fregean senses were the kind of thing
that one grasped when one understood the terms, then such senses could
may already
2
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Philosophy of Language, ed. A, P. Martinich (Oxford; Oxford University Press,
1985).
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(1966): 281-304; reprinted in Martinich, op. cit.
not determine the extension of the terms. And fi nal l y Kripke' s Prince-
ton lectures of spring 1970, later published as Nami ng and Neeessity,
4were j ust beginning t o leak out along wi t h thei r strong attack on the
Fregean theory of proper names and thei r support of a theory of direct
reference.
As I said earlier, I was intrigued by the semantics of direct refer-
ence, so when I had a sabbatical leave for the year 1970-71, I decided to
work in the area in which such a theory seemed most plausible: demon-
stratives. I n fal l 1970, I wrote, f or a conference at Stanford, a paper
" Mi n t . " ' Usi ng Donnellan's ideas as a starting poi nt, I t ri ed t o de-
velop the contrast between Fregean semantics and the semantics of di-
rect reference, and t o argue t hat demonstrativesalthough they could
be treated on a Fregean modelwere more interestingly treated on a
direct reference model. Ul t i mat el y I came t o the conclusion t hat some-
thing analogous t o Donnellan's referential use of a definite description
could be developed using my new demonstrative, "dt hat . " I n the course
of this paper I groped my way to a formal semantics for demonstratives
rather different i n conception f rom those that had been offered before.
In spring 1971,1 gave a series of lectures at Princeton on the seman-
tics of direct reference. By thi s time I had seen a transcript of Naming
and Necessity and I tried to relate some of my ideas to Kri pke' s.
6 I a l s o had wri tten out the formal semantics for my Logic of Demonstratives.
That summer at the Irvine Philosophy of Language Insti tute I lectured
again on the semantics of direct reference and repeated some of these
lectures at various institutions i n f al l 1971. And there t he matter has
stood except for a bi t of updating of the 1971 Logic of Demonstratives
notes i n 1973.
I now thi nk t hat demonstratives can be treated correctly onl y on a
direct reference model, but t hat my earlier lectures at Princeton and
Irvine on direct reference semantics were too broad i n scope, and t hat
the most important and certainly the most convincing part of my theory
is just the logic of demonstratives itself. I t is based on j ust a few quite
4Saul Kripke, "Nami ng and Necessity," i n Semantics o f Nat ural Language,
ed. G. Harman and D. Davidson (Dordrecht; Raids!, 1972); revised edition pub-
lished as a separate monograph, Naming and Necessity (Oxford: Basil Blackwell,
1980). References are to the revised edition.
5
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:
Academic Press, 1978); reprinted in Martinich, op. cit.
6
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familiar with Naming and Necessity, I have enthusiastically adopted the 'analytical
apparatus' and some of the terminology of that, brilliant work.
488 Davi d Kaplan
Demonstratives 489
simple ideas, but the conceptual apparatus turns out to be surprisingly
rich and interesting. At least I hope that you will find i t so.
In this work I have concentrated on pedagogy. Philosophically, there
is little here that goes beyond the Summer Institute Lectures, but I have
tried, by limiting the scope, to present the ideas in a more compelling
way. Some new material appears in the two speculative sections: XVI I
(Epistemological Remarks) and XX (Adding 'Says'). I t is my hope that
a theory of demonstratives wi l l give us the tools to go on i n a more
sure-footed way to explore the de. re propositional attitudes as well as
other semantical issues.
I . I nt r oduct i on
I believe my theory of demonstratives to be uncontrovertable and largely
uncontroversial. Thi s is not a tribute to the power of my theory but a
concession of its obviousness. In the past, no one seems to have followed
these obvious facts out to their obvious consequences. I do that. What
is original with me is some terminology to help fix ideas when things get
complicated. I t has been fascinating to see how interesting the obvious
consequences of obvious principles can be.'
Demonst rat i ves, I ndexi cal s, and Pur e I ndexi cal s
I tend to describe my theory as ' a theory of demonstratives', but that
is poor usage. I t stems from the fact that I began my investigations
by asking what is said when a speaker points at someone and says,
"He is suspicious."' The word 'he', so used, is a demonstrative, and
the accompanying pointing is the requisite associated demonstration. I
hypothesized a certain semantical theory for such demonstratives, and
then I invented a new demonstrative, 'dthat', and stipulated that its
semantics be in accord with my theory. I was so delighted with this
methodological sleight of hand for my demonstrative rdthat', that when
I generalized the theory to apply to words like ' I' , 'now', 'here', etc.
words which do not require an associated demonstrationI continued
to call my theory a 'theory of demonstratives' and I referred to these
words as 'demonstratives'.
That terminological practice conflicts with what I preach, and I will
try to correct it. (But I tend to backslide.)
The group of words for which I propose a semantical theory includes
the pronouns ' I ' , 'my', 'you', 'he', 'his', 'she', ' i t ' , the demonstrative
pronouns 'that', 'this', the adverbs 'here', 'now', 'tomorrow', 'yesterday',
the adjectives 'actual', 'present', and others. These words have uses
other than those in which I am interested (or, perhaps, depending on
how you individuate words, we should say that they have homonyms in
which I am not interested). For example, the pronouns 'he' and 'his' are
used not as demonstratives but as bound variables in
7
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the correct use of certain words and I propose detailed analyses of certain notions.
I reeognice that these matters may be controversial. I do not regard them as part
of the basic, obvious, theory.
<See "Dthat," p. 320 in Martinick.
490 Da v i d Kapl an
For what is a man profited, i f he shall gain
the whole world, and lose his own soul?
What i s common t o the words or usages i n which I am interested
is t hat t he referent i s dependent on t he context of use and t hat t he
meaning of the word provides a rule which determines t he referent i n
terms of certain aspects of the context. The term I now favor for these
words is 'indexical'. Other authors have used other terms; Russell used
'egocentric parti cul ar' and Reichenbach used ' token reflexive'. I prefer
'indexical' (which, I believe, is due to Pierce) because i t seems less theory
laden than the others, and because I regard Russell's and Reichenbach's
theories as defective. ,
Some of the indexicals require, i n order to determine their referents,
an associated demonstration: typi cal l y, though not invariably, a (visual)
presentation of a local object discriminated by a poi nt i ng.
9 T h e s e i n - dexicals are the true demonstratives, and ' t hat ' is thei r paradigm. The
demonstrative ( an expression) refers t o t hat whi ch t he demonsiration
demonstrates. I call t hat which is demonstrated the 'demonstratum'.
A demonstrative wi thout an associated demonstration is incomplete.
The l i ngui sti c rules whi ch govern t he use of the t rue demonstratives
' that' , 'he', etc., are not sufficient t o determine thei r referent i n all con-
texts of use. Somet hi ng elsean associated demonstrationmust be
provided, T h e l i ngui sti c rules assume t hat such a demonstration ac-
companies each (demonstrative) use of a demonstrative. An incomplete
demonstrative is not vacuous l i ke an improper definite description. A
demonstrative can be vacuous i n various cases. For example, when i ts
associated demonstration has no derrionstratum ( a hallucination)or
the wrong ki nd of demonstratum (pointing t o a flower and saying ' he'
in the belief that one i s poi nti ng to a man disguised as a f l o w e r
1
) o r
too many demonstrata (poi nti ng t o t wo intertwined vines and saying
9
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the speaker's part, as when someone shouts "Stop that man" while only one man
is rushing toward the door. My notion of a demonstration is a theoretical concept.
I do not, in the present work, undertake a detailed 'operational' analysis of this
notion although there are scattered remarks relevant to the issue. I do consider,
in XVI below, some alternative theoretical treatments of demonstrations.
10
1
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(
1
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be appropriate for flowers, but it is not so in English; (2) that a background story
can be provided that will make pointing at the flower a contextually appropriate,
though deviant, way of referring to a man; for example, i f we are talking of great
hybridizers; and (3) t hat i t is possible to treat the example as a referential use
of the demonstrative 'he' on the model of DonneIlan's referential use of a definite
description (See "Reference and Definite Descriptions"). Under the referential use
' that vine' ). B u t i t i s clear t hat one can distinguish a demonstrative
wi th a vacuous demonstration: no referents f rom a demonstrative wi t h
no associated demonstration: incomplete.
Al l this is by way of contrasting true demonstratives with pure index-
icals. For the l atter, no associated demonstration i s required, and any
demonstration supplied is ei ther for emphasis or is i rret evant .
11 A m o n g
the pure indexicals are '1', ' now' , 'here' (i n one sense), ' tomorrow' , and
others. The linguistic rules which govern Their use f ul l y determine the
referent f or each cont ext . " No supplementary actions or intentions are
needed. The speaker refers to himself when he uses '1', and no pointing
to another or believing that he is another or intending to refer to another
can defeat thi s reference."
Michael Bennett has noted t hat some indexicals have bot h a pure
and a demonstrative use, ' Here' is a pure indexical in
I am in here
and is a demonstrative in
In two weeks, I wi l l be here [pointing at a ci ty on a map].
treatment we would assign as referent for 'he' whatever the speaker intended t o
demonstrate, I intended the example t o exemplify a failed demonstration, thus,
a case in which the speaker, falsely believing the flower to be some man or other
in disguise, but having no particular man in mind, and certainly not intending to
refer to anything other than that man, says, pointing at the flower, "He has been
following me around all day."
l l I have in mind such cases as poi nti ng at oneself while saying ' I ' (emphasis) or
pointing at someone else while saying ' I' (irrelevance or madness or what?).
' There are certain uses of pure indexicals that might be called 'messages recorded
for later broadcast', which exhibit a special uncertainty as to the referent of 'here'
and 'now'. I f the message: ' ' I am not here now" i s recorded on a telephone
answering device, i t is t o be assumed that the time referred to by ' now' is the
time of playback rather than the time of recording. Donnellan has suggested that
i f there were typically a significant lag between our production of speech and its
audition (for example, i f sound traveled very very slowly), our language might
contain two forms of 'now': one for the time of production, another for the time of
audition. The indexicals 'here' and 'now' also suffer from vagueness regarding the
size of the spatial and temporal neighborhoods to which they refer. These facts do
not seem to me to slur the difference between demonstratives and pure indexicals.
130r course i t is certain intentions on the part of the speaker that make a partic-
ular vocable the first person singular pronoun rather a nickname for Irving. My
semantical theory is a theory of word meaning, not speaker's meaning. I t is based
on linguistic rules known, explicitly or implicitly, by all competent users of the
language.
492 Da v i d Kaplan
Two Obvi ous Pr i nci pl es
So much for preliminaries. My theory is based on two obvious principles.
The first has been noted i n every discussion of the subject.
Pr i nci pl e 3. The referent of a pure indexical depends on the context,
and the referent of a demonstrative depends on the associated dem-
onstration.
I f you and I both say ' I' we refer to different persons. The demonstratives
' t hat ' and 'he' can be correctly used to refer to any one of a wide variety
of objects simply by adjusting the accompanying demonstration.
The second obvious principle has less often been formulated explic-
i tl y.
Pr i nci pl e 2 Indexicals, pure and demonstrative alike, are directly ref-
erential.
I V. Remar ks on Ri gi d Desi gnat ors
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p
k
e
,
c
a
l
l
e
d
i
n
d
e
x
i
c
a
l
s
'rigid designators', and tried to explain that my usage differed from his,
I am now shying away from that terminology, But because i t is so well
known, I wi l l make some comments on the notion or notions involved.
The term ' ri gi d designator' was coined by Saul Kri pke to character-
ize those expressions whi ch designate the same t hi ng i n every possible
world in which t hat thing exists and which designate nothing elsewhere.
He uses i t i n connection wi t h hi s controversial, though, I believe, cor-
+ rect cl ai m that proper names, as well as many common nouns, are ri gi d
designators. There is an unfortunate confusion in the idea that a proper
name woul d designate nothi ng i f the bearer of the name were not t o
Kripke hi msel f adopts positions which seem inconsistent wi t h
this feature of rigid designators. I n arguing t hat the object designated
by a ri gi d designator need not exist i n every possible world, he seems
to assert t hat under certain circumstances what is expressed by ' Hi tl er
does not exist' would have been true, and not because ' Hi tl er' would have
designated nothi ng ( i n that case we mi ght have given the sentence no
truth-value) but because what ' Hi t l er' would have designatednamely
14
1
h
a
v
e
d
i
s
c
u
s
s
e
d
t
h
i
s
a
n
d
r
e
l
a
t
e
d
i
s
s
u
e
s
i
n
"
B
o
b
a
n
d
C
a
r
o
l
a
n
d
T
e
d
a
n
d
A
l
i
c
e
,
"
i
n
Approaches to Natural Language, ed. J. Hintikka et al. (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1973),
especially appendix X.
Hitlerwould not have exi st ed.
15 F u r t h e r m o r e ,
i t
i s
a
s t r i k i n
g
a n d
i m -
portant feature of the possible world semantics for quantified intensional
logics, which Kripke did so much to create and popularize, t hat variables,
those paradigms of rigid designation, designate the same i ndi vi dual i n
all possible worlds whether the individual "exists" or not .
16
1 / 1
1
h a t
e v
e r
K
r i
p
k
e
'
s
i
n
t
e
n
t
i
o
n
s
(
d
i
d
h
e
,
a
s
I
s
u
s
p
e
c
t
,
m
i
s
d
e
s
c
r
i
b
e
h
i
s
own concept?) and whatever associations or even meaning the phrase
'rigid designator' may have, I intend t o use ' directly referential' for an
expression whose referent, once determined, is taken as fixed for all pos-
sible circumstances, i.e., is taken as being the propositional component.
For me, the i ntui ti ve idea is not t hat of an expression whi ch turns
out t o designate the same object i n al l possible circumstances, but an
expression whose semantical rules provide directly t hat the referent i n
all possible circumstances i s fixed t o be the actual referent. I n typical
cases the semantical rules wi l l do this only implicitly, by providing a way
of determining the actual referent and no way of determining any other
propositional comp onent .
17
We should beware of a certain confusion i n interpreting t he phrase
'designates the same object i n all circumstances'. We do not mean that
the expression could no have been used t o designate a different object.
1 . 5
K r i
p k
e ,
N
a
m
i
n
g
a
n
d
N
e
c
e
s
s
i
t
y
,
p
.
7
8
.
' T h e matter is even more complicated, There are two 'definitions' of ' rigid desig-
nator' in Naming and Necessity, pp. 48-49. The first conforms to what seems to
me to have been the intended conceptsame designation in al l possible worlds
the second, scarcely a page later, conforms to the more widely held view that a
rigid designator need not designate the object, or any object, at worlds in which
the object does not exist. Accordi ng to this conception a designator cannot, at
a given world, designate something which does not exist i n t hat world. The in-
troduction of the notion of a strongly ri gi d designatora rigid designator whose
designaturn exists in all possible worldssuggests that the latter idea was upper-
most i n Kripke's mind. ( The second definition is given, unequivocally, on page
146 of "Identity and Necessity," i n Identity and Individuation, ed. M, K. Munitz
(New York: New York University Press, 1971).) I n spite of the textual evidence,
systematic considerations, including the fact that variables cannot be accounted
for .
o t h
e r
w i s
e ,
l
e
a
v
e
m
e
w
i
t
h
t
h
e
c
o
n
v
i
c
t
i
o
n
t
h
a
t
t
h
e
f
o
r
m
e
r
n
o
t
i
o
n
w
a
s
i
n
t
e
n
d
e
d
.
"Here, and i n the preceding paragraph, i n attempting to convey my notion of a
directly referential singular term, I slide back and forth between two metaphysical
pictures: t hat of possible worlds and that of structured propositions. r t seems
to me that a trul y semantical idea should presuppose neither picture, and be ex-
pressible in terms of either, Kripke' s discussion of rigid designators is, I believe,
distorted by an excessive dependence on the possible worlds picture and the asso-
ciatedsemantical style. For more on the relationship between the two pictures, see
pages 724-25 of my "How to Russell a Frege-Church," The Journal of Philosophy
72 (1975): 716-29.
494 Da v i d Kaplan
We mean rather t hat given a use of the expression, we may ask of what
has been said whether i t would have been true or false in various counter-
factual circumstances, and i n such counterfactual circumstances, which
are the individuals relevant t o determining truth-value. Thus we must
distinguish possible occasions of usewhich I call contdxtsfrom possi-
ble circumstances of evaluation of what was said on a given occasion of
use. Possible circumstances of evaluation I call circumstances or, some-
, t i me s , j ust counterfactual situations. A di rectl y referential t er m may
designate different objects when used i n different contexts. B u t when
evaluating what was said i n a given context, onl y a single object wi l l be
relevant t o the evaluation i n al l circumstances. Thi s sharp di sti ncti on
between contexts of use and circumstances of evaluation must be kept
in mi nd i f we are t o avoid a seeming conflict between Principles 1 and
2 .
1
8
T
o
l
o
o
k
a
t
t
h
e
m
a
t
t
e
r
f
r
o
m
a
n
o
t
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e
r
p
o
i
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t
o
f
v
i
e
w
,
o
n
c
e
w
e
r
e
c
o
g
n
i
z
e
the obviousness of both principles (I have not yet argued for Principle 2)
the distinction between contexts of use and circumstances of evaluation
is forced upon us.
I f I may wax metaphysical in order to fix an image, let us think of the
vehicles of evaluationthe what-is-said in a given contextas proposi-
tions: Don' t thi nk of propositions as sets of possible worlds, but rather
as structured entities looking something like the sentences which express
them. For each occurrence of a singular term in a sentence there wi l l be a
corresponding constituent i n the proposition expressed. The constituent
of the proposition determines, f or each circumstance of evaluation, the
object relevant t o evaluating the proposition i n t hat circumstance. I n
general, the constituent of the proposition wi l l be some sort of complex,
constructed f rom various attributes by logical composition. But i n the
case of a singular t erm which i s directly referential, t he constituent of
.1 t h e prOposition is j ust the object itself. Thus i t is t hat i t does not j ust
turn out t hat the constituent determines the same object i n every ci r-
cumstance, the constituent (corresponding to a rigid designator) j ust is
the object. There i s no determining to do at al l . On thi s pictureand
this is really a picture and not a theorythe definite description
(1) T h e n[(Snow is slight A n
2
= 9 ) V (
S n o w
i s
s l i g h t
A
2' = n + 1) ]
19
' I thi nk i t likely that i t was just the failure to notice this distinction that led t o
a failure to recognize Principle 2. Some of the history and consequences of the
conflation of Context and Circumstance is discussed in section VII.
' I would have used 'snow is white', but I wanted a contingent clause, and so many
would yield a constituent which is complex although i t would determine
the same object i n al l circumstances, Thus, (1), though a ri gi d desig-
nator, is not directly referential from this (metaphysical) poi nt of view.
Note, however, t hat every proposition which contains the complex ex-
pressed by (1) is equivalent to some singular proposition which contains
j ust the number three itself as const i t uent .
2
The semantical feature that I wish to highlight in calling an expres-

sion directly referential is not the fact that i t designates the same object
in every circumstance, but the way i n which i t designates an object i n
any circumstance, Such an expression i s a device o f direct reference,
This does not i mpl y that i t has no conventionally fixed semantical rules
which determine i ts referent i n each context of use; qui te the opposite.
There are semantical rules whi ch determine the referent i n each con-
text of usebut t hat i s all. The rules do not provide a complex which
together wi th a circumstance of evaluation yields an object. They just
provide an object,
I f we keep in mind our sharp distinction between contexts of use and
circumstances of evaluation, we wi l l not be tempted t o confuse a rule
which assigns an object t o each context wi t h a 'complex' which assigns
an object to each circumstance. For example, each context has an agent
(loosely, a speaker). Thus an appropriate designation rule for a directly
referential term would be;
(2) I n each possible context of use the given term refers t o the
agent of the context.
But thi s rule could not be used t o assign a relevant object t o each cir-
cumstance of evaluation. Circumstances of evaluation do not, in general,
have agents. Suppose I say,
(3) I do not exist.
Under what circumstances would what I said be true? I t would be true
in circumstances i n which I di d not exist. Among such circumstances
are those i n which no one, and thus, no speakers, no agents exist. To
search a circumstance of evaluation for a speaker i n order to (mis)apply
rule (2) would be t o go off on an irrelevant chase.
people (possibly including me) nowadays seem to have views which allow t hat
'snow is white' may be necessary,
" I am ignoring propositions expressed by sentences containing episternic Operators
or others for which equivalence is not a sufficient condition for interchange of
operand,
1
496 Da v i d Kaplan
Three paragraphs ago I sketched a metaphysical picture of the struc-
ture of a proposition. The pi cture i s taken f rom the semantical parts
of Russell's Principles of Mat hemal i cs.
21 T w o y e a r s
l a t e r ,
i n
" O n
D e -
not i ng, "
22
e v e
n
R u s
s e l
l
r e
j e
c t
e d
t
h
a
t
p
i
c
t
u
r
e
,
B
u
t
I
s
t
i
l
l
l
i
k
e
i
t
.
I
t
i
s
not a part of my theory, but i t well conveys my conception of a directly
referential expression and of the semantics of direct reference. ( The pic-
ture needs some modification in order to avoid difficulties which Russell
later notedthough he attri buted them t o Frege's theory rather t han
his own earlier t heor y. )
23 I f we adopt a possible worlds semantics, al l directly referential terms
2 1
B
e r
t r
a n
d
R
u
s
s
e
l
l
,
T
h
e
P
r
i
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c
i
p
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s
o
f
M
a
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a
t
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s
(
L
o
n
d
o
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:
A
l
l
e
n
&
T
i
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l
W
i
n
,
1
9
0
3
)
.
2 2
B
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t r
a n
d
R
u
s
s
e
l
l
,
"
O
n
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n
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g
,
"
M
i
n
d
1
4
(
1
9
0
5
)
:
4
7
9
-
9
3
.
