With roots in Frege’s famous remarks (1956, 296), reflection on Rip van Winkle’s fantastic story has played a key role in the philosophical study of indexical or cognitive dynamics (Kaplan 1989, Perry 1997, Branquinho 2008, Ludlow 2019). Consider now the Reverse van Winkle case: Rip van Winkle falls asleep at time t and, while he feels like it’s been a very long slumber, only a few seconds have actually passed when he wakes up at time t’. Suppose Rip van Winkle utters “Today is fine” both at t and t’ but, while he fully accepts the associated thought at t, he hesitates at t’.

The Reverse van Winkle and structurally similar cases show that, if we accept the ‘Intuitive Criterion of Difference’ (Evans 1982), a particular understanding of the relation between indexicality and thought is wrongheaded. According to this ‘linguistic’ view, indexicality is a property of linguistic terms only and these terms express thoughts relative to a particular context. If this view were correct, sameness of context of utterance, indexical expression and reference should guarantee sameness of thought. However, the target case shows that the same (day-based) indexical term –“today”– and the same relevant context to refer to the same day may involve conflicting rational attitudes, and hence different thoughts. The case can be raised even if one doesn’t accept (contra Perry 1997: 35-38 or Ludlow 2019: 72-75) that the first “today”-thought at t is remembered at t’. One only requires that Rip, at t’, doesn’t change his mind with respect to the thought expressed at t (cf. Kaplan 1989: 537-538).

We should not however haste to embrace the view that indexicality is itself an essential aspect of thought. If this were so, it should be possible for thoughts to be indexically individuated. Yet sometimes, as the (Reverse) van Winkle case illustrates, thoughts expressed with (same or different) indexicals change with contexts and sometimes they don’t. This suggests that there are no straightforward contextual factors responsible for the individuation of thought of the sort one would expect if thought were essentially indexical.

What should be done? To analyse the target and related cases, I will invoke the notion of a “composite mode of presentation”, i.e. “a mode of presentation that, although ‘static’, i.e. deployed at a given time in thinking of the object, rests on distinct simultaneous relations to the object, and on distinct ways of gaining information (distinct information channels) based on these relations” (Recanati, forthcoming; see also Dickie & Rattan 2010, Recanati 2016).

Thus, in the Reverse van Winkle scenario, at t’, Rip takes recourse to two different modes of presentation (MOPs) of a particular day, one based on memory awareness of it before falling asleep, and one based on his direct awareness of the day in question. While one would typically merge these MOPs into one composite MOP to think and reason, indexically, about a day, Rip van Winkle fails to do so because of his especial predicament. Rip van Winkle has different thoughts, based on different MOPs. But these MOPs would typically constitute one and the same composite MOP in normal circumstances.

More needs to be said, however, to fully characterize the cases in which composite MOPs based on different primitive MOPs of a referent are indeed available. My proposal is that this happens when the thinker is aware of the co-referentiality of primitive MOPs. Such awareness – which can be spelled out in a number of ways – may link together very different indexical and demonstrative MOPs (perceptual, testimonial, memory-based…). However, composite MOPs need not be restricted to thought expressible with indexicals or demonstratives, and may carry over to any co-referential singular and general terms. This suggests a view in which the MOPs associated with indexicals are correctly attributed to the thought itself, but where such MOPs are not actually so different from conventional, non-indexical MOPs. Finally, while the awareness of co-reference signals the presence of a composite MOP, there is a sense in which composite MOPs may be acknowledged whether or not a thinker – such as Rip van Winkel – is aware of the co-referentiality of their constituent MOPs. This is also the sense in which different subjects unaware of one another may express the very same thought via different utterances of “Today is fine” on the same day. This point illustrates the mind-independent character of composite MOPs.

References

Branquinho, J. (2008) On the Persistence and Re-Expression of Indexical Belief. Manuscrito 31: 573-600.

Dickie, I. and Rattan, G. (2010) Sense, Communication, and Rational Engagement. Dialectica 64: 131-51.

Evans, G. (1982) The Varieties of Reference (edited by J. McDowell). Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Frege, G. (1956) The Thought. Mind 65: 289-311.

