Quasi Indexicals

Abstract

I argue that not all context dependent expressions are alike. Pure (or ordinary) indexicals behave more or less as Kaplan thought. But quasi indexicals behave in some ways like indexicals and in other ways not like indexicals. A quasi indexical sentence ϕ allows for cases in which one party utters ϕ and the other its negation, and neither party's claim has to be false. In this sense, quasi indexicals are like pure indexicals (think: “I am a doctor”/“I am not a doctor” as uttered by different individuals). In such cases involving a pure indexical sentence, it is not appropriate for the two parties to reject each other's claims by saying, “No.” However, in such cases involving a quasi indexical sentence, it is appropriate for the parties to reject each other's claims. In this sense, quasi indexicals are not like pure indexicals. Drawing on experimental evidence, I argue that gradable adjectives like “rich” are quasi indexicals in this sense. The existence of quasi indexicals raises trouble for many existing theories of context dependence, including standard contextualist and relativist theories. I propose an alternative semantic and pragmatic theory of quasi indexicals, negotiated contextualism, that combines insights from Kaplan 1989 and Lewis 1979. On my theory, rejection is licensed with quasi indexicals (even when neither of the claims involved has to be false) because the two utterances involve conflicting proposals about how to update the conversational score. I also adduce evidence that conflicting truth value assessments of a single quasi indexical utterance exhibit the same behavior. I argue that negotiated contextualism can account for this puzzling property of quasi indexicals as well.

Disagreement lost

“…The following proposal might also be worth considering. Perhaps influenced byBarker (2002), contextualists like Sundell (2011),Khoo (2020), andKhoo and Knobe (2016) have recently claimed that in disputing the truth of an utterance one partly disputes certain ways of using some of the terms used in the utterance under dispute.tance, if Anna utters 'Carla is tall' and Bob utters 'no, she isn't', part of what Bob is objecting to is Anna's use of the word 'tall' in a way that applies to Carla. However, this need not reflect a conflict between Anna and Bob's beliefs about Anna's height; Anna and Bob may both believe that Carla is, say, 1.7 m tall, and their disagreement is only over whether to adopt a standard of tallness that would…”

Are there really any dual‐character concepts?

“…36 See (Plunkett and Sundell 2013). 37 For other views close to Plunkett and Sundell's account in key respects, see (Thomasson 2016) and (Khoo 2020). exhibit a distinctive kind of dual-character behavior.…”

No context, no content, no problem

“…I imagine that a variety of broadly pluralistic views could be developed after the fashion of Lasersohn (1999)'s “pragmatic halos,” or by treating discourse involving demonstratives as though it involved metalinguistic negotiation along the lines of Barker (2002, 2013) and Plunkett (2015). An anonymous referee has pointed out that the arguments I give here might be taken to show that demonstratives should be treated as quasi‐indexicals, in the sense of Khoo (2018).…”