2 3
H
e r
e
i
s
a
d
i
f
f
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l
t
y
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R
u
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l
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s
1
9
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p
i
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h
i
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t
o
r
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a
l
i
n
t
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r
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s
t
.
Consider the proposition expressed by the sentence, ' The centre of mass of the
Solar System is a point' . Cal l the proposition, ' P' . P has i n its subject place a
certain complex, expressed by the definite description. Call the complex, 'Plexy'.
We can describe P/exy as "t he complex expressed by ' the center of mass of the
solar system'." Can we produce a directly referential term which designates Plexy?
Leaving aside for the moment the controversial question of whether 'Plexy' is such
a term, let us imagine, as Russell believed, t hat we can directly refer to Plexy
by affixing a ki nd of meaninp marks (on the analogy of quotation marks) t o the
description itself. Now consider the sentence ' " t he center of mass of the solar
system"' i s a point' . Because the subject of this sentence is directly referential
and refers to Flexy, the proposition the sentence expresses will have as its subject
constituent Plexy itself. A moment's reflection will reveal that this proposition is
simply P again. But this is absurd since the two sentences speak about radically
different objects.
(I believe the foregoing argument lies behind some of the largely incomprehensi-
ble arguments mounted by Russell against Frege in "On Denoting," though there
are certainly other difficulties in that argument. I t is not surprising that Russell
there confused Frege's theory wi t h his own of Principle of Malheanatics. T h e
first footnote of "On Denoting" asserts that the two theories are "very nearly the
same.")
The solution to the difficulty is simple, Regard the 'object' places of a singular
proposition as marked by some operation which cannot mark a complex. (There
always wi l l be some such operation.) For example, suppose that no complex is
(represented by) a set containing a single member. Then we need only add t o
mark the places in a singular proposition which correspond to directly referential
terms. We no longer need worry about confusing a complex wi th a propositional
constituent corresponding to a directly referring term because no complex wi l l
have the form -(x). I n particular, Flexy { F l e x y l . Thi s technique can also be
used to resolve another confusion in Russell. He argued that a sentence containing
a nondenoting directly referential term (he would have called i t a nondenoting
'logically proper name') would be meaningless, presumably because the purported
singular proposition would be incomplete. But the braces themselves can fill out
the singular proposition, and i f they contain nothing, no more anomalies need
result than what, the development of Free Logic has already inured us to.
wi l l be regarded as ri gi d designators i n the modified sense of an expres-
sion which designates the same thing in al l possible worlds (irrespective
of whether the thing exists in the possible world or not ) . " However, as
already noted, I do not regard all rigid designatorsnot even all strongly
rigid designators (those that designate something that exists in all pos-
sible worlds) or al l ri gi d designators i n the modified senseas directly
referential. I believe t hat proper names, like variables, are di rectl y ref-
erential. Th e y are not , i n general, strongly ri gi d designators nor are
they ri gi d designators i n the original sense.
25 W h a t i s
c h a r a c t e r i s t i c
o f
directly referential terms is t hat the designatum (referent) determines
the propositional component rather than the propositional component,
along wi t h a circumstance, determining the designatum. I t i s for this
reason that a directly referential term that designates a contingently ex-
isting object wi l l sti l l be a ri gi d designator i n the modified sense. The
propositional component need not choose its designatum from those of-
fered by a passing circumstance; i t has already secured i t s designatum
before the encounter wi t h the circumstance.
When we think in terms of possible world semantics this fundamental
distinction becomes subliminal. Thi s is because the style of the seman-
tical rules obscures t he distinction and makes i t appear t hat di rectl y
referential terms differ from ordinary definite descriptions onl y i n t hat
the propositional component in the former case must be a constant func-
tion of circumstances. I n actual fact, the referent, i n a circumstance, of
a directly referential term is simply independent of the circumstance and
is no more a function (constant or otherwise) of circumstance, than my
action is a function of your desires when I decide t o do i t whether you
like i t or not. The distinction t hat is obscured by the style of possible
world semantics is dramatized by the structured propositions picture.
That is part of the reason why I like i t.
Some directly referential terms, l i ke proper names, may have no se- k-
mantically relevant descriptive meaning, or at least none that is specific:1
t h
-
at
'
d
i
s
t
i
n
g
u
i
s
h
e
s
o
n
e
s
u
c
h
t
e
r
m
f
r
o
m
a
n
o
t
h
e
r
.
O
t
h
e
r
s
,
l
i
k
e
t
h
e
i
n
d
e
x
-
icals, may have a l i mi ted ki nd of specific descriptive meaning relevant
to the features of a context of use. St i l l others, like ' cl that' terms (see
below), may be associated with full-blown Fregean senses used to fix the
referent. But i n any case, the descriptive meaning of a directly referen-
tial term is no part of the propositional content.
24This is the first sense of footnote 16.
" Thi s is the second sense of footnote 16.
498 Da v i d Kaplan D e m o n s t r a t i v e s 4 9 9
V. Ar gument f or Pr i nci pl e 2: Pu r e I ndexi cal s
As stated earlier, I believe thi s principle is uncontroversial, Bu t I had
best distinguish it from similar principles which are false. I am not claim-
ing, as has been claimed for proper names, t hat indexicals lack anything
that mi ght be called 'descriptive meaning'. Indexicals, i n general, have
a rather easily statable descriptive meaning. Bu t i t i s clear t hat thi s
meaning is relevant onl y t o determining a referent i n a context of use
and not t o determining a relevant individual in a circumstance of evalu-
ation. Let us return t o the example in connection wi t h the sentence (3)
and the indexical ' P. The bizarre result of taking the descriptive mean-
ing of the indexical t o be t he propositional constituent i s t hat what I
said in uttering (3) would be true in a circumstance of evaluation i f and
only i f the speaker (assuming there is one) of the circumstance does not
exist i n the circumstance. Nonsense! I f that were the correct analysis,
what I said could not be true. From which i t follows that
I t is impossible that I do not exist.
Here i s another example t o show t hat the descriptive meaning of an
indexical may be entirely inapplicable in the circumstance of evaluation.
When I say,
I wish I were not speaking now.
The circumstances desired do not involve contexts of use and agents
who are not speaking. The actual context of use is used t o determine
the relevant i ndi vi dual : meand time: nowand then we query the
various circumstances of evaluation wi t h respect t o that i ndi vi dual and
that ti me.
Here is another example, not of the inapplicability of the descriptive
meaning to circumstances but of its irrelevance. Suppose I say at to, " I t
wi l l soon be the case that al l t hat is now beautiful is faded." Consider
what was said i n the subsentence,
Al l that is now beautiful is faded.
I wish to evaluate that content at some near future time t
l
. W h a t i s t h e
relevant ti me associated wi t h the indexical ' now' ? I s i t the future ti me
t l ? No, i t is t
o
, o f
c o u r s
e :
t h
e
t i
m e
o
f
t
h
e
c o
n t
e x
t
o
f
u
s
e
.
See how rigidly the indexicals cling to the referent determined i n the
context of use:
(4) I t is possible that i n Pakistan, i n five years, onl y those who
are actually here now are envied.
The poi nt of (4) is that the circumstance, place, and time referred to by
the indexicals ' actually' , 'here', and ' now' are the circumstance, place,
and time of the context, not a circumstance, place, and time determined
by t he modal, locational, and temporal operators wi t hi n whose scope
the indexicals lie.
I t may be objected t hat thi s only shows that indexicals always take
pri mary scope (i n the sense of Russell's scope of a definite description).
This objection attempts t o relegate al l direct reference t o i mpl i ci t use
of the paradigm of the semantics of direct reference, the variable, Thus
(4) is transformed into,
The actual circumstances, here, and now are such t hat i t i s
possible that in Pakistan in five years only those who, i n the
first, are located at the second, duri ng the thi rd, are envied.
Although this may not be the most felicitous form of expression, i ts
meaning and, i n particular, i ts symbolization should be clear t o those
familiar with quantified intensional logics. The pronouns, ' the first', ' the
second', and 'the third' are to be represented by distinct variables bound
to existential quantifiers at the beginning and identified wi th ' the actual
circumstance', 'here', and ' now' respectively.
(
5
)
(3w)(3p)(3t)[w=the actual circumstance A p=here A t =now
A 0 I n Pakistan I n five years Vx(x is envied --, s is located
at p during i n w)]
But, such transformations, when t hought of as representing t he cl ai m
that indexicals take pri mary scope, do not provide an alternative t o
Principle 2, since we may still ask of an utterance of (5) i n a context c,
when evaluating it with respect to an arbitrary circumstance, to what do
the indexicals 'actual', 'here', and ' now' refer, The answer, as always, is:
the relevant features of the context e. [ I n fact, although (4) is equivalent
to (5), neither indexicals nor quantification across intensional operators
is dispensable i n favor of the other.]
500 Da v i d Kaplan
Perhaps enough has been said t o establish the following.
( Ti ) The descriptive meaning of a pure indexical determines the
referent of the indexical with respect to a context of use but
is either inapplicable or irrelevant to determining a referent
with respect to a circumstance of evaluation.
I hope that your i ntui ti on wi l l agree wi th mine that i t is for thi s reason
that:
(T2) When what was said i n using a pure indexical in a context a
is to be evaluated wi th respect to an arbi trary circumstance,
the relevant object i s always the referent of the indexical with
respect to the context a.
This is just a slightly elaborated version of Principle 2.
Before turni ng to true demonstratives, we wi l l adopt some terminol-
ogy.
VI . Ter mi nol ogi cal Remar ks
' Principle 1 and Principle 2 taken together i mpl y that sentences contain-
ing pure indexicals have two kinds of meaning.
VI . ( i ) Cont ent and Ci r cumst ance
What i s said i n using a given indexical i n different contexts may be
different. Thus i f I say, today,
I was insulted yesterday
and you ut t er t he same words tomorrow, what i s said is different. I f
what we say differs i n truth-value, t hat is enough t o show t hat we say
different things. But even i f the truth-values were the same, i t is clear
that there are possible circumstances in which what I said would be true
but what you said would be false. Thus we say different things.
Let us call thi s fi rst ki nd of meaningwhat is saidcontent. The
content of a sentence i n a given context is what has tradi ti onal l y been
called a proposition. Strawson, i n noting that the sentence
The present king of France is bald
could be used on different occasions t o make different statements, used
'statement' i n a way si mi l ar t o our use of content of a sentence. I f we
wish t o express the same content i n different contexts, we may have to
change indexicals. Frege, here using ' thought' for content of a sentence,
expresses the poi nt well.
I f someone wants t o say t he same today as he expressed
yesterday using the word ' today' , he must replace thi s word
with 'yesterday'. Al though the thought is the same its verbal
expression must be different so that the sense, whi ch would
otherwise be affected by the differing times of utterance, i s
readj usted.
26
I take content as a notion applying not only to sentences taken i n a
context but to any meaningful part of speech taken i n a context. Thus
we can speak of the content of a definite description, an indexical, a
predicate, etc. I t i s contents t hat are evaluated i n circumstances of
evaluation. I f the content is a proposition (i.e., the content of a sentence
taken i n some context), the result of the evaluation wi l l be a truth-value.
The result of evaluating the content of a singular term at a circumstance
will be an object (what I earlier called ' the relevant object' ). I n general,
the result of evaluating the content of a well-formed expression a at a
circumstance wi l l be an appropriate extension for a (i.e., for a sentence,
a truth-values for a term, an i ndi vi dual ; for an n-place predicate, a set
of n-tuples of individuals, etc.). Thi s suggests t hat we can represent a
26From "The Thought: A Logical Inquiry," Mi nd 65 (1956): 289-311. I f Frege had
only supplemented these comments wi t h the observation that indexicals are de-
vices of direct reference, the whole theory of indexicals would have been his. But
his theory of meaning blinded him to this obvious point, Frege, I believe, mixed
together the two kinds of meaning in what he called Sinn. A tholight is, for him,
the Sinn of a sentence, or perhaps we should say a complete sentence. Sinn is to
contain both "the manner and context of presentation [of the denotation]," accord-
ing to "Clber Sinn und Bedeutung" (Zeitschrift f i r Philosophic end philosophische
Eri t i k 100 (1892); trans. as "On Sense and Nominatum," i n Contemporary Read-
ings in Logical Theory, ed. Copi and Gould (Macmillan, 1967); mistrans. as "On
Sense and Meaning," i n Martinich, op. cit.). Sinn is first introduced to represent
the cognitive significance of a sign, and thus to solve Frege's problem: how can
r
e
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taken to represent the truth-conditions or content (i n our sense). Frege felt the
pull of the two notions, which he reflects i n some tortured passages about ' I ' i n
"The Thought" (quoted below in XVII). I f one says "Today is beautiful" on Tues-
day and "Yesterday was beautiful" on Wednesday, one expresses the same thought
according to the passage quoted. Yet one can clearly lose track of the days and
not realize one is expressing the same thought. I t seems then that thoughts are
not appropriate bearers of cognitive significance. I return to this topic in )0/1I.
A detailed examination of Frege on demonstratives is contained in John Perry's
"Frege on Demonstratives," Philosophical Review 86 (1977): 474-97.
502 Da v i d Kaplan
content by a function from circumstances of evaluation to an appropriate
extension. Carnap called such functions intension&
The representation i s a handy one and I wi l l often speak of con-
tents in terms of it, but one should note that contents which are distinct
but equivalent (i.e., share a value i n al l circumstances) are represented
by the same intension, Among other things, thi s results i n the loss of
my distinction between terms which are devices of direct reference and
descriptions which t ur n out t o be ri gi d designators. (Recal l the meta-
physical paragraph of section I V. ) I wanted the content of an indexical
to be just the referent itself, but the intension of such a content wi l l be
a constant function. Il se of representing intentions does not mean I am
abandoning that ideajust ignoring i t temporarily.
A fi xed content i s one represented by a constant function. A l l di -
rectly referential expressions (as wel l as al l ri gi d designators) have a
fixed content. [ What I elsewhere call a stable content.1
Let us settle on circumstances f or possible circumstances of evalu-
ation. B y t hi s I mean bot h actual and counterfactual situations wi t h
respect t o which i t i s appropriate t o ask for the extensions of a given
well-formed expression. A circumstance wi l l usually include a possible
state or history of the world, a time, and perhaps other features as well.
The amount of information we require from a circumstance is linked to
the degree of specificity of contents, and thus t o the kinds of operators
in the language,
Operators of the f ami l i ar ki nd treated i n intensional logic (modal,
temporal, etc.) operat e on contents. (Si nce we represent contents by
intensions, i t i s not surprising t hat intensional operators operate on
contents.) Th u s an appropriate extension f or an intensional operator
is a function from intensions t o extensi ons.
27 A m o d a l
o p e r a t o r
w h e n
applied t o an intension wi l l look at the behavior of the intension wi t h
respect t o the possible state of the worl d feature of the circumstances
of evaluation. A temporal operator wi l l , similarly, be concerned wi t h
27As we shall see, indexical operators such as I t is now the case that," " I t is actually
the case t hat , " and "dt hat " (t he last takes a term rather than a sentence as
argument) are also intensional operators. They differ from the familiar operators
in only two ways; first, their extension (the function from intensions to extensions)
depends on context, and second, they are directly referential (thus they have a fixed
content). I shall argue below (in section VII: Monsters) that all operators that can
be given an English reading are at most' intensional. Note that when discussing
issues in terms of the formal representations of the model-theoretic semantics, I
tend to speak in terms of intensions and intensional operators rather than contents
and content operators,
the t i me of the circumstance, I f we bui l t the t i me of evaluation i nt o
the contents (thus removing ti me from the circumstances leaving only,
say, a possible world history, and making contents specific as t o time),
i t would make no sense t o have temporal operators, To put t he poi nt
another way, i f what is said is thought of as incorporating reference t o
a specific time, or state of the worl d, or whatever, i t i s otiose t o ask
whether what is said would have been true at another time, i n another
state of the world, or whatever. Temporal operators applied t o eternal
sentences (those whose contents incorporate a specific t i me of evalua-
tion) are redundant. An y intensional operators applied t o perfect sen-
tences (those whose contents incorporate specific values for al l features
of circumstances) are r edundant .
28
2 6
T
h e
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o
t
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o
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o
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e
.
W
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e
n
I
s
p
e
a
k
o
f
building the time of evaluation into contents, or making contents specific as t o
time, or taking what is said t o incorporate reference to a specific time, what I
have in mind is this. Gi ven a sentence S: ' I am writing', i n the present context
c, which of the following should we take as the content: ( i ) the proposition that
David Kaplan is writing at IO A.M. on 3/26/77, or (ii) the 'proposition' that David
Kaplan is writing? The proposition (i) is specific as to time, the 'proposition' (ii)
ithe scare quotes reflect my feeling t hat thi s is not the traditional notion of a
proposition] is neutral with respect to time. I f we take the content of S in c to be
(ii), we can ask whether i t would be true at times other than the time of c. Thus
we thi nk of the temporally neutral 'proposition' as changing its truth-value over
time. Not e that i t is not just the noneternal sentence S that changes its truth-
value over time, but the 'proposition' itself. Si nce the sentence S contains an
indexical 'I', i t will express different 'propositions' in different contexts, But since
S contains no temporal indexical, the time of the context wi l l not influence the
'proposition' expressed. An alternative land more traditional] view is t o say that
the verb tense in S involves an implicit temporal indexical, so that S is understood
as synonymous wi th S': ' I am writing now'. I f we take this point of view we will
take the content of S in c to be (i). I n this case what is said is eternal; i t does not
change its truth-value over time, although S will express different propositions at
different times.
There are both technical and philosophical issues involved in choosing between
(i) and (i i ). Philosophically, we may ask why the temporal indexical should be
taken t o be implicit (making the proposition eternal) when no modal indexical
is taken to be implicit. Af t er all, we coithi understand S as synonymous wi th
S": ' I am actually writing now', The content of S" i n c is not onl y eternal, i t
is perfect, I t s t rut h changes neither through time nor possibility. I s there some
good philosophical reason for preferring contents which are neutral wi th respect
to possibility but draw fixed values frota the context for all other features of a
possible circumstance whether or not the sentence contains an explicit indexical?
(It may be that the traditional view was abetted by one of the delightful anomalies
of the logic of indexicals, namely that S, S' , and S" are all logically equivalent!
See Remark 3, p. 547.) Technically, we must note that intensional operators must,
i f they are not to be vacuous, operate on contents which are neutral with respect
504 Da v i d Kaplan
What sorts of intensional operators t o admi t seems t o me largely
a matter of language engineering. I t is a question of which features of
what we i ntui ti vel y think of as possible circumstances can be sufficiently
well defined and isolated. I f we wish to isolate location and regard i t as a
feature of possible circumstances we can introduce locational operators:
' Two miles north i t is the case that' , etc. Such operators can be iterated
and can be mixed with modal and temporal operators. However, to make
such operators interesting we must have contents which are locationally
neutral. That is, i t must be appropriate to ask i f what i s said would be
true i n Pakistan. ( For example, ' I t is raining' seems t o be locationally
as well as temporally and modal l y neutral.)
This functional notion of the content of a sentence i n a context may
not, because of the neutral i ty of content wi th respect t o time and place,
say, exactly correspond to the classical conception of a proposition. But
the classical conception can be introduced by adding the demonstratives
'now' and ' here' t o the sentence and taki ng the content of the result.
I wi l l continue t o refer t o the content of a sentence as a proposition,
ignoring the classical use.
Before leaving the subject of circumstances of evaluation I should,
perhaps, note t hat the mere attempt t o show t hat an expression i s di -
rectly referential requires t hat i t be meaningful to ask of an i ndi vi dual
in one circumstance whether and wi t h what properties i t exists i n an-
other circumstance. I f such questions cannot be raised because they are
regarded as metaphysically meaningless, the question of whether a par-
ticular expression is directly referential (or even, a rigid designator) can-
not be raised. I have elsewhere referred to the view that such questions
are meaningful as haecceitism, and I have described other metaphysical
manifestations of this vi ew,
29 I
a d v o c a t e
t h i s
p o s i t i o n
,
a l t h o
u g h
I
a
m
to the feature of circumstance the operator is interested in. Thus, for example, i f
we take the content of S to be (i), the application of a temporal operator to such
a content would have no effect; the operator would be vacuous. Furthermore, i f
we do not wish the iteration of such operators to be vacuous, the content of the
compound sentence containing the Operator must again be neutral wi th respect
to the relevant feature of circumstance. Thi s is not to say that no such operator
cart have the effect of fixing t he relevant feature and thus, i n effect, rendering
subsequent operations vacuous; indexical operators do j ust this. I t i s j ust t hat
this must not be the general situation. A content must be the kind of entity that
is subject t o modification in the feature relevant to the operator. [ The textual
material to which this note is appended is too cryptic and should be rewritten.)
29 "How t o Russell a Prege-Church." The pronunciation is: "Hefo-ee-i-tis-m." The
epithet was suggested by Robert Adams. I t is not an accident that i t is derived
from a demonstrative.
uncomfortable wi th some of its seeming consequences (for example, that
the world mi ght be i n a state qualitatively exactly as i t is, but wi t h a
permutation of individuals).
It is hard to see how one could think about the semantics of indexicals
and modal i ty wi thout adopting such a view.
VI . ( i i ) Char act er
The second ki nd of meaning, most prominent i n the case of indexicals,
is t hat which determines the content i n varying contexts. The rule,
' I' refers to the speaker or wri ter
is a meaning rule of the second kind. The phrase ' the speaker or wri ter'
is not supposed to be a complete description, nor i t is supposed t o refer
to the speaker or writer of the word T (There are many such.) I t refers
to the speaker or wri ter of the relevant occurrence of the word ' I ' , that
is, the agent of the context.
Unfortunately, as usually stated, these meaning rules are incomplete
in t hat they do not explicitly specify that the indexical is directly refer-
ential, and thus do not completely determine the content in each context.
I wi l l return t o this later.
