Indexical concepts and compositionality
François Récanati · 2001
An indexical expression is conventionally associated with a rule which, in context, determines the reference of the expression in that context. The rule associated with 'I ' is the rule that a token of 'I ' refers to the person who utters that token. The rule associated with 'here ' is the rule that a token of 'here ' refers to the place where the token is uttered. The expression is not associated with the reference directly by a linguistic convention, but indirectly, via the context of utterance. The reference is the entity which stands in the right contextual relation to the occurrence of the expression. What is conventionally encoded in the expression-type, independent of context, is the nature of the contextual relation in question. In what sense can we talk of mental indexicality? Linguistic conventions have no role to play here. Still, I suggest that some concepts are indexical in the sense that they too are associated with a rule which contextually determines the reference. The reference of an indexical concept is the entity which stands in the appropriate contextual relation to the thinker in whose thought the concept occurs. The nature of the contextual relation which the reference must satisfy determines the type of the concept. In the first part of this paper I will give an overview of the theory of indexical concepts.1 In the second part I will discuss an argument due to Jerry Fodor, to the effect that any epistemic approach to concept individuation (including the the theory of indexical concepts) is doomed to failure. 1 See Recanati 1993: chapters 6 and 7, for an elaboration. The foundations of the theory