Let us call the second ki nd of meaning, character. The character of
an expression is set by linguistic conventions and, in turn, determines the
content of the expression i n every cont ext .
30 B e c a u s e
c h a r a c t e r
i s
w h a t
is set by linguistic conventions, i t is natural to t hi nk of it as meaning i n
the sense of what is known by the competent language user.
Just as i t was convenient t o represent contents by functions f rom
possible circumstances to extensions (Carnap's intentions), so i t is con-
venient t o represent characters by functions f rom possible contexts t o
contents. ( As before we have the drawback t hat equivalent characters
are i dent i f i ed.
31
) T h i s
g i v e
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p i
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another context, you can decide whether the contents are the same. I may twice
use 'here' on separate occasions and not recognize that the place is the same, or
twice hear ' I ' and not know i f the content is the same. What I do know is this:
i f it was the same person speaking, then the content was the same. [More on this
epistemological stuff later.]
31
1
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to see whether the revisions i n Fregean semantical theory, whi ch seem plainly
required to accommodate indexicals (this is the 'obviousness' of my theory), can
throw any light on i t. Here we assume that aside from indexicals, Frege's theory
Character: Contexts Co n t e n t s
Content: Ci r cumst ances Ex t ens i ons
or, i n more fami l i ar language,
Meaning + Context I n t e n s i o n
Intension + Possible Worl d Ex t e n s i o n
Indexicals have a context-sensztive character. I t is characteristic of
an indexical t hat i ts content varies wi t h context. Noni ndexi cal s have
a fixed character. T h e same content i s invoked i n al l contexts. T h i s
content wi l l typi cal l y be sensitive t o circumstances, t hat is, t he non-
indexicals are typi cal l y not ri gi d designators but wi l l vary i n extension
from circumstance to circumstance. Eternal sentences are generally good
examples of expressions wi t h a fixed character.
Al l persons alive in 1977 wi l l have died by 2077
expresses the same proposition no matter when said, by whom, or under
what circumstances. The truth-value of that proposition may, of course,
vary wi t h possible circumstances, but the character is fixed. Sentences
wi t h fixed character are very useful to those wishing to leave historical
records.
Now t hat we have t wo kinds of meaning i n addi ti on t o extension,
Frege's principle of intensional i nterchange' becomes t wo principles;
is correct, roughly, that words and phrases have a kind of descriptive meaning or
sense which at one and the same time constitutes their cognitive significance and
their conditions of applicability.
Kripke says repeatedly i n Naming and Necessity t hat he is onl y providing a
picture of how proper names refer and t hat he does not have an exact theory.
His picture yields some startling results. I n the case of indexicals we do have a
rather precise theory, which avoids the difficulty of specifying a chain of corrununi-
cation and which yields many analogous results. I n facing the vastly more difficult
problems associated wi t h a theory of reference for proper names, the theory of
indexicals may prove useful; i f only to showas I believethat proper names are
not indexiceds and have no meaning i n the sense in which indexicals have mean-
ing (namely a 'cognitive content' which fixes the references in all contexts). [The
issues that arise, involving token reflexives, homonymous words with distinct char-
acter, and homonymous token reflexives with the same character are best saved
for latermuch later.]
3 2
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2
8
o
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C
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:
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f
Chicago Press, 1947).
(F1) The character of the whole is a function of the character of
the parts. That is, i f two compound well-formed expressions
differ only wi t h respect t o components which have the same
Character, then the Character of the compounds is the same.
(F2) The Content of the whole is a function of the Content of the
parts. T h a t i s, i f two compound well-formed expressions,
each set i n (possibly different) contexts differ onl y wi t h re-
spect t o components whi ch wizen taken i n t hei r respective
contexts have the same content, then the content of the two
compounds each taken i n i ts own context is the same.
I t i s t he second pri nci pl e t hat accounts f or the often noted fact t hat
speakers i n different contexts can say the same thi ng by switching i n-
dexical& ( And indeed they often must switch indexicals to do so.) Frege
illustrated thi s poi nt wi t h respect t o ' t oday' and ' yesterday' i n " The
Thought." ( But note that his treatment of ' I' suggests t hat he does not
believe that utterances of a n d ' you' could be si mi l arl y related!)
Earlier, i n my metaphysical phase, I suggested t hat we should t hi nk
of the content of an indexical as being just the referent itself, and I re-
sented the fact that the representation of contents as intensions forced us
to regard such contents as constant functions. A si mi l ar remark applies
here. I f we are not overly concerned wi t h standardized representations
(which certainly have thei r value for model-theoretic investigations) we
might be inclined to say t hat the character of an indexical-free word or
phrase just is its (constant) content.
VI I , Ear l i er At t empt s: I ndex Theor y
The following picture seems t o emerge. The meaning (character) of an
indexical is a function from contexts to extensions (substi tuti ng for fixed
contents). The meaning (content, substituting for fixed characters) of a
nonindexical is a function from circumstances to extensions. Fr om this
point of view i t may appear t hat the addition of indexicals requires no
new logic, no sharp distinction between contexts and circumstances, j ust
the addition of some special new features (' contextual' features) t o the
circumstances of evaluation. ( For example, an agent t o provide an i n-
terpretation for T. ) Thus an enlarged view of intension is derived. The
intension of an expression i s a function from certain factors t o the ex-
tension of the expression (wi th respect t o those factors). Ori gi nal l y such
factors were simply possible states of the world, but as i t was noticed
508 Da v i d Kaplan
that t he so-called tense operators exhibited a structure hi ghl y analo-
gous t o t hat of the modal operators the factors wi t h respect t o which
an extension was t o be determined were enlarged t o include moments
of time. When i t was noticed t hat contextual factors were required t o
determine the extension of sentences containing indexicals, a still more
general notion was developed and called an "index." The extension of an
expression was to be determined wi th respect to an index. The intension
of an expression was t hat functi on which assigned t o every index, the
extension at t hat index.
The above example supplies us with a statement whose truth-
value i s not constant but varies as a functi on of i E
This si tuati on is easily appreciated i n the context of time-
dependent statements; t hat is, in the case where I represents
the i nstant of time. Obvi ousl y the same statement can be
true at one moment and false at another. For more general
situations one must not t hi nk of the i E I as anythi ng as
simple as instants of time or even possible worlds. I n general
we wi l l have
i = (up,t,p, a, . . . )
where the index i has many coordinates: f or example, w is a
world, t is a time, p = (x, y, z) i s a (3-dimensional) position
in t he worl d, a i s an agent, etc. A l l these coordinates can
be varied, possibly independently, and thus affect the truth-
values of statements which have indirect references t o these
coordinates. [ From the Advice of a prominent logician.]
A sentence rt
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t o
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(in every ' structure' ), and 0 0 was taken t o be true at a given i ndex
(in a given structure) j ust i n case 0 was true at every i ndex ( i n t hat
structure). Thus the fami l i ar principle of modal generalization: i f k 0,
then 0 0 , is validated.
This view, i n its treatment of indexicals, was technically wrong and,
more i mportantl y, conceptually misguided.
Consider the sentence
(6) I am here now.
It i s obvious t hat for many choices of indexi.e., for many quadruples
(w, x, p, t ) where w is a possible world history, x is a person, p is a place,
and t is a time(6) wi l l be false. I n fact, (6) i s true onl y wi t h respect
to those indices (w, x, p, t ) which are such t hat i n the worl d history w,
x is located at p at the time t. Thus (6) fares about on a par wi t h
(7) D a v i d Kaplan is i n Portland on 26 March 1977.
(7) is empirical, and so is (6).
But here we have missed something essential t o our understanding
of indexical& I nt ui t i vel y, (6) i s deeply, and i n some sense, whi ch we
wi l l shortly make precise, universally, true. One need onl y understand
the meaning of (6) t o know t hat i t cannot be uttered falsely. No such
guarantees apply to (7). A Logic of Indexicals which does not reflect this
intuitive difference between (6) and (7) has bypassed something essential
to the logic of indexical&
What has gone wrong? We have ignored t he special relationship
between T, 'here', and ' now' . Here i s a proposed correction. Let t he
class of indices be narrowed t o include onl y the proper onesnamely,
those (w, x, p, t) such that in the world w, x is located at p at the time t.
Such a move may have been intended originally since i mproper indices
are like impossible worlds; no such contexts could exist and thus there
is no interest in evaluating the extensions of expressions wi t h respect t o
them. Our reform has the consequence t hat (6) comes out, correctly, t o
be logically true. Now consider
(8) 0 I am here now.
Since the contained sentence (namely (6)) is true at every proper index,
(8) also is true at every proper index and thus also is logically true. ( As
would be expected by the aforementioned principle of modal generaliza-
tion.)
But (8) should not be logically true, since i t is false, I t i s certainly
not necessary that I be here now. But for several contingencies, I would
be working in my garden now, or even delivering this paper i n a location
outside of Portland.
The difficulty, here, i s the attempt to assimilate the role of a context
to that of a circumstance. The indices (w, x,p,t) that represent contexts
must be proper i n order that (6) be a truth of the logic of indexicals, but
the indices that represent circumstances must include improper ones i n
order t hat (8) not be a logical truth.
I f one wishes t o stay wi t h t hi s sort of index theory and bl ur t he
conceptual difference between context and circumstance, t he mi ni mal
requirement is a system of double indexing, one index for context and
510 Da v i d Kaplan
Demonstratives 6 11
another for circumstance. I t is surprising, l ooki ng back, t hat we (for I
was among the early index theorists) did not immediately see that double
indexing was required, for i n 1967, at UCLA, Hans Kamp had reported
his work on ' now' " i n which he had shown t hat double indexing was
required t o properly accommodate temporal indexicals along wi t h the
usual temporal operators. Bu t i t was f our years before i t was realized
that thi s was a general requirement for (and, i n a sense, t he key t o) a
logic of indexicals.
However, mere double indexing, wi t hout a clear conceptual under-
standing of what each index stands for, is sti l l not enough t o avoid al l
pitfalls.
VI I I . Monst er s Begat b y El egance
My l i beral i ty wi t h respect t o operators on content, i.e., intensional op-
erators (any feature of the circumstances of evaluation that can be well
defined and isolated) does not extend t o operators whi ch at t empt t o
operate on character. Ar e there such operators as ' In some contexts i t is
true that' , which when prefixed t o a sentence yields a truth i f and onl y
i f in some context the contained sentence (not the content expressed by
i t) expresses a content that is true in the circumstances of that context?
Let us t ry i t:
(9) J o some contexts i t is true t hat I am not ti red now.
For (9) t o be true i n the present context i t suffices t hat some agent of
some context not be tired at the time of that context. (0), so interpreted,
has nothi ng t o do wi t h me or t he present moment. Bu t t hi s violates
Principle 2! Pri nci pl e 2 can also be expressed in more theory laden way
by saying that indexicals always take primary scope. I f this is trueand
i t isthen no operator can control the character of the indexicals wi thi n
its scope, because they wi l l si mpl y leap out of its scope t o the front of
the operator. I am not saying we could not construct a language wi t h
such operators, j ust that English is not one. ' And such operators could
\ not be added to i t .
There is a way to control an indexical, to keep i t from taking primary
scope, and even to refer i t to another context (this amounts to changing
its character). Use quotation marks. I f we mention the indexical rather
3 3
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' Thomason alleges a counterinstance: 'Never put off until tomorrow what you can
do today'. What should one say about this?
than use i t , we can, of course, operate di rectl y on i t . Car nap once
pointed out t o me how i mport ant t he difference between di rect and
indirect quotation is in
Otto said " I am a fool."
Otto said that I am a fool.
Operators like 'In some contexts i t is true that', which attempt to meddle
wi th character, I call monsters. I claim that none can be expressed i n
English (wi t hout sneaking i n a quotation device). I f they stay i n t he
metalanguage and confine thei r attention to sentences as i n
In some contexts " I am not tired now" is true
they are rendered harmless and can even do socially useful work (as
does, ' i s valid' {see below)).
I have gone on at perhaps excessive length about monsters because
they have recently been begat by elegance. I n a specific appl i cati on
of the theory of indexicals there wi l l be j ust certain salient features of
a circumstance of evaluation. So we may represent circumstances by
indexed sets of features. Thi s is typical of the model-theoretic way. As
already indicated, al l the features of a circumstance wi l l generally be
required as aspects of a context, and the aspects of a context may all be
features of a circumstance. I f not, a l i ttl e ingenuity may make i t so.
35
3 3
R
e c
a l
l
t
h
a
t
i
n
a
p
a
r
t
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u
l
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f
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a
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t
a
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c
e
m
u
s
t
include all elements wi th respect t o which there are content operators, and the
aspects of a context must include all elements wi t h respect t o which there are
indexicals. Thus, a language with bot h the usual modal operators ' 0' , 97, and
an indexical modal operator ' I t is actually the case t hat ' wi l l contain a possible
world history feature i n its circumstances as well as an analogous aspect i n i ts
contexts. I f a circumstance is an aspect of a context, as seems necessary for the
definition of truth, then we only need worry about aspects of contexts that are
not features of circumstances. The most prominent of these is the agent of the
context, required to interpret the indexical I n order to supply a corresponding
nonvacuous feature to circumstances we must treat contents in such a way that we
can ask whether they are true for various agents. (Not characters mi nd you, but
contents.) This can be done by representing the agent by a nesstrala term which
plays the syntactical role of ' I' but gets an interpretation only wi th respect t o a
circumstance. Let a be a special variable that is not subject to quantification and
let b be a variable not in the language. Our variable a is the neutral. We wish t o
introduce content operators which affect the agent place and which can be iterated.
Let R be a relation between individuals, for example 'aRb' for 'b is an uncle of a'.
Then we may interpret the operator ORO as (3b)(aR6 A ( I s ) (b = a A O)J I f i s
'a walks', ORO comes to 'an uncle of a walks'. The indexical ' I' can be represented
by an operator 0
1 f o r
w h i c h
' a R b
'
i s
j u s
t
' 1 =
1 0 .
T
h
e
r e
s u
l t
s h
o u
l d
b
e
t
h
a
t
O
r
j
,
i
s
equivalent to replacing the neutral a by the indexical T.
512 Da v i d Kaplan
We could then represent contexts by the same indexed sets we use t o
represent circumstances, and instead of having a logic of contexts and
circumstances we have simply a two-dimensional logic of indexed sets.
This is algebraically very neat and i t permits a very simple and elegant
description of certain i mportant classes of characters (for example, those
which are t rue at every pai r ( i , i), though t he special significance of
the set i s somehow diminished i n t he abstract formulation) ,as Bu t i t
also permits a simple and elegant introduction of many operators which
are monsters. I n abstracting f rom the distinct conceptual roles played
by contexts of use and circumstances of evaluation the special logic of
indexicals has been obscured. Of course restrictions can be put on the
two-dimensional logic t o exorcise t he monsters, but t o do so woul d be
to give up the mathematical advantages of that f or mul at i on.
37
I X. Ar gument f or Pr i nci pl e 2: Tr u e Demonst r at i ves
I return now to the argument t hat al l indexicals are directly referential.
Suppose I point at Paul and say,
He now lives i n Princeton, New Jersey.
Call what I saidi.e., t he content of my utterance, t he proposi ti on
expressed'Pat'. I s Pat true or false? True! Suppose that unbeknownst
to me, Paul had moved t o Santa Moni ca last week. Woul d Pat have
then been t rue or false? Fal se! No w, t he t ri cky case: Suppose t hat
Paul and Charles had each disguised themselves as the other and had
switched places. I f that had happened, and I had uttered as I di d, then
the proposition I would have expressed woul d have been false. Bu t i n
that possible context the proposition I would have expressed i s not Pat.
That is easy to see because the proposition I would have expressed, had
I pointed to Charles instead of Paulcall this proposition ' Mi ke' not
only would have been false but actual l y is false. Pat , I would cl ai m,
would sti l l be true i n the circumstances of the envisaged possible con-
3 6
S
e e
,
f
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e
x
a
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p
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,
K
r
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,
"
T
w
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d
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,
"
J
o
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n
a
l
o
f
Philosophical Logic 2 (1973): 77-96. Segerberg does metamathematical work i n
his article and makes no special philosophical claims about its significance. That
has been clone by others.
" Ther e is one other difficulty in identifying the class of contexts with the class of
circumstances. The special relationship between the indexicals T, 'here', ' now'
seems t o require that the agent of a context be at the location of the context
during the time of the context. But thi s restriction is not plausible for arbitrary
circumstances. I t appears that this approach will have difficulty in avoiding the
problems of (6) and (8) (section VII).
text provided that Paul i n whatever costume he appearedwere st i l l
residing in Princeton.
I X. ( i ) Th e Ar gument s
I am arguing that in order to determine what the truth-value of a propo-
sition expressed by a sentence containing a demonstrative would be under
other possible circumstances, the relevant individual is not the individual
that would have been demonstrated had those circumstances obtained
and the demonstration been set i n a context of those circumstances, but
rather the i ndi vi dual demonstrated i n the context whi ch di d generate
the proposition being evaluated. A s I have already noted, i t i s char-
acteristic of sentences containing demonstrativesor, f or t hat matter,
any indexicalthat they may express different propositions in different
contexts. We must be wary of confusing the proposition that would have
been expressed by a similar utterance i n a slightly different context
say, one i n which the demonstratum is changedwith the proposition
that was actually expressed. I f we keep this distinction in mindi.e., we
distinguish Pat and Mikewe are less likely to confuse what the t rut h-
value of the proposition actually expressed would have been under some
possible circumstances wi th what the truth-value of the proposition that
would have been expressed would have been under those circumstances.
When we consider the vast array of possible circumstances wi t h re-
spect to which we might inquire into the truth of a proposition expressed
in some context c by an utterance u, i t quickly becomes apparent t hat
only a small fraction of these circumstances wi l l involve an utterance of
the same sentence i n a similar context, and that there roust be a way of
evaluating the truth-value of propositions expressed using demonstra-
tives i n counterfactual circumstances i n which no demonstrations are
taking place and no individual has the exact characteristics exploited in
the demonstration. Surely, i t is irrelevant to determining whether what I
said would be true or not in some counterfactual circumstance, whether
Paul, or anyone for that matter, looked as he does now. Al l that would
be relevant is where he lives. Therefore,
(T3) the relevant features of the demonstratum qua demonstra-
turn (compare, t he relevant features of the x Px qua the x
Fa)namely, that the speaker is pointing at i t , t hat i t has
a certain appearance, is presented i n a certain waycannot
be the essential characteristics used t o identify the relevant
individual in counterfactual situations.
514 Da v i d Kaplan
These two arguments: t he distinction between Pat and Mike, and con-
sideration of counterfactual situations in which no demonstration occurs,
are offered t o support the view that demonstratives are devices of direct
reference (ri gi d designators, i f you wi l l ) and, by contrast, t o reject a
Fregean theory of demonstratives.
I X, ( i i ) Th e Fregean Theor y of Demonst r at i ons
In order to develop the latter theory, in contrast to my own, we turn first
to a porti on of the Fregean theory which I accept: t he Fregean theory
of demonstrations.
As you know, for a Fregean t he paradigm of a meaningful expres-
sion is the definite description, which picks out or denotes an individual,
a unique i ndi vi dual , satisfying a condition s. Th e i ndi vi dual is called
the denotation of the definite description and the condition s we may
identify wi th the sense of the definite description. Since a given i ndi vi d-
ual may uniquely satisfy several distinct conditions, definite descriptions
wi th distinct senses may have the same denotation. And since some con-
ditions may be uniquely satisfied by no individual, a definite description
may have a sense but no denotation. The condition by means of which
a definite description picks out i t s denotation is the manner of presen-
tation of the denotation by the definite description.
The Fregean theory of demonstratives claims, correctly I believe,
that the analogy between descriptions (short for 'definite descriptions')
and demonstrations i s close enough t o provide a sense and denotation
analysis of the ' meaning' of a demonstration. T h e denotation i s t he
demonstratum ( t hat which i s demonstrated), and i t seems qui te nat -
ural t o regard each demonstration as presenting i t s demonstratum i n
a particular manner, whi ch we may regard as the sense of the demon-
stration. T h e same i ndi vi dual could be demonstrated by demonstra-
tions so different in manner of presentation that i t would be informative
to a competent auditor-observer t o be t ol d t hat the demonstrata were
one. F o r example, i t mi ght be i nformati ve to you f or me t o t el l you
that
That [pointing to Venus in the morning sky] is identical with
that [pointing to Venus i n the evening sky].
(I woul d, of course, have t o speak very slowly.) Th e t wo demonstra-
tionscall the first one 'Phos' and the second one 'Hes'which accom-
panied the two occurrences of the demonstrative expression ' t hat ' have
the same demonstratum but distinct manners of presentation. I t is this
difference between the sense of Hes and the sense of Phos t hat accounts,
the Fregean claims, for the informativeness of the assertion.
I t is possible, to pursue the analogy, for a demonstration t o have no
demonstratum. Thi s can arise i n several ways: t hrough hallucination,
through carelessness (not noticing, i n the darkened room, t hat the sub-
ject had jumped off the demonstration platform a few moments before
the lecture began), through a sortal conflict (using t he demonstrative
phrase t h a t , where F is a common noun phrase, whi l e demonstrat-
ing something which is not an F) , and in other ways.
Even Donnellans's i mportant distinction between referential and at-
tributive uses of definite descriptions seems to fit, equally comfortably,
the case of demonstrations.'
The Fregean hypostatizes demonstrations i n such a way t hat i t i s
appropriate t o ask of a given demonstration, say Phos, what would i t
have demonstrated under various counterfactual circumstances. Phos
and l i es might have demonstrated distinct i ndi vi dual s. "
We should not allow our enthusiasm for analogy to overwhelm judg-
ment i n thi s case. Ther e are some relevant respects i n whi ch descrip-
tions and demonstrations are disanalogous. Fi r st , as Davi d Lewis has
pointed out, demonstrations do not have a syntax, a fixed formal struc-
ture i n terms of whose elements we mi ght t ry t o define, ei ther directly
Or recursively, the notion of sense." Second, t o different audiences (for
example, t he speaker, those si tti ng i n front of the demonstration pl at-
form, and those si tti ng behind the demonstration pl at f orm) t he same
demonstration may have different senses. O r perhaps we should say
that a single performance may involve distinct demonstrations from the
perspective of distinct audiences. ("Exact l y like proper names!" says the
Fregean, "as long as the demonstratum remains the same, these fluctu-
ations i n sense are tolerable. But they should be avoided i n the system
381have written elsewhere, i n appendices YU and \Pill of "Bob and Carol and Ted
and Alice," of these matters and won' t pursue the topic now.
i t could then be proposed that demonstrations be individuated by the principle:
(/2 = d2 i f and Only if, for all appropriate circumstances c, the demonstratum of
si
t
i
n
c
=
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e
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m
o
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t
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a
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.
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n
is that the same demonstration is being performed in two different contexts if the
standard audience can't determine, from the demonstration alone, whether the
contexts are distinct or identical. Thi s makes the individuation of demonstrations
more epistemological than the metaphysical proposal above.
4 0
A l
t h
o u
g h
r
e
c
e
n
t
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of pictures. See P. Suppes and Rottrnayer, "Automata," i n Hanettook of P ercep-
lion, vol. 1 (New York: Academic Press, 1974).
516 Da v i d Kaplan
of a demonstrative science and should not appear in a perfect vehicle of
communication.")
I X. ( i i i ) The Fregean Theor y of Demonst r at i ves
Let us accept, tentatively and cautiously, the Fregean theory of demon-
strations, and t urn now to the Fregean theory of demonstrati ves.
41 According t o the Fregean theory of demonstratives, an occurrence of
a demonstrative expression functions rather like a place-holder for the
associated demonstration. The sense of a sentence containing demon-
stratives i s t o be the result of replacing each demonstrative by a con-
stant whose sense is given as the sense of the associated demonstration.
An i mportant ai m of the Fregean theory is, of course, t o solve Frege's
problem. A n d i t does t hat qui te neatly. Yo u recall t hat the Fregean
accounted for the informativeness of
That [lies] = t hat [Phos]
i n terms of the di sti nct senses Of Hes and Phos, Now we see t hat the
senses o f the t wo occurrences o f ' t hat ' are identified wi t h these t wo
distinct senses so t hat the ul ti mate solution is exactly like that given by
Frege originally. The sense of the left ' t hat ' differs from the sense of the
ri ght ' that' .
I X. ( i v ) Ar g u me n t Agai nst t he Fregean Theor y of
Demonst r at i ves
Let us return now to our original example:
He [Delta] now lives in Princeton, New Jersey
where ' Del t a' is the name of the relevant demonstration. I assume t hat
in t he possible circumstances described earlier, Paul and Charles hav-
ing disguised themselves as each other, Del ta would have demonstrated
Charles. Therefore, according t o the Fregean theory, the proposition
l ust expressed, Pat, would have been false under the counterfactual cir-
cumstances of the switch. But this, as argued earlier, is wrong. There-
fore, the Fregean theory of demonstratives though i t nicely solves Frege's
problem, is simply incorrect i n associating propositions wi th utterances.
Let me recapitulate. We compared two theories as to the proposition
expressed by a sentence containing a demonstrative along wi th an asso-
4 1
T
h e
F
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e
g
e
a
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t
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y
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-
sial theory of indexicats. On the contrary, i t has the fascination of the speculative.
ciated demonstration. Bot h theories allow that the demonstration can
be regarded as having both a sense and a demonstratum. My theory, the
direct reference theory, claims that i n assessing the proposition in coun-
terfactual circumstances i t is the actual demonstratumin the example,
Paulthat is the relevant i ndi vi dual . The Fregean theory claims t hat
the proposition is t o be construed as i f the sense of the demonstration
were the sense of the demonstrative. Thus, i n counterfactual situations
it is the individual that would have been demonstrated t hat is the rele-
vant individual. According to the direct reference theory, demonstratives
are rigid designators. Accordi ng to the Fregean theory, t hei r denotation
varies i n different counterfactual circumstances as t he demonstrata of
the associated demonstration would vary in those circumstances.
The earlier di sti ncti on between Pat and Mi ke, and t he discussion
of counterfactual circumstances i n which, as we would now put i t , the
demonstration woul d have demonstrated nothing, argue t hat wi t h re-
spect t o t he problem of associating propositions wi t h utterances t he
direct reference theory is correct and the Pregean theory is wrong.
1have carefully avoided arguing for the direct reference theory by
using modal or subjunctive sentences for fear the Fregean would cl ai m
that the peculiarity of demonstratives is not that they are rigid designa-
tors but that they always take pri mary scope. I f I had argued onl y on
the basis of our intuitions as to the truth-value of
I f Charles and Paul had changed chairs, t hen he (Del t a)
would not now be l i vi ng in Princeton
such a scope interpretation could be claimed. But I di dn' t.
The perceptive Fregeans among you wi l l have noted t hat I have said
nothing about how Frege's problem fares under a direct reference theory
of demonstratives. And indeed, i f ' that' accompanied by a demonstra-
tion is a ri gi d designator for the demonstratum, then
that (Hes) = that (Phos)
looks l i ke two ri gi d designators designating the same thi ng. Uh Ohl
will return t o this i n my Epistemological Remarks (section XVI I ).
518 Da v i d Kaplan
X. Fi xi ng t he Ref erence vs. Suppl yi ng a Sy n o n y m
4 2
The Fregean i s t o be forgiven. He has made a most natural mistake.
Perhaps he thought as follows: I f I poi nt at someone and say 'he', t hat
occurrence of 'he' must refer to the male at whom I am now pointing. I t
does! So far, so good, Therefore, the Fregean reasons, since ' he' (i n i ts
demonstrative sense) means the same as ' the male at whom I am now
pointing' and since the denotation of the latter varies wi th circumstances
the denotation of the former must also. B u t t hi s i s wrong. Si mpl y
because i t is a rule of the language that ' he' refers to the male at whom
I am now poi nt i ng (or, whom I am now demonstrating, t o be more
general), i t does not follow t hat any synonymy is thereby established.
In fact, t hi s i s one of those cases i n whichto use Kri pke' s excellent
idiomthe rul e si mpl y tells us how t o f i x the reference but does not
supply a synonym.
Consider the proposition I express wi t h the utterance
He [Delta] is the male at whom I am now pointing.
Call that proposition 'Sean'. Now Sean is certainly true. We know from
the rules of the language t hat any utterance of that form must express
a true proposition. I n fact we would be justified i n calling the sentence
He is the male at whom I am now pointing.
almost analytic. ( ' Al most ' because of the hypothesis t hat the demon-
strative is properthat I am pointing at a unique maleis needed.)
But is Sean necessary? Cert ai nl y not, I might have pointed at some-
one else.
This kind of mistaketo confuse a semantical rule which tells how to
fi x the reference to a directly referential term with a rule which supplies
a synonymis easy t o make. Si nce semantics must supply a meaning,
in the sense of content (as I cal l i t ), f or expressions, one thi nks natu-
rally t hat whatever way the referent of an expression i s given by t he
semantical rules, that way must stand for the content of the expression.
(Church [Or was i t Carnap?] says as much, explicitly.) Thi s hypothesis
42
1
u
s
e
K
r
i
p
k
e
'
s
t
e
r
m
i
n
o
l
o
g
y
t
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x
p
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t
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e
i
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o
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e
s
in Naming and Necessity for descriptive meaning that may be associated wi th a
proper name. As i n several other cases of such parallels between proper names
and indexicals, the distinction, and its associated argument, seems more obvious
when applied to indexicals,
seems especially plausible, when, as is typical of indexicals,
the semantical rule which fixes the reference seems to exhaust
our knowledge of the meaning of the expression.
X. ( i ) Rei chenbach on Token Ref l exi ves
I t was from such a perspective, I believe, t hat Reichenbach bui l t his inge-
nious theory of indexicals. Reichenbach called such expressions 'token-
reflexive words' in accordance wi t h his theory. He writes as follows:
We saw that most individual-descriptions are constructed by
reference t o other individuals. Among these there is a class
of descriptions i n which the individual referred t o is the act
of speaking. We have special words t o indicate t hi s refer-
ence; such words are ' I ' , ' you' , 'here', ' now' , ' t hi s' . O f the
same sort are the tenses of verbs, since they determine ti me
by reference t o t he t i me when t he words are uttered. T o
understand the function of these words we have to make use
of the distinction between token and symbol, ' token' mean-
ing t he i ndi vi dual sign, and ' symbol ' meaning the class of
similar tokens (cf. P) . Wor ds and sentences are symbols.
The words under consideration are words which refer t o the
corresponding token used i n an i ndi vi dual act of speech, or
writing; they may therefore be called token-reflexive words.
I t is easily seen t hat all these words can be defined i n terms
of the phrase ' t hi s token'. The word ' I ' , for instance, means
the same as 'the person who utters this token'; ' now' means
the same as ' the time at which this token was uttered' , ' thi s
table' means the same as ' the table pointed t o by a gesture
accompanying thi s token'. We therefore need i nqui re onl y
into the meaning of the phrase ' thi s t oken' .
43
But is i t true, for example, t hat
(10) ' I ' means the same as 'the person who utters this token'
I t is certainly true that
I am the person who utters thi s token.
4 3
1 1
. R
e i
c h
e n
b a
c h
,
E
l
e
m
e
n
t
s
o
f
S
y
m
b
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o
g
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c
(
N
e
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Y
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r
k
:
M
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a
d
l
l
a
n
,
1
9
4
7
)
,
p
.
2
8
4
.
520 Da v i d Kaplan
But i f (10) correctly asserted a synonymy, then i t would be true t hat
(11) I f no one were t o utter thi s token, I would not exist.
Beliefs such as (11) could make one a compulsive talker.
XI . The Meani ng of I ndexi cal s
In order to correctly and more explicitly state the semantical rule which
the dictionary attempts to capture by the entry
I: t h e person who is speaking or wri ti ng
we would have to develop our semantical theorythe semantics of direct
referenceand then state t hat
(D1) ' I ' is an indexical, different utterances of which may have
different contents
(D3) ' I ' is, i n each of its utterances, directly referential
(D2) In each of its utterances, ' I ' refers to the person who utters it.
We have seen errors in the Fregean analysis of demonstratives and in
Reichenbach's analysis of indexicals, al l of which stemmed f rom failure
to realize that t h e s e
-
w o r d s a r e
d i r e c t l y
r e f e r e n
t i a l .
W h
e n
w
e
s
a
y
t h
a t
a
word is directly referential are we saying that its meaning is its reference
(its only meaning is i ts reference, i t s meaning is nothi ng more than i ts
reference)? Cert ai nl y not .
44 I n s o f a r
a s
m e a n i n g
i s
g i v e
n
b y
t h
e
r u l
e s
o
f
a
language and is what is known by competent speakers, I would be more
inclined to say in the case of directly referential words and phrases t hat
their reference is no part of their meaning. The meaning of the word
' I ' does not change when different persons use i t . The meaning of ' I ' is
given by the rules (D1), (D2), and (D3) above.
" We see here a drawback to the terminology 'direct reference'. I t suggests falsely
that the reference is not mediated by a meaning, which it is. The meaning (charac-
ter) is directly associated, by convention, with the word. The meaning determines
the referent; and the referent determines the content. I t is this to which I alluded
i n the parenthetical remark following the picture on page 486. Note, however, that
the kind of descriptive meaning involved in giving the character of indexicals like
'I', 'now', etc., is, because of the focus on context rather than circumstance, unlike
that traditionally thought of as Fregean sense. I t i s the idea that the referent
determines the contentthat, contra Prege, there is a road backthat I wish to
capture. This is the importance of Principle 2.
Meanings tell us how the content of a word or phrase is determined
by the context of use. Thus the meaning of a word or phrase is what I
have called its character. (Words and phrases wi th no indexical element
express the same content in every context; they have a fixed character.)
To supply a synonym for a word or phrase is to fi nd another wi t h the
same character; fi ndi ng another wi t h the same content i n a particular
context certainly won' t do. The content of ' I ' used by me may be iden-
tical wi t h the content of ' you' used by you. Thi s doesn't make ' I ' and
'you' synonyms. Frege noticed t hat i f one wishes to say again what one
said yesterday using ' today' , today one must use 'yesterday'. (Inciden-
tally the relevant passage, quoted on page 501, propounds what I take
to be a direct reference theory of the indexicals ' today' and 'yesterday'.)
But ' today' and 'yesterday' are not synonyms. For two words or phrases
to be synonyms, t hey must have t he same content i n every context.
In general, f or indexicals, i t is not possible t o fi nd synonyms. Thi s is
because indexicals are di rectl y referential, and t he compound phrases
which can be used to give their reference (' the person who is speaking',
'the individual being demonstrated', etc.) are not.
X I I . D t h a t
4 5
I t would be useful to have a way of converting an arbitrary singular term
into one which is directly referential.
Recall that we earlier regarded demonstrations, which are required to
'complete' demonstratives, as a ki nd of description. The demonstrative
was then treated as a directly referential term whose referent was the
demonstratum of the associated demonstration.
Now why not regard descriptions as a kind of demonstration, and
introduce a special demonstrative whi ch requires completion by a de-
scription and which is treated as a directly referential term whose refer-
ent is the denotation of the associated description? Why not? Why not
indeed! I have done so, and I wri te i t thus:
dth at [a]
where a is any description, or, more generally, any singular term. ' Dt hat '
is simply the demonstrative ' t hat ' wi th the following singular term func-
45Pronunciation note on 'cl.that'. The word is not pronounced dee-that or duh-that.
I t has only one syllable. Al though articulated differently from ' t hat ' (the tongue
begins behind the teeth), the sounds are vi rtual l y indistinguishable t o al l but
native speakers.
522 Da v i d Kaplan
tioning as i t s demonstration. ( Unl ess you hol d a Fregean t heory of
demonstratives, i n which case its meaning is as stipulated above.)
Now we can come much closer to providing genuine synonyms.
' I ' means t he same as ' dt hat [ t he person who utters t hi s
token]'.
(The fact t hat this alleged synonymy is cast i n the theory of utterances
rather t han occurrences introduces some subtle complications, whi ch
have been discussed by Reichenbach.)
XI I I . Cont ext s, Tr ut h, and Logi cal Tr ut h
I wish, i n thi s section, t o contrast an occurrence of a well-formed ex-
pression (my technical term for the combination of an expression and a
context) wi t h an utterance of an expression.
There are several arguments f or my noti on, but t he mai n one i s
from Remark 1 on the Logi c of Demonstratives (section XI X below):
I have sometimes said t hat t he content of a sentence i n a context is,
roughly, t he proposition t he sentence woul d express i f uttered i n t hat
context. Thi s description i s not qui te accurate on two counts. Fi rst , i t
is i mportant t o distinguish an utterance f rom a sentence-in-a-context.
The former noti on i s f rom the theory of speech acts, t he l at t er f rom
semantics, Utterances take ti me, and utterances of distinct sentences
cannot be simultaneous (i.e., i n t he same context). B u t i n order t o
develop a logic of demonstratives we must be able t o evaluate several
premises and a conclusion al l i n t he same context. We do not want
arguments involving indexicals to become valid simply because there is
no possible context i n which al l the premises are uttered, and thus no
possible context i n which al l are uttered truthful l y.
Since the content of an occurrence of a sentence containing indexicals
depends on t he context, t he not i on of truth must be relativized t o a
context.
I f c is a context, then an occurrence of 0 i n c is true i f the
content expressed by 0 in this context is true when evaluated
wi th respect t o the circumstance of the context.
We see f rom the notion of truth t hat among other aspects of a context
must be a possible circumstance. Ever y context occurs i n a particular
circumstance, and there are demonstratives such as ' actual' which refer
to that circumstance.
Demonstr at i ves 5 2 3
I f you t r y out the noti on of t rut h on a few examples, you wi l l see
that i t is correct. I f I now utter a sentence, I wi l l have uttered a t rut h
just i n case what I said, t he content, is true in these circumstances.
As is now common for intensional logics, we provide for the notion of
a structure, comprising a fami l y of circumstances. Each such structure
will determine a set of possible contexts. Tr ut h i n a structure, i s t r ut h
in every possible context of the structure. Logical truth is t rut h in every
structure.
XI V. Summar y of Fi ndi ngs (so f ar ) : Pur e I ndexi cal s
Let me t r y now t o summarize my findings regarding the semantics of
demonstratives and other indexical& Fi r s t , l et us consider t he non-
demonstrative indexicals such as ' I ' , ' here' ( i n i t s nondemonstrative
sense), ' now' , ' today' , 'yesterday', etc. I n the case of these words, t he
linguistic conventions which constitute meaning consist of rules specify-
ing the referent of a given occurrence of the word (we might say, a given
token, or even utterance, of the word, i f we are wi l l i ng to be somewhat
less abstract) i n terms of various features of the context of the occur-
rence. Al t hough these rules fi x the referent and, i n a very special sense,
might be said t o define the indexical, t he way i n whi ch t he rules are
given does not provide a synonym for the indexical. Th e rules t el l us
for any possible occurrence of the indexical what the referent would be,
but they do not constitute the content of such an occurrence. Indexicals
are directly referential. The rules t el l us what i t is t hat is referred to.
Thus, they determine the content (the propositional constituent) f or a
particular occurrence of an indexical. Bu t they are not a part of the
content (they constitute no part of the propositional constituent). I n
order t o keep clear on a topic where ambiguities constantly threaten, I
have introduced two technical terms: content and character for the two
kinds of meaning (in addition to extension) I associate wi t h indexical&
Distinct occurrences of an indexical (i n distinct contexts) may not only
have distinct referents, they may have distinct meanings in the sense of
content. I f I say " I am tired today" today and Montgomery Furth says
"I am tired today" tomorrow, our utterances have different contents i n
that t he factors which are relevant t o determining t he truth-val ue of
what Furt h said i n bot h actual and counterfactual circumstances are
quite different from the factors whi ch are relevant t o determining the
truth-value of what I said. Our t wo utterances are as different i n con-
tent as are the sentences "Davi d Kaplan is tired on 26 March 1977" and
524 Da v i d Kaplan
"Montgomery Furth i s ti red on 27 March 1977." But there i s another
sense of meaning in which, absent lexical or syntactical ambiguities, two
occurrences of the same word or phrase musi mean the same. (Ot her-
wise how could we learn and communicate wi t h language?) Thi s sense
of meaningwhich I call characteris what determines the content of
an occurrence of a word or phrase i n a given context. For indexicals,
the rules of language constitute the meaning i n the sense of character.
As normal l y expressed, i n dictionaries and the like, these rules are i n-
complete i n t hat , by omi t t i ng t o mention t hat ,indexicals are di rectl y
referential, t hey fai l t o specify t he f ul l content of an occurrence of an
indexical.
Three i mportant features t o keep i n mi nd about these t wo kinds of
meaning are:
1. Ch a r a c t e r applies onl y t o words and phrases as types, con-
tent t o occurrences of words and phrases i n contexts.
2. Occur r ences of two phrases can agree i n content although
the phrases differ in character, and two phrases can agree i n
_character but differ i n content i n distinct contexts.
3. T h e relationship of character t o content i s something l i ke
that tradi ti onal l y regarded as t he relationship of sense t o
denotation, character is a way of presenting content.
X V. Fur t her Det ai l s: Demonst r at i ves and
Demonst r at i ons
Let me turn now to the demonstratives proper, those expressions which
must be associated wi t h a demonstration i n order t o determine a refer-
ent, I n addi ti on t o the pure demonstratives ' t hat ' and ' t hi s' there are
a variety of demonstratives which contain bui l t-i n sortals: ' he' for ' t hat
male', 'she' for ' that femal e' ," etc., and there are demonstrative phrases
bui l t from a pure demonstrative and a common noun phrase: ' t hat man
drinking a marti ni ' , etc. Wor ds and phrases whi ch have demonstra-
tive use may have other uses as well, for example, as bound variable or
pronouns of laziness (anaphoric use).
I accept, tentati vel y and cautiously, the Fregean theory of demon-
strations according t o which:
" ' Mal e' and 'female' are here used i n the grammatical sense of gender, not the
biological sense,
(1) A demonstration is a way of presenting an individual.
(2) A given demonstration in certain counterfactual circumstan-
ces,would have demonstrated (i.e., presented) an i ndi vi dual
other than the individual actually demonstrated.
A demonstration which fails t o demonstrate any i ndi vi dual
might have demonstrated one, and a demonstration whi ch
demonstrates an individual might have demonstrated no in-
dividual at all.
(
3
)
So far we have asserted t hat i t is not an essential property of a given
demonstration (according to the Fregean theory) t hat i t demonstrate .
a
given i ndi vi dual , or indeed, t hat i t demonstrate any i ndi vi dual at al l .
I t i s thi s feature of demonstrations: t hat demonstrations which i n fact
demonstrate the same individual might have demonstrated distinct indi-
viduals, which provides a solution to the demonstrative version of Frege's
problem (why is an utterance of ' that [Hes] t h a t [Phos]' informative?)
analogous t o Frege's own solution t o t he definite description version.
There i s some theoretical l at t i t ude as t o how we should regard such
other features of a demonstration as i t s place, ti me, and agent. Just
to f i x ideas, l et us regard al l these features as accidental. ( I t may be
helpful to thi nk of demonstrations as types and particular performances
of them as their tokens). Then,
(4) A given demonstration might have been mounted by someone
other t han i t s actual agent, and mi ght be repeated i n t he
same or a different place.
Although we are not now regarding the actual place and t i me of a
demonstration as essential t o i t , i t does seem t o me t o be essential t o
a demonstration that i t present i ts demonstrata from some perspective,
that is, as the individual that looks thusly from here now. On the other
hand, i t does not seem to me to be essential to a demonstration that i t
be mounted by any agent at 8,11.
47
47
I f
t
h
e
c
u
r
r
e
n
t
s
p
e
c
u
l
a
t
i
o
n
s
a
r
e
a
c
c
e
p
t
e
d
,
t
h
e
n
i
n
t
h
e
o
r
i
g
i
n
a
l
d
i
s
c
u
s
s
i
o
n
o
f
P
a
t
a
n
d
Mike the emphasis on the counterfactual situation in which the same agent was
doing the pointing was misguided and that feature of counterfactual situations is
irrelevant. I t is the agent of course who focuses your attention on the relevant
local individual. But that needn't be done by anyone; we might have a convention
that whoever is appearing on the demonstration platform is the demonstratum,
or the speaker might take advantage of a natural demonstration of opportunity:
an explosion or a shooting star.
526 Da v i d Kaplan
We now have a kind of standard form for demonstrations:
The individual that has appearance A from here now
where an appearance is something like a picture wi th a little arrow point-
ing t o t he relevant subject. Tr y i ng t o put i t i nt o words, a particular
demonstration might come out like:
The brightest heavenly body now visible from here.
In t hi s example we see t he importance of perspective. T h e same
demonstration, differently located, may present a- different demonstra-
t um (a twin, for example).
I f we set a demonstration, 6, in a context, c, we determine the relevant
perspective (i.e., the values of 'here' and ' now' ). We also determine the
demonstratum, i f there is oneif, t hat is, i n the circumstances of the
context there i s an i ndi vi dual t hat appears t hat way f rom t he place
and t i me of the cont ext .
48 I n
s e t t i n g
6
a n d
c
w e
d e t e r
m i n e
m o
r e
t h
a n
j ust the demonstratum i n the possible worl d of the context. By fi xi ng
the perspective, we determine f or each possible circumstance what, i f
anything, would appear like t hat from t hat perspective. Thi s is to say,
we determine a content. Thi s content wi l l not, i n general, be fixed (like
that determined by a ri gi d designator). Al t hough i t was Venus t hat
appeared a certain way f rom a certain l ocati on i n ancient Greece, i t
might have been Mars. Under certain counterfactual conditions, i t would
have been Mars that appeared just that way from just that location. Set
in a different context, 5
, m a y
d e t e r m i n
e a
q u i t
e
d i f f e
r e n t
c o n
t e n
t
o
r
n
o
content at all. When I look at myself in the mi rror each morning I know
that I di dn' t l ook like t hat ten years agoand I suspect t hat nobody
did.
The preceding excursion i nt o a more detailed Fregean t heory o f
demonstrations was simply in order to establish the following structural
features of demonstrations:
1. A demonstration, when set i n a context (i.e., an occurrence
of a demonstration), determines a content.
"Si nce, as remarked earlier, the speaker and different members of the audience
generally have different perspectives on the demonstration, it may appear slightly
different to each of them. Thus each may take a slightly different, demonstration
to have been performed. Insofar as the agent and audience of a given context can
differ in location, the location of a context is the location of the agent. Therefore
the demonstratum of a given demonstration set i n a given context wi l l be the
individual, i f any, thereby demonstrated from the speaker's point of view.
2. I t is not required that an occurrence of a demonstration have
a fixed content.
In vi ew of these features, we can associate wi t h each demonstra-
tion a character which represents t he ' meaning' or manner of presen-
tation of the demonstration. We have now brought t he semantics of
demonstrations and descriptions i nt o i somorphi sm.
49 T h u s , I r e g a r d
my ' dthat' operator as representing the general case of a demonstrative.
Demonstratives are incomplete expressions which must be completed by
a demonstration (type). A complete sentence (type) wi l l include an as-
sociated demonstration (type) for each of its demonstratives. Thus each
demonstrative, d, wi l l be accompanied by a demonstration, 8, thus:
d[6]
The character of a complete demonstrative is given by t he semantical
rule:
In any context c, d[6] is a directly referential term that desig-
nates the demonstratum, i f any, of 6 in c, and that otherwise
designates nothing.
Obvious adjustments are t o be made t o take into account any common
noun phrase which accompanies or is bui l t-i n to the demonstrative.
Since no immediately relevant structural differences have appeared
between demonstrations and descriptions, I regard the treatment of the
' dthat' operator i n t he formal logic LD as accounting f or t he general
case I t would be a simple matter t o add t o the syntax a category of
'nonlogical demonstration constants'. ( Not e t hat the indexicals of
are al l logical signs i n the sense t hat thei r meaning (character] i s not
given by the structure but by the evaluation rules.)
XVI . Al t er nat i ve Tr eat ment s of Demonst r at i ons
The foregoing development of the Fregean theory of demonstrations is
not inevitable. Michael Bennett has proposed that only places be demon-
strata and that we require an explicit or i mpl i ci t common noun phrase
to accompany the demonstrative, so that:
" We should not, of course, forget the many disanalogies noted earlier nor fail to note 1
that though a description is associated wi th a particular character by linguistic !
convention, a demonstration is associated with its character by nature.
5
528 Davi d Kaplan
Demonstratives 52D
that [pointing at a person]
becomes
dthat [the person who is there [pointing at a place].
My findings do not include the claim that theor better, aFregean
theory of demonstrations is correct. I can provide an alternative account
for those who regard demonstrations as nonrepeatable nonseparable fea-
tures of contexts. The conception now under consideration is that in cer-
tain contexts the agent is demonstrating something, or more than one
thing, and in others not. Thus just as we can speak of agent, time, place,
and possible world history as features of a context, we may also speak of
first demonstratum, second demonstratum, ( s o me of which may be
null) as features of a context. We then attach subscripts to our demon-
stratives and regard the n-th demonstrative, when set in a context, as
rigid designator of the n-th demonstratum of the context, Such a rule
associates a character with each demonstrative. I n providing no role
for demonstrations as separable 'manners of presentation' this theory
eliminates the interesting distinction between demonstratives and other
indexicals. We might call it the Indexical theory of demonstratives. (Of
course every reasonable theory of demonstratives treats them as indexi-
cals of some kind. I regard my own theory of indexicals in general, and
the nondemonstrative indexicals in particular, as essentially uncontro-
versial, Therefore I reserve Indexical theory of demonstratives for the
controversial alternative to the Fregean theory of demonstrationsthe
Fregean theory of demonstratives having been refuted.)
Let us call my theory as based on the Fregean theory of demon-
strations the Corrected Fregean theory of demonstratives. The Fregean
theory of demonstrations may be extravagant, but compared with its
riches, the indexical theory is a mean thing. From a logical point of
view, the riches of the Corrected Fregean theory of demonstratives are
already available in connection with the demonstrative 'dthat' and its
descriptive pseudodemonstrations, so a decision to enlarge the language
of LD with additional demonstratives whose semantics are in accord with
the Indexical theory need not be too greatly lamented.
If we consider Frege's problem, we have the two formulations:
that [Hes] = that [Phos]
and
thati = that2
Both provide their sentence wi th an informative character. B u t the
Pregean idea that that very demonstration might have picked out a dif-
ferent demonstratum seems to me to capture more of the epistemological
situation than the Indexicalist's idea that in some contexts the first and
second demonstrata differ.
The Corrected Fregean theory, by incorporating demonstration types
in its sentence types, accounts for more differences i n informativeness
as differences in meaning (character). I t thereby provides a nice Frege-
type solution to many Frege-type problems. But it can only forestall the
resort to directly epistemological issues, it cannot hold them in abeyance
indefinitely. Therefore I turn to epistemological remarks.
XVI I . Epi st emol ogi cal Remar ks
5
c!
How do content and character serve as objects of thought? Let us state,
once again, Frege's problem
(FP) How can (an occurrence of) r
a f l ( i n
a g i v e n
c o n t e x t ) ,
i f
true, differ i n cognitive significance from (an occurrence of)
= ce
7
( i
n
t
h
e
s
a
m
e
c
o
n
t
e
x
t
)
?
In (FP) a, a r e arbitrary singular terms. (In future formulations, I will
omit the parentheticals as understood.) When a and /3 are demonstra-
tive free, Frege explained the difference in terms of his notion of sense,
A notion which, his writings generally suggest, should be identified with
our content. But i t is clear that Frege's problem can be reinstituted in a
form in which resort to contents will not explain differences in 'cognitive
significance'. We need only ask,
(FPD) How can r
d t h a t [ a ]
=
d t h a t t
1 3 r
i f
t r u
e ,
d i f
f e r
i
n
c o g
n i t
i v e
significance from r -
d t h a t [ a ]
=
d t h a t [
a r ?
Since, as we shall show, for any term -y,
Cy= dt hat bf is analytic
the sentence pair in (FP) will differ in cognitive significance if and only if
the sentence pair in (FPD) differ similarly. [There are a few assumptions
built in here, but they are O.K.] Note, however, that the content of
'dthatrar and the content of ' dt hat [ g are the same whenever r
a =
" Thi s section has benefited from the opportunity to read, and discuss wi th him,
John Perry's paper "Frege on Demonstratives."
1.
530 Da v i d Kaplan
is true, Thus the difference in cognitive significance between the sentence
pair i n (FPD) cannot be accounted for i n terms of content,
I f Frege's solution t o (FP) was correct, t hen ce and i
3 h a v e d i f f e r - ent contents. Fr om thi s i t follows t hat ' dthat[cer and ' dt hat [ Or have
different characters, l i t doesn't really, because of the identification of
contents wi t h intensions, but l et i t pass.] I s character, then, the object
of thought?
I f you and I both say to ourselves,
(B) " I am getting bored"
have we thought the same thing? We could not have, because what you
thought was true while what I thought was false.
What we must do i s disentangle t wo epistemological notions: t he
objects of thought (what Frege called "Thoughts") and the cognitive sig-
nificance of an object of thought. As has been noted above, a character
may be likened to a manner of presentation of a content. Thi s suggests
that we identify objects of thought wi t h contents and the cognitive sig-
nificance of such objects wi t h characters.
E. Pr i nci pl e 1 Objects of thought (Thoughts) = Contents
E. Pr i nci pl e 2 Cognitive significance of a Thought = Character
According t o thi s vi ew, t he thoughts associated wi t h ' dt hat [ a] =
dt hat t 0)
1
a n d
r
d t h
a t [
a ]
=
d t
h a
t [
a ]
a
r
e
t
h
e
s
a
m
e
,
b
u
t
t
h
e
t
h
o
u
g
h
t
(
n
o
t
the denotation, mind you, but the thought) is presented differently.
I t i s i mportant t o see t hat we have not si mpl y generalized Frege's
theory, provi di ng a higher order Fregean sense for each name of a reg-
ular Fregean sense." I n Frege's theory, a given manner of presentation
presents the same object t o al l manki nd. " But for us, a given manner
of presentationa characterwhat we both said to ourselves when we
both said (B)wi l l , in general, present different objects (of thought) t o
different persons (and even different Thoughts t o the same person at
different times),
5 1
A
c c
o r
d i
n g
t
o
C
h
u
r
c
h
,
s
u
c
h
h
i
g
h
e
r
o
r
d
e
r
F
r
e
g
e
a
n
s
e
n
s
e
s
a
r
e
a
l
r
e
a
d
y
c
a
l
l
e
d
f
o
r
b
y
Frege's theory,
52 See his remarks in "On Sense and NominaturreI regarding the "common treasure of
thoughts which is transmitted from generation to generation" and remarks there
and i n T h e Thought" i n connection wi th tensed sentences, t hat "Onl y a sen-
tence supplemented by a time-indication and complete in every respect expresses
a thought."
How t hen can we cl ai m t hat we have captured t he i dea of cogni-
tive significance? To break the l i nk between cognitive significance and
universal Fregean senses and at t he same t i me forge the l i nk between
cognitive significance and character we must come t o see t he context-
sensitivity (dare I call i t ego-orientation?) of cognitive states.
Let us t r y a Putnam-like experiment. We raise two identical twins,
Castor and Pollux, under qualitatively identical conditions, qual i tati vel y
identical sti mul i , etc. I f necessary, we may moni tor thei r brai n states
and make small corrections i n thei r brain structures i f they begin dri ft-
ing apart. They respond t o al l cognitive stimuli i n identical f ashi on.
53
Have we not been successful i n achieving the same cognitive (i.e., psy-
chological) state? O f course we have, what more could one ask! B u t
wait, they believe different things. Each sincerely says,
My brother was born before I was
and the beliefs they thereby express conflict. I n this, Castor speaks the
truth, while Pollux speaks falsely. Thi s does not reflect on the i denti ty
of their cognitive states, for, as Putnam has emphasized, circumstances
alone do not determine extension (here, the truth-value) f rom cognitive
state, I nsof ar as di sti nct persons can be i n the same cognitive state,
Castor and Pol l ux are.
E. Cor ol l ar y 1 I t i s an al most inevitable consequence of the fact that
two persons are i n the same cognitive state, that they wi l l disagree
in t hei r attitudes toward some object of thought.
The corollary applies equally well to the same person at different times,
and to the same person at the same time in different circumstances." I n
general, the corollary applies to any individuals x , y in different contexts.
My ai m was t o argue t hat t he cognitive significance of a word or
phrase was t o be identified wi t h i t s character, t he way the content i s
presented t o us. I n discussing t he twins, I tri ed t o show t hat persons
53Perhaps i t should be mentioned here, to forestall an objection, that neither uses
a proper name for the other or for himselfonly 'my brother' and Tand that
raising them required a lot of environmental work to maintain the necessary sym-
metries, or, alternatively, a l ot of work wi th the brain state machine. I f proper
names are present, and each uses a different name for himself (or, for the other),
they wi l l never achieve the same total cognitive state since one will sincerely say,
"I am Castor" and the other will not. They may still achieve the same cognitive
state in its relevant part.
54The corollary would also apply to the same person at the same time in the same
circumstances but in different, places, i f such could be.
532 Da v i d Kaplan
could be i n t he same t ot al cognitive state and sti l l , as we woul d say,
believe different things. Thi s doesn't prove t hat the cognitive content
of, say, a single sentence or even a word i s t o be identified wi t h i t s
character, but i t strongly suggests i t.
Let me t r y a different l i ne of argument. We agree that a given con-
tent may be presented under various characters and that consequently
we may hold a propositional atti tude toward a given content under one
character but not under another. ( For example, on March 27 of this
year, having lost track of the date, I may continue to hope to be finished
by t hi s March 26, wi t hout hoping t o be finished by yesterday.) No w
instead of arguing that character is what we would ordinarily call cog-
nitive significance, l et me j ust ask why we should be interested i n the
character under which we hold our various attitudes. Why should we be
interested i n that special ki nd of significance that is sensitive to the use
of indexicals; ' I ' , 'here', ' now' , ' t hat ' , and the like? John Perry, i n his
stimulating and i nsi ghtful paper "Frege on Demonstratives" asks and
answers thi s question. [ Perry uses ' thought' where I would use ' obj ect
of thought' or 'content', he uses 'apprehend' for 'believe' but note that
other psychological verbs would yield analogous cases. I have taken a
few liberties i n substituting my own terminology for Perry's and have
added the emphasis.]
Why should we care under what character someone appre-
hends a thought, so long as he does? I can only sketch t he
barest suggestion of an answer here. We use the manner
of presentation, t he character, t o individuate psychological
states, i n explaining and predicting action. I t is the manner
of presentation, t he character and not t he thought appre-
hended, t hat is tied to human action. When you and I have
beliefs under t he common character of ' A bear is about t o
attack me' , we behave similarly. We both rol l up i n a bal l
and t r y to be as sti l l as possible. Di fferent thoughts appre-
hended, same character, same behavior. When you and I
both apprehend t hat I am about t o be attacked by a bear,
we behave differently. I rol l up i n a bal l , you run t o get
help, Same thought apprehended, different characters, di f -
ferent behavi ors.
55
Perry's examples can be easily mul ti pl i ed. My hope t o be finished
by a certain t i me is sensitive t o how the content corresponding t o the
5 5
, T
o h
n
P
e
r
r
y
,
"
F
r
e
g
e
o
n
D
e
m
o
n
s
t
r
a
t
i
v
e
s
,
"
p
.
4
9
4
.
time is presented, as 'yesterday' or as ' this March 26'. I f I see, reflected
in a window, the image of a man whose pants appear t o be on fire, my
behavior i s sensitive t o whether I t hi nk, ' Hi s pants are on fire' or ' My
pants are on fire', though the object of thought may be the same.
So long as Frege confined his attention to indexical free expressions,
and given his theory of proper names, i t i s not surprising t hat he di d
not distinguish objects of thought (content) f rom cognitive significance
(character), for that is the realm of fixed character and thus, as already
remarked, there i s a natural identification of character wi t h content.
Frege does, however, discuss indexicals in two places. The first passage,
in whi ch he discusses 'yesterday' and ' today' I have already discussed.
Everything he says there i s essentially correct, ( H e does not go f ar
enough.) The second passage has provoked few endorsements and much
skepticism. I t too, I believe, i s susceptible of an interpretation whi ch
makes i t essentially correct. I quote i t i n full,
Now everyone i s presented t o hi msel f i n a parti cul ar and
primitive way, i n which he i s presented t o no one else. So,
when Dr. Lauben thinks that he has been wounded, he wi l l
probably take as a basis thi s pri mi ti ve way i n whi ch he i s
presented t o himself. A n d onl y Dr. Lauben hi msel f can
grasp thoughts determined i n t hi s way. B u t now he may
want to communicate wi t h others. I l e cannot communicate
a thought which he alone can grasp. Therefore, i f he now
says ' I have been wounded', he must use t he ' I ' i n a sense
that can be grasped by others, perhaps i n the sense of 'he
who is speaking to you at thi s moment', by doing which he
makes the associated conditions of his utterance serve for the
expression of his t hought . '
What i s t he particular and pri mi t i ve way i n whi ch Dr. Lauben i s
presented t o himself? What cognitive content presents Dr. Lauben t o
himself, but presents hi m t o nobody else? Thought s determined t hi s
way can be grasped by Dr. Lauben, but no one else can grasp t hat
thought determined i n that way. The answer, I believe, is, simply, that
Dr. Lauben is presented t o himself under the character of
A sl oppy thi nker mi ght succumb t o t he temptati on t o slide f r om
an acknowledgement of the privileged perspective we each have on our-
selvesonly I can refer t o me as ' I ' t o t he conclusions: f i r st , t hat
56Got tlob Frage, "The Thought: A Logical Inquiry," p. 298,
this perspective necessarily yields a privileged picture of what i s seen
(referred to), and second, t hat this picture is what is intended when one
makes use of the privileged perspective (by saying ' I' ). These conclusions,
even i f correct, are not forced upon us. The character of ' I' provides the
acknowledged privileged perspective, whereas the analysis of the content
of particular occurrences of T provides f or (and needs) no privileged
pictures. There may be metaphysical, epistemological, or ethical reasons
why I (so conceived) am especially i mportant t o myself. (Compare:
why now i s an especially i mportant ti me to me. I t too is presented i n
a parti cul ar and pri mi t i ve way, and thi s moment cannot be presented
at any other t i me i n t he same way. )
57 B u t t h e
p h e n o m e n o n
n o t e d
b y
Fregethat everyone is presented to himself in a particular and primitive
waycan be ful l y accounted for using onl y our semantical theory.
Furthermore, regarding the fi rst conclusion, I sincerely doubt t hat
there is, f or each of us on each occasion of the use of ' I' , a particular,
primitive, and incommunicable Fregean self-concept whi ch we t aci t l y
express to ourselves. And regarding the second conclusion: even i f Cas-
tor were sufficiently narcissistic t o associate such self-concepts wi t h his
every use of ' I' , his twi n, Pollux, whose mental life is qualitatively iden-
tical wi th Castor's, would associate the same self-concept with his every
(matching) use of T.
5
* T h e
s e c o n d
c o n c l u
s i o n
w o u
l d
l e
a d
t
o
t
h
e
a b
s u
r d
result that when Castor and Pollux each say ' I' , they do not thereby dis-
tinguish themselves from one another. ( An even more astonishing result
is possible. Suppose t hat due t o a bi t of self-deception the self-concept
held i n common by Castor and Pollux fits neither of them. The second
conclusion then leads irresistibly to the possibility that when Castor and
Pollux each say ' I ' they each refer t o a thi rd party!)
T h e perceptive reader wi l l have noticed t hat the conclusions of the
sloppy thinker regarding the pure indexical ' I ' are not unlike those of the
Fregean regarding true demonstratives. The sloppy thinker has adopted
a demonstrative theory of indexicals: T is synonymous with 'this person'
[along wi t h an appropriate subjective demonstration], ' now' wi t h ' t hi s
time' , 'here' wi th ' this place' [each associated wi t h some demonstration],
etc. L i k e t he Fregean, t he sloppy thi nker errs i n believing t hat t he
51
. A
. t
o
t
h
e
r
t
i
m
e
s
,
e
a
r
l
i
e
r
a
n
d
l
a
t
e
r
,
w
e
c
a
n
k
n
o
w
i
t
o
n
l
y
e
x
t
e
r
n
a
l
l
y
,
b
y
d
e
s
c
r
i
p
t
i
o
n
a
s
i t were. But now we are directly acquainted wi th it. ( I believe I owe this point to
John Perry.)
"
Unless, of course, the self-concept involved a bit of direct reference. I n which case
(when direct reference is admitted) there seems no need for the whole theory of
Fregean self-concepts. Unless, of course, direct reference is l i mi ted t o items of
direct acquaintance, of which more below.
sense of the demonstration is the sense of the indexical, but the sloppy
thinker commits an additional error i n believing that such senses are i n
any way necessarily associated wi t h uses of pure indexicals. The slide
from privileged perspective t o privileged picture is the sloppy thinker' s
original sin. Onl y one who is located i n the exact center of the Sahara
Desert i s entitled t o refer t o t hat place as ' here' , but aside f rom t hat ,
the place may present no distinguishing features.
59 The sloppy thinker' s conclusions may have another source. Fai l ure
to distinguish between t he cognitive significance of a thought and t he
thought itself seems to have led some to believe that the elements of an
object of thought must each be directly accessible t o the mi nd. Fr om
this i t follows t hat i f a singular proposition i s an obj ect of thought,
the thinker must somehow be immediately acquainted wi t h each of the
individuals involved. But , as we have seen, t he situation is rather di f-
ferent f rom this. Si ngul ar propositions may be presented t o us under
characters whi ch neither i mpl y nor presuppose any special f orm of:ac-
quaintance wi t h the individuals of the singular propositions. The psy-
chological states, perhaps even the epistemological situations, of Castor
and Pollux are alike, yet they assert distinct singular propositions when
they each say ' My brother was born before me', Had they lived at di f-
ferent times they mi ght sti l l have been situated alike epistemologically
5 9
S
o
f
a
r
,
w
e
h
a
v
e
l
i
m
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o
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a
t
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t
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f
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s
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o
f
t
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q
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o
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a
t
i
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from Mrege. How are we to account for the second part of Frege's remarks?
Suppose Dr. Lauben wants to communicate his thought without disturbing its
cognitive content. ( Thi nk of tryi ng to t el l a color-blind person t hat the green
light should be replaced. You would have to find another way of communicating
what you wanted to get across.) He can't communicate that thought wi th that
significance, so, he himself would have to attach a nonstandard significance to ' P.
Here is a suggestion, He points at his auditor and uses the demonstrative 'you'.
If we neglect fine differences in perspective, the demonstration will have the same
character for all present and i t certainly will have the same demonstratum for all
present, therefore the demonstrative will have the same character and content for
all present. The indexical 'now' will certainly have the same character and content.
for all present. Thus ' the person who is speaking to you [points) now' wi l l have
a common character and content for all those present, Unfortunately the content
is not that of T as Dr. Lauben standardly uses i t, He needs a demonstrative like
'dthat' Co convert the description to a term with a fixed content. He chooses the
demonstrative 'he', with a relative clause construction to make clear his intention.
Now, i f Dr. Lauben uses ' I' with the nonstandard meaning usually attached to 'he
who is speaking to you [points] now' he wi l l have found a way t o communicate
his original thought in a form whose cognitive significance is common to all. Very
clever, Dr. Lauben.
[Perhaps i t is poor pedagogy to join this fanciful interpretation of the second
part of the passage with the serious interpretation of the first part.]
536 Da v i d Kaplan
while asserting distinct singular propositions i n saying ' I t is quiet here
now'. A kidnapped heiress, locked i n the t runk of a car, knowi ng nei-
ther the time nor where she is, may thi nk ' I t is quiet here now' and the
indexicals wi l l remain directly referenti al .
61)
E. Cor ol l ar y 2 Ignorance of the referent does not defeat the directly
referential character of indesicals.
From thi s i t follows t hat a special f or m of knowledge of an obj ect i s
neither required nor presupposed i n order t hat a person may entertain
as object of thought a singular proposition involving that object.
There is nothing inaccessible to the mi nd about the semantics of di-
rect reference, even when the reference is to that which we know only by
description. What allows us to take various propositional attitudes to-
wards singular propositions is not the form of our acquaintance wi th the
objects but is rather our ability to manipulate the conceptual apparatus
of direct reference,e
1
The foregoing remarks are ai med at refuti ng Di rect Acquaintance
Theories of direct reference. Accor di ng t o such theories, t he question
whether an utterance expresses a singular proposition turns, i n the first
instance, on the speaker's knowledge of the referent rather than on the
f orm of the reference. I f the speaker lacks the appropriate form of ac-
quaintance wi t h t he referent, t he utterance cannot express a singular
proposition, and any apparently directly referring expressions used must
be abbreviations or disguises f or something like Fregean descriptions.
Perhaps t he Di rect Acquaintance theori st thought t hat onl y a theory
like his could permi t singular propositions while sti l l providing a solu-
tion for Frege's problem. I f we could directly refer t o a given object i n
nonequivalent ways (e.g., as ' dthat[Hes]' and ' cithat[Phosr), we could
notso he thoughtexplain the difference i n cognitive significance be-
tween t he appropriate instances of ' a = a' and r
c e = 1 3
1
. H e n c e , t h e
objects susceptible t o direct reference must not permit such reference i n
inequivalent ways, These objects must, i n a certain sense, be wholly lo-
cal and completely given so that for any two directly coreferential terms
' Ca n the heiress plead t hat she could not have believed a singular proposition
involving the place p since when thinking 'here' the didn't know she was at p, that
she was, i n fact, unacquainted with the place p? No Ignorance of the referent is
no excuse.
6 5
T
h i
5
s
n
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k
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p
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q
-
uisite to having a singular proposition as object of thought. I Avill t ry to find a
better way to express the point in a succeeding draft.
a and = w i l l be uni formati ve t o anyone appropriately si tu-
ated, epistemologically, t o be able t o use these t er ms.
62 I h o p e t h a t my discussion of the two kinds of meaningcontent and characterwill
have shown t he Di rect Acquaintance Theori st t hat hi s views are not
the inevitable consequence of the admission of directly referential terms.
From the poi nt of view of a lover of direct reference thi s is good, since
the Direct Acquaintance theorist admits direct reference i n a portion of
language so narrow that i t is used onl y by phi l osophers,
63 I have said nothi ng t o dispute t he epistemology of the Di rect Ac-
quaintance theorist, nothing to deny that there exists his special ki nd of
object wi t h which one can have his special ki nd of acquaintance. I have
only denied the relevance of these epistemological claims to the semantics
of direct reference. I f we sweep aside metaphysical and epistemological
pseudo-explanations of what are essentially semantical phenomena, the
result can only be healthy for all three disciplines.
Before going on to further examples of the tendency to confuse meta-
physical and epistemological matters wi t h phenomena of the semantics
of direct reference, I want t o briefly raise the problem of cognitive dy-
namics. Suppose t hat yesterday you said, and believed i t , " I t is a nice
day today." What does i t mean t o say, today, t hat you have retained
that bel i ef? I t seems unsatisfactory t o j ust believe t he same content
under any ol d characterwhere i s the ret ent i on?" Yo u can' t believe
6 2
F
o r
s
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m
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c
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s
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.
stratives see "Bob and Carol and Ted and Mice," appendix VII.
6 3
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Theorist finds himself, and A'ripke's problem: how can ' a =/3' be informative i f a
n
a
n
d
0
d
i
f
f
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i
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tcroper names, character)?
,
6
4
h
e
s
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a
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I
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,
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H
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f
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.
"
I
later realize, " I am he" and thus come to think "My pants are on fire." Sti l l later,
I decide that I was wrong in thinking " I am he" and conclude "His pants were
on fire." If, i n fact, I own he, have I retained my belief that my pants are on fire
simply because I believe the same content, though under a different character?
(I also deny that content under the former, but for change of tense, character.)
When I first thought ' My pants are on fire," a certain singular proposition, call i t
was the object of thought. At the later stage, both Eek and its negation are
believed by me. I n this sense, I still believe what I believed before, namely Eek.
But this does not capture my sense of retaining a belief: a sense that I associate
with saying that some people have a very rigid cognitive structure whereas others
are very flexible. I t is tempting to say that cognitive dynamics is concerned not
with retention and change in what is believed, but with retention and change in the
characters under which our beliefs are held. I thi nk that this is basically correct.
But i t is not obvious to me what relation between a character under which a belief
is held at one time and the set of characters under which beliefs are held at a later
538 Da v i d Kaplan
t hat content under the same character. I s there some obvious standard
adjustment to make to the character, for example, replacing today wi t h
yesterday? I f so, then a person like Ri p van Winkle, who loses track of
time, can' t retain any such beliefs. Th i s seems strange. Can we onl y
retain beliefs presented under a fixed character? Thi s issue has obvious
and i mport ant connections wi t h Lauben' s problem i n t ryi ng t o com-
municate the thought he expresses wi t h ' I have been wounded'. Under
what character must his audi tor believe Lauben's thought i n order for
Lauben's communication t o have been successful? I t i s i mport ant t o
note t hat i f Lauben said ' I am wounded' i n t he usual meaning of ' I' ,
there i s no one else who can report what he said, using indirect di s-
course, and convey t he cognitive significance ( t o Lauben) of what he
said. Thi s is connected wi t h points made i n section VI I I , and has inter-
esting consequences for the i nevi tabi l i ty of so-called de re constructions
i n indirect discourse languages which contain indexical& ( I use ' indirect
discourse' as a general term for the analogous form of all psychological
verbs.)
A prime example of the confusion of direct reference phenomena with
metaphysical and epistemological ideas was first vigorously called to our
attention by Saul Kri pke i n Naming and Necessity, I wish t o parallel
his remarks disconnecting the a pri ori and the necessary.
The form of a pri ori ci ty that I wi l l discuss is that of logical truth (i n
the logic of demonstratives). We saw very early that a truth of the logic
of demonstratives, l i ke " I am here now" need not be necessary. Ther e
are many such cases of logical truths whi ch are not necessary. I f a i s
any singular term, then
a = dthatiod
is a logical truth. But
p( a d t h a t [ a ] )
is generally false. We can, of course, also easily produce the opposite
effect,
time would constitute retaining the original belief. Where indexicals are involved,
for the reasons given below, we cannot simply require that the very same character
still appear at the later time. Thus the problem of cognitive dynamics can be put
like thi s what does i t mean t o say of an individual who at one time sincerely
asserted a sentence containing indexicals that at some later time he has (or has
not) changed his mind wi t h respect to his assertion? What sentence or sentences
must he be willing to assert at the later time?
0
,
(
d
t
h
a
t
[
a
]
=
d
t
h
a
t
f
1
3
)
)
may be true, although
dthat[a] = dthat[M
is not logically true, and is even logically equivalent to the contingency,
a =
(I cal l 0 and V) logically equivalent when r
0 ? / , ' i s
l o g i c a l l y
t r u e . )
These cases are reminiscent of Kripke's case of the terms, ' one meter'
and 'the length of bar s' . But where Kripke focuses on the special episte-
mological situation of one who is present at the dubbing, the descriptive
meaning associated wi t h our directly referential term dthat[al is carried
in the semantics of the l anguage.
65
How can something be bot h logically true, and thus certai n, and
contingent at the same time? I n t he case of indexicals t he answer i s
easy t o see.
E. Cor ol l ar y 3 The bearers of logical truth and of contingency are dif-
ferent entities. I t is the character (or, the sentence, i f you prefer)
that is logically true, producing a true content in every context. But
it is The content (the proposition, i f you wi l l ) that is contingent or
necessary.
As can readily be seen, the modal logic of demonstratives i s a rich
and interesting thing.
' A case of a seemingly different kind is that of the logical equivalence between an
arbitrary sentence ch and the result of prefixing either or both of the indexical
operators, ' i t is actually the case that' (symbolized ' A' ) and ' i t is now the case
that' (symbolized ' N' ). T h e biconditional '
-
( t h 4 - 0 A N - d )
i s l o g i c a l l y
t r u e ,
b u t
prefixing either ' 0' or its temporal counterpart can lead to falsehood. (Thi s case
was adverted to in footnote 28.) I t is interesting to note, i n this case, that the
parallel between modal and temporal modifications of sentences carries over to
indexicals. The foregoing claims are verified by the formal system (sections )(AIM
and XIX, see especially Remark 3). Not e that the formal system is constructed
in accordance with Carnap's proposal that the intension of an expression be that
function which assigns to each circumstance, the extension of the expression with
respect t o t hat circumstance, Thi s has commonly been thought t o insure t hat
logically equivalent expressions have the same intension (Church's Alternative 2
among principles of individuation for the notion of sense) and that logically true
sentences express the (unique) necessary proposition. Homework Problem; What
went wrong here?
1
540 Da v i d Kaplan
I t is easy t o be taken i n by the effortless (but fallacious) move from
certainty (logical t r ut h) t o necessity. I n hi s i mportant arti cl e "Three
Grades of Modal I nvol vement , "" Quine expresses his scepticism of the
first grade of modal involvement: the sentence predicate and al l it stands
for, and his distaste for the second grade of modal involvement: disguis-
ing the predicate as an operator ' I t is necessary that' . But he suggests
that no new metaphysical undesirables are admitted until the third grade
of modal involvement: quantification across the necessity operator i nto
an open sentence.
I must protest. That first step let in some metaphysical undesirables,
falsehoods. A l l logical truths are analytic, but they can go false when
you back them up to ' 0' .
One other notorious example of a logical truth which is not necessary,
I exist.
One can quickly verify that in every context, this character yields a true
propositionbut rarely a necessary one. I t seems likely to me that i t was
a conflict between the feelings of contingency and of certainty associated
wi t h t hi s sentence t hat has led t o such painstaking examination of its
'proofs'. I t is just a t rut h of logic!
Dana Scott has remedied one lacuna i n thi s analysis. Wh a t of the
premise
I t hi nk
and the connective
Therefore
His discovery was t hat the premise is incomplete, and that the last five
words
up the logic of demonstratives
had been lost i n an early manuscript ver si on.
67
"Proceedings of lhe XI International Congress of Philosophy 14, 65-81; reprinted
i n W. V. Qui ne, The Ways of Paradox ( New Yor k: Random House, 1966).
6 Agai n, i t is probabl y a pedagogi cal mistake t o mi x t hi s pl ayf ul paragraph wi t h the
precedi ng serious one.
XVI I I . The For mal Syst em
Just t o be sure we have not overlooked anythi ng, here i s a machine
against whi ch we can test our intuitions.
The Language LD
The Language LE) is based on first-order predicate logic with identity and
descriptions. We deviate sl i ghtl y from standard formulations i n using
two sorts of variables, one sort for positions and a second for individuals
other than positions (hereafter called simply ' individuals' ).
Pri mi t i ve Symbols
Primitive Symbols for Two Sorted Predicate Logic
O. Pu n c t u a t i o n : ( , ), [, I
I. Va r i a b l e s :
(i) A n infinite set of individual variables: V,:
(ii) A n infinite set of position variables: Vp
2. Pr edi c at es :
(i)
An i nfi ni te number of m-n-place predicates, f or al l natural
numbers m, n.
(ii) T h e 1-0-place predicate: Exi st
(iii) The 1-1-place predicate: Located
3. F u n c t o r s :
(i)
An i nfi ni te number of m-n-place i-functors (functors whi ch
form terms denoting individuals)
(ii) A n i nfi ni te number of m-n-place p-functors (functors which
form terms denoting positions)
4. Se n t e n t i a l Connectives: A, V,
0, - - t ,
5. Quant i f i er s : V, 3
6. D e f i n i t e Description Operator: t he
7. I d e n t i t y : =
542 Da v i d Kaplan
Pri mi ti ve Symbols for the Logic of Demonstratives
10. T h r e e 1-place sentential operators:
N ( i t is now the case that)
A ( i t is actually the case that)
Y (yesterday, i t was the case that)
11. A 1-place functor: dt hat
12. A n individual constant (0-0-place i-functor): I
13. A position constant (0-0-place p-functor); Here
Wel l - f or med Expressi ons
The well-formed erpressions are of three kinds: formulas, position terms
(p-terms), and individual terms (i-terms).
1. ( i ) I f a E Vi, then a is an i -term
(ii) I f a E V
p
, t h e n
a
i s
a
p -
t e r
m
2. I f 7r is an m-n-place predicate, a
l
, a
m a r e i -
t e r m s ,
a n d
are p-terms, then 7ra1 ( 1 , 0 1 . . . A, i s a formula
3. ( i ) I f 7/ is an m-n-place i -functor, a
l
, . . . , a , . . . ,
1 3 a r e
a s
in 2., then
n a l a
m
/
3 1 .
. . I 3

i
s
a
n
i -
t e
r m
(ii) I f I? is an m-n-place p-functor, al , / 3 , , are as
in 2., then
is a p-term
Pri mi t i ve Symbols for Modal and Tense Logic
8. M o d a l Operators: 0 , 0
9. T e n s e Operators:
F ( i t wi l l be the case that)
P ( i t has been the case that)
G (one day ago, i t was the case t hat )
4. I f 0, 7/) are formulas, then (0 A 0), ( 0 V ?,b), ( 0 W ) , (0 4
,
)
are formulas
5. I f 0 is a formula and a E V, UV
p
, t h e n V a 0
a n d
3 a 0
a r e
f o r m u l a
s
6. I f 0 is a formula, then
(i) i f a EV1 t hen t h e a 0 i s an i -term
(ii) i f a E V
p
, t h e n
t h e
a
0
i
s
a
p -
t e
r m
7. I f a, /5' are either bot h i-terms or both p-terms, then a = i3 is a
formula
8. I f 0 is a formula, then 00 and 0 0 are formulas
9. I f 0 i s a formula, then F0, PO, and GO are formulas
10. I f 0 is a formula, then NO, .40, and Y0 are formulas
I I . ( i ) I f a is an i-term, then dt hat i od i s an i -term
(ii) I f a is a p-term, then dt hat [ a] i s a p-term
Semant i cs f or L D
LID St r uct ur es
Def i ni t i on; 2 1 is an LD structure i f there are C, W, U
, P , T , a n d , T
such that:
1. =
2. C is a nonempty set (the set of contexts, see 10 below)
3. I f c E C, then
(i) C A EU (the agent of c)
(ii) CT E T (the time of a)
cp E P (the position of a)
(iv) ow E W (the worl d of o)
4. W is a nonempty set (the set of worlds)
5. i t is a nonempty set (the set of all individuals, see 9 below)
6. P is a nonempty set (the set of positions, common to all worlds)
7. ' T is the set of integers (thought of as the times, common t o al l
worlds)
544 Da v i d Kaplan
Def i ni t i on: F o r the following recursive definition, assume that c E C, f
is an assignment, t E T, and w E W:
1. I f a is a variable, I aLj = .f(oe)
2. k
n i t
, , ,
, r
a t

a
'
r
r
o
3
1

/
3
,
1
i
f
(
l
a
:
I
o
f
t
i
i
,

1
/
3
1
1
1
c
f
t
w
)
E
W
)
3. I f 71is neither ' I ' nor 'Here' (see 12, 13 below), then
Inett am/31 fin =
Zi (t , to)((1 at kitty Ifin 1of tw )),
i f none of l ai l ,ft, 4 3
1
, 1 ,
f l w
are t ;
f, otherwise
4
k, f l u, ( 0 A 0) i f f
i f
etc.
5,
(i) I f a E Vi, thenc
f n
o
' U ' i f
(ii) I f a E V
p
, t h e n
k V
a 0
i
f
\ I
p E
P ,
(iii) Si mi l arl y for 3 4
6.
(i) I f a E Vi, then:
(the unique i E Z1 such t hat k
n f
. , , , , c t . , i f
'the a cblqt,0 t h e r e is such;
(ii)
t, otherwise
Similarly for a E Vp
7
.
H , f
t
, c
c
=
g
i
f
f
l
a
i
c
t
w
.
,
=
!
g
l
o
w
8.
Kf t t nE
3
i f
V
w
'
w
,
i f 3w' EW: KcjtvP0
9.
i f 3 t ' T
.
s u c
h
t h
a t
t
l
>
t
a
n
d
K f
i r
l ,
, 0
P i l l ' 3 t ' E T such t hat t ' < t and , f t
,
, , , c 6
i f 1 ) w c
6
1
0
.
(ii)
(iii)
k c
1
i t
o
N
0
i
f
,
c
.
f
e
'
r
t
U
i f f t c w
i f H
c f
( c r
- 1
) z
u 0
8. I i s a functi on whi ch assigns t o each predicate and functor an
appropriate intension as follows:
(i) I f Ir is an m-n-predicate, I i s a function such t hat for each
t E T and w / ( t , w) C ( t i " X P
n
)
(ii) I f ??is an m-n-place i-functor, I , i s a function such t hat for
each t E T and w E W
, /
n
( t , w )
E (
U
U f i l )
( u m
x
7
" )
( N o
t e :
t is a completely alien entity, i n neither Li nor 2, which rep-
resents an 'undefined' value of the function. I n a normal set
theory we can take t t o be { l i , /
,
} . )
(iii) I f ??is an ?n-n-place p-functor, ; i s a function such t hat for
each t T and w E 1
, 7 ( t , w )
E
I t 1 )
( w h
9. i EU i f (3t E T)(3w E W)((i ) E TExist(t, w))
10. I f c E C, then (CA, OP) E
1
1 , o c a t e d ( e T ) C W )
11. I f (1,p) E /Loca.ted(t, w), then (i ) E 2
.
E x i t ( t , w ) Tr ut h and Denotati on in a Context
We write:
k
2
t
ef t w f o r
We write: Icel Qt
eitto f o r
0, when taken i n the context c (under the
assignment f and i n the structure V), i s
true wi t h respect t o t he t i me t and t he
world w
The denotation of a, when taken i n the
context c (under the assignment f and i n
the structure 91), wi th respect to the ti me
t and the world W
In general we wi l l omi t the superscript '91', and we wi l l assume that the
structure a is (C, W, /1, P, T, 1) .
Def i ni t i on: f is an assignment (wi th respect to (C, T , i f :
2
f
1
.
6
(
f
i
l
2
E
P
V
P
S
Z
f
=
U
f
2
)
Def i ni t i on: f : ( f i ( a , f ( a) ) } ) U { ( cx, x1
(i.e., the assignment which is just like f except t hat i t assigns x t o a)
546 Da v i d Kaplan
Def i ni t i on:
(i)
I d
t h
a
t [
a l
l c
p
w
l
a
l
. c
. t
c
,
r
c
w
11.
12.
13. I l l e r e l , f
t
=
c p
I l opt u = CA
X I X . Remar ks on t he For mal Syst em
Remar k E x p r e s s i o n s containing demonstratives wi l l , i n general,
express different concepts i n different contexts. We call the concept ex-
pressed i n a given context the Content of the expression in that context.
The Content of a sentence i n a context is, roughly, the proposition the
sentence would express i f uttered in that context. Thi s description is not
quite accurate on t wo counts. Fi r st , i t is i mportant t o distinguish an
utterance f rom a sentence-in-a-context. The former notion is from the
theory of speech acts, the l atter from semantics. Utterances take time,
and utterances of distinct sentences cannot be simultaneous (i.e., in the
same context). But t o develop a logic of demonstratives i t seems most
natural t o be able t o evaluate several premises and a conclusion al l i n
the same context. Thus the notion of cbbeing true i n c and 21 does not
require an utterance of O. I n parti cul ar, CA need not be utteri ng O i n
cw at c
,
r.
S e c
o n d
,
t
h
e
t r
u
t
h
o
f
a
p r
o
p
o
s i
t i
o
n
i
s
n
o
t
u
s
u
a
l
l
y
t
h
o
u
g
h
t
o
f
as dependent on a time as well as a possible world. The time is thought
of as fixed by the context. I f O is a sentence, the more usual notion of
the proposition expressed by O-in-c is what is here called the Content of
NO i n c.
Where r is either a term or formula,
we write: f r r
f f o r
T h e
C o n
t e n
t
o
f
I
'
i
n
t
h
e
c o
n t
e x
t
c
(under the assignment f and i n the
structure 2) .
I f O is a formula, fO)F
l
f = t h a t
f u n c t i o
n
w h i c
h
a s s i
g n s
t
o
e a
c h
t
e
T
and wE14), Trut h, i f O
l
o f t
, , , O, a n d
F a l s e h o
o d
o t h e r w
i s e .
(ii) I f a is a term, {a}Q
c
l
f = t h a t
f u n c t i o n
w h i c
h
a s s i g
n s
t o
e a
c h
t
E
T
and wEFV, l al ej
Remar k 2: i f -10)
2
t
v
, ( 2 , w ) =
T r u t h .
R o u g h l
y
s p e a k i
n g ,
t h
e
sentence t a k e n i n context c is i r ac wi t h respect t o t and w i f the
proposition expressed by O-in-the-context-c would be true at the ti me t
i f w were the actual world. I n the formal development of pages 544, 545,
and 546, i t was smoother to ignore the conceptual break marked by the
notion of Content i n a context and to directly define truth i n a context
with respect t o a possible t i me and world. T h e i mport ant conceptual
role of the notion of Content is parti al l y indicated by the following two definitions.
Def i ni t i on: 0 is true i n the context c (in the structure 2) i f for every
assignment f , 0 1 ,
2
1 ( c T, c
w
) =
T r u t h
.
Def i ni t i on: 0 i s valid i n LD ( 0 ) i f for every LD structure a, and
every context c of 91, 0 is t rue i n c (i n 2).
Remar k 3: k ( a d t h a t i a n ; A N ) ; kN( Locat ed I , Here);
Exist I. But , 0 ( a d t h a t [ a ] ) ; 0 ( 0 A N ) ; O N ( L o -
cated I , Here); 0 ( E x i s t 1). Also, F ( O 4-4 A N ) .
In t he converse direction (where t he original val i di ty has t he f orm
DO) we have the usual results i n view of the fact t hat k ( 0 0
Def i ni t i on: I f al , , a are all the free variables of O in alphabetical
order then the closure of O A N V a
l
to i ts closure. Def i ni t i on: O i s closed i f 0 is equivalent (in the sense of Remark 12)
Remar k 4: I f 0 i s closed, t hen 0 i s true i n c (and 2.) i f for every
assignment f , ti me t, and world w,
Definition: Where T is either a term or a formula, the Content of
in the context c (i n the structure21) is Stable i f for every assignment f ,
{ 115 i s a constant function (i.e., f r 1 F
.
, ( t . , w ) = i r e t
f
( t
,
, w
,
) , f o r
a l l
t ,
t' , w, and w' i n 20.
548 Da v i d Kaplan
Remar k 5: Wh e r e 0 i s a formula, a i s a term, and f i i s a variable,
each of the fol l owi ng has a Stable Content i n every context ( i n every
structure): A N , dthat[al , 13, I , Here.
I f we were t o extend t he notion of Content t o appl y t o operators,
we would see t hat al l indexicals (including N, A, Y, and dt hat ) have a
Stable Content in every context. The same is true of the fami l i ar logical
constants although i t does not hold for the modal and tense operators
(not, at least, according to the foregoing development).
Remar k 6: T h a t aspect of the meaning of an expression which deter-
mines what i t s Content wi l l be i n each context, we cal l the Character
of the expression, Al t hough a lack of knowledge about the context (or
perhaps about the structure) may cause one to mistake the Content of a
given utterance, the Character of each well-formed expression i s deter-
mined by rules of the language (such as rules 1-13 on pages 545 and 546,
which are presumably known t o al l competent speakers. Our notation
'
-
(
0
)
!
I
i
'
f
o
r
t
h
e
C
o
n
t
e
n
t
o
f
a
n
e
x
p
r
e
s
s
i
o
n
g
i
v
e
s
a
n
a
t
u
r
a
l
n
o
t
a
t
i
o
n
f
o
r
t
h
e
Character of an expression, namely ' { 0) ' .
Def i ni t i on: Wher e r is either a term or a formula,
is t hat functi on which assigns t o each structure 21,
context c of a, { r ) F.
Def i ni t i on: Wh e r e F is either a term or a formula,
is Sta6le i f for every structure 21, and assignment f ,
(under f i n 21) is a constant function (i.e., { r } ?
.
t
t
in 21),
the Character of r
assignment f , and
he Character of
the Character of
t r l ! f o r all c, c'
f
Remar k 7: A f ormul a or t erm has a Stable Character i f i t has t he
same Content i n every context (for each 91, f ) .
Remar k 8: A formul a or term has a Stable Character i f i t contains
no essential occurrence of a demonstrative.
Remar k 9: T h e logic of demonstratives determines a sublogic of those
formulas of LD which contain no demonstratives. These formulas (and
their equivalents whi ch contai n inessential occurrences o f demonstra-
tives) are exactly the formulas wi t h a Stable Character. T h e logic of
demonstratives brings a new perspective even to formulas such as these.
The sublogic of LD which concerns onl y formulas of Stable Character is
not identical wi th traditional logic. Even for such formulas, the familiar
Principle of Necessitation ( i f 4 ) , then k DO) fails. An d so does i t s
tense logic counterpart: i f 0 , then ( -
,
P - 0 A - - n
7
- 0 A
0 ) .
F r o m
the perspective of LD, val i di ty is t rut h i n every possible context. For
traditional logic, val i di ty is t rut h i n every possible circumstance. Each
possible context determines a possible circumstance, but i t i s not t he
case t hat each possible circumstance is part of a possible context. I n
particular, the fact that each possible context has an agent implies that
any possible circumstance i n which no individuals exist wi l l not f orm a
part of any possible context. Wi t h i n LD, a possible context i s repre-
sented by (2t,c) and a possible circumstance by (24,t, w). To any (21,c),
there corresponds (2i,c(r, cw). But i t is not the case that to every (21,t, te)
there exists a context c of 21 such t hat t e l
, a n d w c w .
T h e
r e s u l t
is that i n LD such sentences as ' 3x Exist x' and ' 3x3p Located x, p' are
valid, although they would not be so regarded i n tradi ti onal logic. A t
least not i n the neotraditional logic t hat countenances empt y worlds.
Using the semantical developments of pages 543-46, we can define this
traditional sense of validity (for formulas which do not contain demon-
stratives) as follows. Fi r st note t hat by Remark 7, i f 0 has a Stable
Character,
!.
t
r
,
)
0
O
f
t
.
0
Thus for such formulas we can define,
0 i s true ai 1,w (i n 21) i f for every assignment f and every
context c,
The neotraditional sense of validity is now definable as follows,
k ,
r
0
i
f
f
o
r
a
l
l
s
t
r
u
c
t
u
r
e
s
2
1
,
t
i
m
e
s
t
,
a
n
d
w
o
r
l
d
s
w
,
0
i
s
t
r
u
e
at t , w (in 21)
(Properly speaking, what I have called the neo-traditional sense of valid-
i ty is the notion of validity now common for a quantified S5 modal tense
logic wi t h i ndi vi dual variables ranging over possible individuals and a
predicate of existence.) Addi ng the subscript I D ' for explicitness, we
can now state some results.
(i) I f 0 contains no demonstratives, i f k
i
3 O , t h e n
(ii) r
_
A D
B X
E
x i
s
t
x
,
b
u
t
/
.
3
x
E
x
i
s
t
LD
550 Da v i d Kaplan
Of course ' 03x Exist x' is not valid even in LID. Nor are its counterparts,
Exist x' , and ' - P- a x Exist x' .
This suggests t hat we can transcend t he context-oriented perspec-
tive of LB by generalizing over times and worlds so as t o capture those
possible circumstances (a, t , tp) which do not correspond to any possible
contexts (2f,c). We have the following result:
(i i i ) I f 0 contains no demonstratives,
i ff A A 0)
Although our definition of the neotraditional sense of validity was moti-
vated by consideration of demonstrative-free formulas, we could apply i t
also to formulas containing essential occurrences of demonstratives. To
do so woul d nul l i fy the most interesting features of the logic of demon-
stratives. Bu t i t raises the question, can we express our new sense of
val i di ty in terms of the neotraditional sense? Thi s can be done:
(i v) T .
,
D
i f
H
T
A A
r 0
Remar k 10: Ri g i d designators (i n the sense of Kripke) are terms wi th
a Stable Content. Since Kripke does not discuss demonstratives, his ex-
amples al l have, in addition, a Stable Character (by Remark 8), Kri pke
claims that f or proper names a, 13 i t may happen t hat a = 0, though
not a priori, is nevertheless necessary. Thi s, i n spite of the fact that the
names a, /3 may be introduced by means of descriptions a' , (3' for which
a' = /3' is not necessary. An analogous situation holds in L a Let a' , 0'
be definite descriptions (wi thout free variables) such t hat a' = /3' is not
a priori, and consider the (rigid) terms dthat[cd and dt hat [ 0] which are
formed from them, We know that:
( dt hat [ al = dthatb31 a t = ,T).
Thus, i f a' = /?' i s not a pri ori , neither i s dt hat [ al = dthat[0' ). Bu t ,
since:
(dt hat [ a
1
) =
d t h
a t f /
3 1
1 7
( d
t h
a t
i a
l
d
t
h
a
t
[
0
1
)
)
i t may happen t hat dt hat [ at j -= dt hat [ gl i s necessary. T h e converse
situation can be illustrated i n LD. Since ( a = dt hat l ap i s val i d (see
Remark 3), i t is surely capable of being known a priori. But i f a lacks
a Stable Content (i n some context c), El(a = dthat[aj ) wi l l be false.
Remar k 11: O u r 0-0-place i-functors are not proper names, i n t he
sense of Kripke, since t hey do not have a Stable Content, B u t t hey
can easily be converted by means of stabilizing influence o f ' dt hat ' .
Even dt hat i al lacks a Stable Character. T h e process by whi ch such
expressions are converted i nt o expressions wi t h a Stable Character i s
' dubbing' a form of definition i n which context may play an essential
role. T h e means t o deal wi t h such context-indexed definitions i s not
available in our object language.
There would, of course, be no di ffi cul ty i n supplementing our l an-
guage wi t h a syntactically distinctive set of 0-0-place i-functors whose
semantics requires them to have both a Stable Character and a Stable
Content i n every context.
V a r i a b l e s
a l r e a d y
b e h a v e
t h i s
w a y
,
w h a
t
i
s
wanted is a class of constants t hat behave, i n these respects, l i ke vari-
ables.
The di ffi cul ty comes i n expressing t he definition. M y t hought i s
that when a name, like 'Bozo', is introduced by someone saying, in some
context c*, "Let' s call the Governor, ' Bozo' ", we have a context-indexed
definition of the form. A =
0 a , w h e r e
A i s
a
n e w
c o n s t a
n t
( h e r
e ,
' B o z
o ' )
and a i s some t erm whose denotation depends on context (here, ' t he
Governor). The intention of such a dubbing is, presumably, t o induce
the semantical clause: f or all c, { A} Ft
/ { a }
e !
. S u c h
a
c l a u s e
g i v e s
A
a
Stable Character. The context-indexing is required by the fact that the
Content of a (the ' definiens) may vary f rom context t o context. Thus
the same semantical clause i s not induced by taki ng either A = a or
even A = dt hat H as an axiom
I think it is likely that such definitions play a practically (and perhaps
theoretically) indispensable role in the growth of language, allowing us
to introduce a vast stock of names on t he basis of a meager stock of
demonstratives and some ingenuity i n the staging of demonstrations.
Perhaps such introductions should not be called ' definitions' at al l ,
since they essentially enrich the expressive power of the language. What
a nameless man may express by ' I am hungry' may be inexpressible i n
remote contexts, But once he says "Let' s call me ' Bozo' ", his Content
is accessible t o us all.
Remar k 12: T h e strongest f orm of logical equivalence between t wo
formulas 0 and 0' is sameness of Character, { 0} =, { 09, Thi s form of
synonymy is expressible i n terms of validity.
552 Da v i d Kaplan
{ 0} = { 01 i f 1
5
9 A
" P '
-
' ( C /
5
0 '
)
A
(
0
' -
' '
' )
]
[Using Remark 9 (iH) and droppi ng t he condition, whi ch was stated
onl y t o express t he intended range of applicability of w e have:
g5} = {(b' } i f f ,
r ( 0
0 ' ) . ]
S i n
c e
d e f i
n i t i o
n s
o
f
t
h
e
u
s
u
a l
k
i
n
d
(
a
s
opposed t o dubbings) are intended t o introduce a short expression as
a mere abbreviation of a longer one, the Character of the defined sign
should be the same as the Character of the definiens. Thus, wi t hi n 1,D,
definitional axioms must take the unusual form indicated above.
Remar k 13: I f 0 i s a variable of the same sort as the t erm a but is
not free i n ce, then f dt hat [ a] } = i t he A N 0 c ( ) ) . Thus for every
formula 0, there can be constructed a formula 0' such t hat 0' contains
no occurrence of ' dthat' and { 0} = {0"}.
Remar k 14: Y (yesterday) and G (one day ago) superficially resemble
one another i n view of the fact t hat ( Y 0 G O ) . But the former is
a demonstrative whereas t he l atter i s an i terati ve temporal operator.
"One day ago i t was t he case t hat one day ago i t was t he case t hat
John yawned" means t hat John yawned the day before yesterday. But
"Yesterday i t was t he case t hat yesterday i t was t he case t hat John
yawned" i s only a stutter.
Not es on Possi bl e Ref i nement s
1. T h e pri mi ti ve predicates and functors of first-order predicate logic
are all taken to be extensional. Alternatives are possible.
2. M a n y conditions might be added on p
; m a n y
a l t e r n a t i v e s
m i g h t
b e
chosen for T I f the elements of T do not have a natural relation to
play the role of <, such a relation must be added t o the structure.
3. W h e n K is a set of 1,11 formulas, K i s easily defined i n any of
the usual ways.
4. A s p e c t s of the contexts other than CA, cp, CT, and cw would be
used i f new demonstratives (e.g., pointings, You, etc.) were added
to the language. (Not e that the subscripts A, P, T, W are external
parameters. T h e y may be thought of as functions appl yi ng t o
contexts, wi t h CA being the value of A f or the context c.)
5. S p e c i a l continuity conditions through time might be added for the
predicate ' Exi st' .
6. I f individuals lacking positions are admitted as agents of contexts,
3(iii) of page 543 should be weakened to: cp E P U -i n-. I t would
no longer be the case that: L o c a t e d I, Here. I f individuals also
lacking temporal location (disembodied minds?) are admi tted as
agents of contexts, a similar weakening is required of 3(ii). I n any
case i t would sti l l be true that E x i s t
XX. Addi ng 'Says'
[This section is not yet written. What follows is a rough outl i ne of what
is to come.]
The point of this section is to show, i n a controlled experiment, t hat
what Quine called Me relational sense of certain intensional operators is
unavoidable, and t o explore the logical, as opposed t o epistemological,
features of language which lead t o this result.
I have already mentioned, i n connection wi th Dr. Lauben, t hat when
x says ' I have been wounded' and y wishes to report in indirect discourse
exactly what x said, y has a problem, I t wi l l not do for y to say ' x said
that I have been wounded'. Accordi ng to our earlier remarks, i t should
be correct for y to report x's content using a character appropriate to the
context of the report. For example, accusingly: ' You said t hat you had
been wounded', or quantificationally, ' ( 3z) ( Fz A x said that z had been
wounded)' where x atone satisfied I wi l l t r y t o show t hat such
constructions are the inevitable result of the at t empt t o make (t hi rd
person) i ndi rect discourse reports of the f i rst person di rect discourse
sayings when those sayings involve indexicals,
The situation regarding the usual epistemic verbs'believes', 'hopes',
'knows', 'desires', 'fears', etc.is, I believe, essentially similar to that of
'says'. Each has, or mi ght have, a direct discourse sense i n which the
character whi ch stands f or the cognitive significance of the thought is
given (he thinks, ' My God! I t i s my pants t hat are on fi re.' ) as well
as an indirect discourse sense i n which onl y the content need be given
(he thi nks t hat i t i s hi s pants t hat are on f i r e) .
68 I f t h i s i s
c o r r e c t ,
and i f indexicals are featured i n the language of thought (as suggested
66My notion of 'indirect discourse' forms of language is linked t o Frege's notion of
an 'ungerade' (often translated 'oblique') context. My terminology is intended to echo his.
554 Da v i d Kapl an
earlier), then any indirect discourse reports of someone's thought (other
than f i rst person on t he spot reports) must contain those features
de re constructions, referential occurrences, quantification in, relational
sensesthat have so puzzled me, and some others, since the appearance
of "Quantifiers and Propositional At t i t udes. "
69
What is special and different about the present approach is the at-
tempt t o use t he di sti ncti on between di rect and i ndi rect discourse t o
match the di sti ncti on between character and content. Thus when you
wonder, ' I s t hat me?' , i t i s correct t o report you as having wondered
whether you are yourself. These transformations are traced t o the i n-
dexical form of your inner direct discourse rather than to any particu-
lar referential intentions. The idea is t hat the f ul l analysis of indirect
discourse includes mention of the suppressed character of the direct dis-
course event which the indirect discourse reports, thus:
3c, C [c is a context A C is a character A x is the agent of c
A x direct-discourse-verb C at the ti me t of c A the content
of C in c is t h a t - 1
approximates a ful l analysis of
x indirect-discourse-verb t hat a t t.
Rather than t r y t o include al l these semantical ideas i n an object l an-
guage which includes the direct discourse forms of the verbs, the object
language wi l l include, as is usual, only the indirect discourse forms. The
information about the character of the direct discourse event wi l l pro-
vide the metalinguistic data against which the t rut h of object language
sentences is tested,n
Quine, In his "Repl y t o Kaplan" i n Words and Objections, ed. D. Davidson at
al. (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1969), raises the questionin the idiom of "Quantifiers
and Propositional Attitudes" (Journal of Philosop)5y 53 (1956); reprinted in Mar-
tinich, op. cit.)which of the names of a thi ng are to count as exportable? My
point here is t hat the indexical names must be exportable, not because of some
special justification for the transformation from a de dicta occurrence to a de i s
occurrence, but, because indexicals are devices of direct reference and have no de
dicto occurrences. I am reminded of the Zen ko-an: How do you get the goose out
of the bottle? Answer: I t ' s out!
70
I 1
t
h
i
s
a
n
a
l
y
s
i
s
i
s
c
o
r
r
e
c
t
,
t
h
e
s
u
p
p
r
e
s
s
e
d
c
h
a
r
a
c
t
e
r
s
h
o
u
l
d
w
r
e
a
k
i
t
s
m
i
s
c
h
i
e
f
i
n
cases of suspension of belief (I believe, ' that man's pants are on fire' but at the
moment neither assent to nor deny 'my pants are on fire') as does its counterpart in
section XI of "Quantifying In." Burge, in "Kaplan, Quine, and Suspended Belief,"
Philosophical Studies 31 (1977): 197-203, proposes a solution to the problem of
section XI which he believes is i n the spirit of Quine's formulations. A similar
What is not yet clear to me is whether all directly referential occur-
rences of terms wi thi n the scope of indirect discourse epistemic verbs are
to be justified solely on the basis of a like (though generally di sti nct)
term i n the direct discourse event or whether i n some cases the English
idioms which we symbolize wi t h quantification i n (for example, ' There
is someone whom Holmes believes t o have shot himself' ) involve some
element of know;ng-who or believing-who. To put the question another
way: ar e al l the cases t hat Quine describes, and others si mi l ar, which
irresistibly suggest the symbolic idiom of quantification in, accounted for
by the semantics of direct reference (i ncl udi ng indexicals and possibly
other expressions as well) as applied t o the (putati ve) di rect discourse
events? "Quant i f yi ng In" suffers f rom the lack of an adequate seman-
tics of direct reference, but its explicandum includes the epistemological
idea of knowing-who, which goes beyond what can be analyzed si mpl y
in terms of direct reference, When Ingri d hears someone approaching
through t he fog and knows 'Someone is approaching' and even knows
' That person i s approaching', is i t justified t o say t hat there is someone
whom Ingri d knows t o be approaching? Or must we have, i n addition
to the indexical ' t hat person', recognition on Ingri d' s part of who i t is
that is approaching? My present t hought is t hat the cases which irre-
sistibly suggest t he symbolic i di om of quantification i n involve, i n an
ambiguous way, t wo elements: di rect reference (on which we are close
to getting clear, I hope) and recogni t i on.
71 ( T h e l a t t e r
i s m y
n e w
t e r m
proposa/ in the present context would seem starkly inappropriate, But there has
been a shift in task from "Quantifying In" to the present attempt, I n large part the
shift is to a course outlined by Burge in the last two pages of the above-mentioned
article and urged by him, in conversation, for several years. The point only began
to sink in when I came on i t myself from a different angle.
72There is another form of common speech which may be thought to suggest formal-
ization by quantification in. I call this form the pseudo de re. A typical example is,
"John says that the lying S.O.B. who took my car is honest." I t is clear that Jolm
does not say, "The lying 5.0.B, who took your car is honest." Does John say ' 8 is
honest" f or some directly referential term 6 which the reporter believes to refer to
the lying S.CD,B, who took his car? Not necessarily. John may say something as
simple as, "The man I sent to you yesterday is honest." The reporter has simply
substituted his description for John's. What justifies this shocking falsification of
John's speech'? Nothing! But we do it, and often recognize--or don't carewhen
i t is being done. The form lends itself to strikingly distorted reports. As Church
has shown, in his Introduction to Mathematical Logic (Princeton: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 1956), on page 25, when John says "Sir Walter Scott is the author of
Wawerley" use of the pseudo de re form (plus a quite plausible synonymy trans-
formation) allows t he report, "John says that there are twenty-nine counties i n
Utah"! I do not see that the existence of the pseudo de re form of report poses
556 Da v i d Kaplan
for knowing-(or believing)-who.) The term is chosen t o reflect t he idea
that t he i ndi vi dual i n question i s identified wi t h respect t o some pri or
or independent informationre-cognitionnot immediately connected
wi t h the current attri buti on.) Of the two elements the former is seman-
tical; t he l atter, f rankl y epistemological. Th e English i di om ' There i s
someone such t hat Ingri d indirect-discourse-propositional-attitude-verb
that . . . he a l w a y s implies t hat a singular proposition is the object
of Ingrid' s thought (and thus t hat some di rectl y referential t erm a oc-
curred i n her inner direct discourse) and may sometimes i mpl y (or only
suggest?) t hat I ngri d recognized, who oe i s. I offer no analysis of the
l atter not i on.
72
In t he f i rst paragraph, I referred t o a controlled experiment. B y
that I mean t he following. Accept i ng t he metaphor of "i nner di rect
discourse events" and "indirect discourse reports" i n connection wi th the
usual epistemic verbs, I want t o examine the logical relations between
these two. But the study is complicated by at least three factors which
obscure the issues I wish to bri ng to light. Fi rst , there is no real syntax
to t he language of thought. Thus , even i n t he case o f the simplest
thoughts the relation between the syntax of the sentential complement
to t h e
-
e p i s t
e m i c
v e
r b
a
n
d
t
h
e
s t
r u
c t
u r
e
o
f
t
h
e
o
r
i
g
i
n
a
l
t
h
o
u
g
h
t
i
s
o
b
s
c
u
r
e
.
Second, i n containing images, sounds, odors, etc., thought is richer than
the language of the report. Mi g h t these perceptual elements pl ay a
role i n determining logical relations? Thi r d, thought ranges f rom the
completely explicit (inner speech) t o the entirely i mpl i ci t (unconscious
beliefs which explain actions) and through a variety of occurrent and
dispositional forms. Thi s makes i t hard t o pi n down the whole direct
discourse event. These three factors suggest t aki ng as a paradigm of
the relation between direct and indirect discoursedirect and indirect
discourse!
Even when reporting the (outer) discourse of another, at least three
obscure irrelevancies (f or our purposes) remain. Fi r st , i f Christopher
speaks i n a language different from that of the report, we have again the
problem of translation (analogous to, though perhaps less severe than,
any issues of sufficient theoretical interest to snake i t worth pursuing.
7 2
T
h e
r e
i
s
a
c
o
n
s
i
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r
a
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i
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p
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t
a
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o
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t
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i
b
u
t
i
o
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s
b
y
Hintikka, Castalieda and others. I n connection wi th the proposal that r
o, k n o w s
who a is' can be symbolized '
-
x ( a k n o w s
t h a t
x
=
,
i t
s h o u l
d
b e
n o t
e d
t h
a t
a '
s
knowledge of the logical truth r
d t h a t [ a ] =
a '
l e a d s ,
s i m p l y
b y
t h e
s e m a n
t i c s
o
f
direct reference, to ' 3x(rt knows that x =a) ' . Thi s shows only that a 'recognition
sense of knowing a singular proposition is not definable, i n the obvious way, i n
terms of a purely direct reference sense of knowing a singular proposition.
that of translating the language of thought). We control thi s by assum-
ing the direct discourse t o be i n the language of the i ndi rect discourse
report. Second, as Carnap once pointed out to me, i f Christopher's dis-
course had the form '
-
( A A 7 1 ;
1 e v e n
t h e
s t r i c t
e s t
c o u
r t
w o
u l
d
a c
c e
p t
a
s
true the testimony, ' Christopher said that A cb
.
' W h a t l o g i c a l
t r a n s -
formations on the original discourse would be allowed in the report? ( I f
Christopher says ' 3x x is round' , may we report hi m as saying that 3y
y is round?) We control this by allowing no logical transformations (we
are explicating l i teral indirect discourse). Thi r d, i f in saying ' The circle
can't be squared' Christopher thought that ' can' t' was synonymous wi th
'should not ' rather than ' cannot' , should he be reported as having said
that the circle can' t be squared? We control this by assuming t hat our
speakers make no linguistic errors.
What then remains of the logic? I s the move from direct discourse
to l i teral indirect discourse not si mpl y the result of disquotation (and
decapitaliztion) plus the addition of ' that' , as in:
Christopher says ' the world is round'
.. Christopher says that the world is round
But how then are we to report Dr. Lauben's saying, ' I have been wound-
ed'? Certai nl y not as, ' Dr. Lauben says that I have been wounded' !
Even i n thi s highly antiseptic environment, the logic of says should
provide us wi t h a f ul l measure of t hat baffling and fascinating de r e
versus de di et, noti onal versus relational, etc., behavior. A n d here,
using the conceptual apparatus of the semantics of direct reference, we
may hope to identify the source of these antics.
[I also hope t o distinguish, i n discussing reports of self-attribution,
x says that x i s a fool, from x says-himself to be a fool.]
XXI . Russel l on Egocent r i c Par t i cul ar s and Thei r
Di spensabi l i t y
In chapter VI I of Inqui ry I nt o Meaning and Tr ut h,
73 R u s s e l l g i v e s
a
series of atrocious arguments for the conclusion that "[indexicals] are not
needed i n any part of the description of the world, whether physical or
psychological." Thi s is a happy no-nonsense conclusion for an argument
that begins by remarking " A physicist wi l l not say ' I saw a. table', but
like Neurath or Julius Caesar, ' Ot t o saw a table'." [ Why Julius Caesar
would be provoked to say ' Ot t o saw a table', is unexplained.]
7 3
B
e r
t r
a n
d
R
u
s
s
e
l
l
(
L
o
n
d
o
n
7
A
l
l
e
n
&
l
i
n
W
i
n
,
1
9
4
0
)
.
558 Da v i d Kaplan
Let us examine Russell's conclusion wi t hout prejudice t o his argu-
ment. [ What follows is an outline.]
In brief, there are essentially two points. Fi rst : i f we have both the
indexicals and an unlimited supply of unused directly referential proper
names, and we can do instantaneous dubbing, then i n each context c
for any sentence 0 containing indexicals we can produce a sentence 0*
whose character is fixed and whose content is the same as that of 0 in c.
In thi s sense, i f you can describe i t wi t h indexicals you can describe i t
wi t hout .
74
T h e r
e
a r
e
p r
o b l
e m
s :
(
i
)
t
h
i
n
g
s
c
a
n
c
h
a
n
g
e
f
a
s
t
a
n
d
d
u
b
b
i
n
g
s
take time, (i i ) the indexicals retain a kind of epistemic pri ori ty.
The second poi nt is: gi ven any pr i or collection of proper names,
there wi l l be things, times, places, etc., wi t hout a name. How do I say
something about these unnamed entities? (E.g., how do I tel l you that
your pants are on firenow? I t may be that nothing in sight, including
us, and no nearby time has a name.)
There are t wo cases, I t seems most l i kel y t hat wi t hout indexicals
some entities cannot even be uniquely described. I n thi s case we are
really in trouble (unless Russell believes i n the identity of indescribables
objects lacking uniquely characterizing descriptions) because wi t hout
indexicals we cannot freely introduce new names. I f every enti ty can be
uniquely described, there is still the problem of not presenting the right
content under the ri ght character required to motivate the ri ght action
(recall the discussion on pages 532-33), The proposition expressed by
'the pants belonging t o the s F x are on fi re at the t Gt ' i s not t he
proposition I want to express, and certainly does not have the character
I wish to convey.
75
X X I I . On P r o p e r Names
[Some thoughts on proper names f rom t he perspective of the formal
system are contained i n Remark 11, page 551. What follows is the most
hastily wri t t en section of thi s draf t . I sketch a vi ew t hat i s mai nl y
74
1
a
s
s
u
m
e
h
e
r
e
t
h
a
t
p
r
o
p
e
r
n
a
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s
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t
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x
i
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a
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.
I
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p
o
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s
e
c
t
i
o
n
XXII,
75Some interesting arguments of a different sort for the indispensability of indexicals
are given by Burge in "Belief De Re," JoItrnal of P],ilo.5oph1, 74 (1977): 338-62,
and by Bar-Hillel in his pioneering work, "Indexical Expressions," Mi nd (1954).
In connection with the arguments of Burge and Bar-Hillel it would be interesting
to check on some related empirical issues involving linguistic universals. Do al l
languages have a first person singular form? Do they all have all of the standard
indexicals?
negative, wi thout including much supporting argumentation (several of
the omitted arguments seem both tedious and tendentious). My current
inclination is t o drop this whole section f rom the final draft.]
A wor d is an expression along wi th i ts meaning. When t wo expres-
sions have the same meaning, as wi th "can' t" and "cannot", we call the
two words synonyms. When t wo meanings have the same expression,
we call t he two words homonyms. I n the l atter case we also say t hat
the expression is ambiguotts. (Probabl y we would say that t he word is
ambiguous, but accept my terminology for what follows.) I n a disam-
biguated language, semantics can associate meanings wi t h expressions.
Even in a language containing ambiguities, semantics can associate a set
of meanings wi th an expression. But given an utterance, semantics can-
not tell us what expression was uttered or what language i t was uttered
in. Thi s is a presemantic task. When I utter a particular vocable, f or
example, t he one characteristic of the first person pronoun of English,
you must decide what word I have spoken or indeed, i f I have spoken
any word at al l ( i t may have been a cry of anguish). I n associating a
word wi t h my utterance you take account of a variety of features of the
context of utterance t hat help t o determine what I have said but t hat
need not be any part of what I have said. My egotism, my intonation,
my demeanor, may all support the hypothesis that i t was the first person
pronoun of English. But these aspects of personality, fluency, and mood
are no part of any semantic theory of the fi rst person pronoun. T h e
factors I have cited are not, of course, cri t eri al for the use of the first
person pronoun. What are the criteria? What would definitively settle
the question? I don' t know, I t hi nk thi s i s a very di ffi cul t question.
But among the criteria there must be some that touch on the utterer's
intention to use a word in conformity wi th the conventions of a particu-
lar linguistic community. For proper name words, i n part because they
are so easily introduced, this aspect of the presemantic determination is especially important.
According t o t he causal chai n or chain of communication theory,
there are t wo critical intentions associated wi t h ti l e use of the proper
name word. On e i s the i ntenti on t o use t he word wi t h t he meaning
given i t by the person f rom whom you learned t he word. T h e other
is the contrary intention to create (and perhaps simultaneously use) a
proper name word t o refer t o a given object irrespective of any pri or
meanings associated wi t h the expression chosen as a vehicle. One who
uses a proper name word wi t h t he f i rst intention generally ( but not
always) believes that someone originated the word by using i t wi t h the
560 Da v i d Kaplan
second intention, andaccording to the causal chain theoryintends to
refer t o the given obj ect :
76
I n "Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice," appendix IX, I introduce the
notion of a dubbing for what I took to be the standard form of introduc-
tion of a proper name word. That notion has been mistakenly taken t o
i mpl ywhat I deliberately sought to evokea formal public ceremony.
What I actually had i n mi nd was a use of a proper name word wi t h the
second intention: t he intention to originate a word rather than conform
to a pri or usage. Thus a fleeting "Hi-ya, Beautiful" incorporates all the
intentional elements required f or me t o say t hat a dubbing has taken
place. I believe that my notion here is closely related to DonneIlan's no-
tion of a referential use of a definite description. DonneIlan's distinction
between referential and attri buti ve uses of definite descriptions i s eas-
ily and natural l y extended t o referential and attri buti ve uses of proper
names. When the i ntenti on t o conform to a preestablished convention
is absent we have the pure referential use. I n this case, when a proper
name is i n question, I take i t t hat an internal, subjective, dubbi ng has
occurred. When a definite description is i n question, again the speaker
does not intend to give the expression its conventional meaning although
he mak intend to make use of the conventional meaning in conveying who
i t is t hat is being referred t o or for some other purpose associated wi t h
7 8
T
h e
r e
i
s
d
i
s
a
g
r
e
e
m
e
n
t
a
s
t
o
h
o
w
t
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e
g
i
v
e
n
o
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i
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t
o
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w
h
o
i
n
t
r
o
-
duces a proper name word with the second intention. Must he be acquainted with
the object, directly acquainted, en rapport, perceiving it, causally connected, Or
what? My liberality wi th respect t o the introduction of directly referring terms
by means of 'dthat' extends to proper names, and I would allow an arbitrary def-
inite description to give us the object we name. "Let ' s call the first child to be
born in the twenty-first century 'Newman V. " But I am aware that this is a very
controversial position. Perhaps some of the sting can be removed by adopting an
idea of Gilbert Harman. Normal l y one would not introduce a proper name or a
dthat-term to correspond to each definite description one uses. But we have the
means to do so if we wish. Should we do so, we are enabled to apprehend singular
propositions concerning remote individuals (those formerly known only by descrip-
tion). Recognizing this, we refrain. What purposeother than to confound the
skepticsis served by direct reference to whosoever may be the next president of
Brazil? The introduction of a new proper name by means of a dubbing in terms of
description and the active contemplation of characters involving dthat- termstwo
mechanisms for providing direct reference to the denotation of an arbitrary def-
inite descriptionconstitute a form of cognitive restructuring; they broaden our
range of thought. To take such a step is an action normally not performed at all,
and rarely, i f ever, done capriciously. The fact that we have the meanswithout
special experience, knowledge, or whateverto refer directly to the myriad indi-
viduals we can describe, does not imply that we will do so. And i f we should have
reason to do so, why not?
the act of utterance (as i n "Hi -ya, Beautiful"). What is i mport ant here
is that the speaker intends to be creating a meaning for the expression
in question rather than following conventions. Dubbings, whether aimed
at i ntroduci ng a relatively permanent sense for the expression or onl y
aimed at attaching a nonce-sense t o the expression, are unconventional
uses of language. Dubbings create words.
In many, perhaps most, uses of definite descriptions there is a mi x-
ture of the intention to follow convention wi t h the i ntenti on to refer t o
a preconceived individual. The same mixture of ' attri buti ve' and 'refer-
ential' intentions can occur wi t h a proper name. I f I introduce a name
into your vocabulary by means of false i ntroducti on ( " Thi s i s Jaakko
Hintikka", but i t isn' t), you are left wi t h an undiscriminated tangle of
attributive (to refer t o Jaakko Hintikka) and referential ( t o refer to the
person t o whom you were introduced) intentions associated wi t h your
subsequent uses of the expression ' Jaakko Hintikka' . There are several
ways in which one might attempt to account for these mi xed intentions
in a general theory of language. Fi rst, we might distinguish two notions:
speaker's-reference and semantic-reference. The presence of an attri bu-
tive intention justifies giving the expressions a conventional meaning and
thus allows us t o claim that preexisting words were used. Whereas the
presence of a referential i ntenti on (not j ust a belief t hat t he semantic
referent i s the given object, but an independent intention to refer to the
given object) justifies the claim that the speaker is referring t o the given
object independent of any particular interpretation of the expressions he
used as words and independent of whether the utterance has an inter-
pretation as words. A second way of accounting for mixed intentions of
this ki nd is to assume that one of the two intentions must be dominant.
I f the referential intention dominates, we regard t he utterance, on the
model of "Hi-ya, Beauti ful ," as an apt (or inept, as the case may be)
introduction of a proper name word (or phrase). Thus, as essentially
involving a dubbing. On thi s way of accounting for mi xed intentions,
a referential use of an expression woul d endow t he expression wi t h a
semantic referent identical wi t h the speaker's ref erent . '
" This is not an unnatural way to accotmt for the use of the proper name word in
the false introduction case, but i t does seem a. bit strange i n the case of a definite
description. I n that case i t involves hypothesizing that the speaker intended the
description expression to have a meaning which made the given object its semantic
referent, and only believed t hat the conventional meaning would do this, a belief
that he is prepared to give up rather than acknowledge that the semantic referent
of his words was not the given object. Something like this seems to happen when
descriptions grow capitals, as in 'The Holy Roman Empire', and in other cases as
562 Da v i d Kaplan
My ai m in the foregoing is to emphasize how delicate and subtle our
analysis of the context of utterance must be for the presemantic purpose
of determining what words, i f any, were spoken. I do this to make plausi-
ble my view thatassuming the causal chain theory of reference--proper
names are not indexicals. The contextual feature which consists of the
causal history of a particular proper name expression i n the agent's idi-
oiect seems more naturally to be regarded as determining what word was
used t han as fi xi ng t he content of a single context-sensitive word. Al -
though i t is true t hat two utterances of ' Aristotle' in different contexts
may have different contents, I am inclined t o attri bute t hi s difference
to t he fact t hat di sti nct homonymous words were uttered rather than
a context sensitivity i n the character of a single word ' Ari stotl e' . Un-
like indexicals like ' I ' , proper names really are ambiguous. The causal
theory of reference tel l s us, i n terms of contextual features (i ncl udi ng
the speaker's intentions) which word is being used in a given utterance.
Each such word is directly referential (thus i t has a fixed content), and i t
also has a fixed character. Therefore, i n the case of proper name words,
all three kinds of meaningreferent, content, and charactercollapse.
In this, proper name words are unique. They have the direct reference
of indexicals, but t hey are not context-sensitive. Pr oper name words
are l i ke indexicals t hat you can carry away from their original context
wi thout affecting t hei r content. Because of the collapse of character,
content, and referent, i t is not unnatural t o say of proper names t hat
they have no meaning other than their referent.
Some may claim t hat they si mpl y use ' indexical' i n a wi der sense
than I (perhaps t o mean something like 'contextual'). But we must be
wary of an overbroad usage. I s every ambiguous expression an indexical
because we look to utterer's intentions to disambiguate? Indeed, is every
expression an indexical because i t mi ght have been a groan?
I f the character and content of proper name words is as I have de-
scribed i t (according t o the causal theory), then the informativeness of
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differences i n either content or character. Th e problem is t hat proper
names do not seem to f i t i nt o the whole sernantical and epistemological
scheme as I have developed i t. I claimed that a competent speaker knows
the character of words. Thi s suggests (even i f i t does not i mpl y) t hat
i f two proper names have t he same character, t he competent speaker
knows that. But he doesn't. What is perhaps even more astounding is
that I may introduce a new proper name word and send i t on i ts jour-
ney. When i t returns t o meperhaps slightly distorted phonologically
by i t s t r i p through other dialectsI can competently take i t i nt o my
vocabulary wi thout recognizing i t as the very same word! Shocking!
In earlier sections of this paper I have tried to show t hat many of the
metaphysical and epistemological anomalies involving proper names had
counterparts involving indexicals, and further that i n the case of index-
icals these wonders are easily explained by an obvious theory. Insofar
as I am correct i n regarding t he anomalies as counterparts, t he the-
ory of indexicals may help to break down unwarranted resistance to the
causal chain theory. I t may also suggest the form of a general semantical
and epistemological scheme comprehending both indexicals and proper
names. Thi s i s not the place t o attempt the l atter task; my purpose
here i s simply to show t hat i t is not t r i vi a1.
78 T h o s e w h o
s u g g e s t
t h a t
proper names are merely one species of indexical depreciate the power
and the mystery of the causal chain theory.
well, f or example Russell's 'denoting phrases' which do not denote, But i t t i l l
seems strange.
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comprehending p r o p e r names" are such as these, I s the work of the causal
chain theory presemantic, as I have claimed? Do proper names have a ki nd of
meaning other than reference? Does the causal chain theory i tsel f constitute a
kind of meaning for proper names that is analogous to character for indexicals
(but which, perhaps, gives all proper names the same meaning in this sense)? Are
proper names words of any particular language? Is there synonymy between proper
names that are expressed differently (as there is between ' can' t' and 'cannot')?
How should we describe the linguistic competence of one who does not know that
Hesperus is Phosphorus? I s he guilty of linguistic error? Shoul d we say he does
not know what words he speaks? Does he know that 'Hesperus' and Phosphorus'
are different words? Ar e they? I s i t really possible, as I claim, t o account for
the semantics of indexicals without making use of the ful l conceptual resources
required to account for the semantics of proper names? I raise these issuesand
there are otherswithin the framework of a hypothetical acceptance of the causal
chain theory. There are other issues, of a quite different kind, involved in tryi ng
to fi l l out some details of the causal chain theory itself. For example, i f one who
has received some particular proper name expression, say, "James", hundreds of
times, uses that expression attributively as a proper name, and has i n mind no
particular source, how do we decide which branch to follow back? The first set of
issues seems to me to be largely independent of the details of the relevant causal
chains.

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17

The semantical feature that I wish to highlight in calling an expres-

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