Kaplan, D. (1989) Demonstratives. In J. Almog, H. Wettstein and J. Perry (eds.), Themes from Kaplan, 481-563. New York: Oxford University Press.

Ludlow, P. (2019) Interperspectival Content. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Perry, J. (1997) Rip Van Winkle and Other Characters. European Review of Philosophy 2: 13-39.

Recanati, F. (2016) Mental Files in Flux. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Recanati, F. (forthcoming) Sameness of Mode of Presentation. In Bermúdez, J.L. et al. (eds.) Sharing Thoughts. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

One potential conservative reaction to the concept of indexicality of content is a theory that treats indexicality as a property inherent to content-bearers. While this view aligns intuitively with linguistic cases, as indexicality is commonly seen as a property of expressions, it requires further elucidation when applied to intentional (mental) states as content-bearers. In this paper, I aim to present a theory that elucidates the indexicality of attitudes and other mental states by examining the properties of the bearers or vehicles of content.

The theory I shall present departs from an account of indexicality rooted in Frege's philosophy, specifically a hybrid expression view (cf. Frege, 1956). Various versions of this view (cf. Künne, 1992; Künne, 2010; Textor, 2007, 2015; Kripke, 2008; Penco, 2013; Ciecierski, 2019) share the common feature of conceiving content-bearers as complex objects. These objects, in addition to narrowly conceived components (linguistic expressions in the case of utterances or mental representations/forms in the case of mental states), consist of contextual elements such as the speaker, time of utterance, or place of utterance. Recognizing the differences in these content-bearers allows for the expression of a single standard and non-indexical content through appropriately contextually coordinated but different content-bearers, while different non-indexical contents are expressible by uncoordinated content-bearers.

However, the theory is not immune to objections (cf. Perry, 1977, 491; Kaplan, 1989, 538). A notable challenge arises in explaining the intuition that an individual who loses track of time, like Rip van Winkle, shares the same thought when considering that today is sunny (on a day d in 1789) and when thinking that yesterday was sunny (on a day d' in 1800). One response to this challenge (cf. Tichy, 1986, 40; Textor, 2011, 168) suggests that a person who loses track of time fails to accurately capture the content of the thought that yesterday was sunny (on a day d' in 1800). This response, however, rejects the initial intuition entirely and flies in the face of the idea of the transparency of mental content: the content of Rip van Winkle thought is different from the content he believes his thought has.

To address this problem, I propose the internalistic version of the hybrid expression view of indexicality. While the standard hybrid expression view adopts an externalistic perspective, claiming that a hybrid expression (content-bearer) consists of a vehicle and an aspect of the relevant externally existing context of utterance (Externalistic Hybridity Claim), the internalistic version posits that a hybrid expression consists of a vehicle and an aspect of the relevant mental representation of a possible context of utterance (Internalistic Hybridity Claim). Accepting Internalistic Hybridity enables a nuanced treatment of cases where individuals are "lost in time." For instance, Rip van Winkle, while entertaining the thought that yesterday was sunny, grasps the content of the hybrid representation consisting of a vehicle (the mental counterpart of "yesterday") and the representation of the time of utterance corresponding to d+1 1789. Consequently, he fails to entertain the content that it was sunny on d'-1 1800, but he apprehends a different yet related content. His mistake in content attribution is a result of a factual error—selecting the wrong context as actual. This analysis aligns with the intuitive transparency of mental content: Rip van Winkle grasps the appropriate content and maintains a disposition to differentiate between it and the content expressed had the time of utterance been located on a specific day in 1800.

In the final parts of my paper I shall discuss the challenges that the theory might face as well as its potential merits. One potential merit of this theory is its uniform treatment of linguistic and mental indexicality. One potential challenge is the tension between the Internalistic Hybridity Claim and the directly referential nature of indexicals. I shall argue, however, that there is no conflict between the two: Internalistic Hybridity does not entail that indexicals and demonstratives are not directly referential, it rather claims that in cases where the mental representations of relevant aspects of the context do not correspond to actual aspects of the context the reference of indexicals and demonstratives might be moved to a different object (while remaining direct in the Kaplanian sense).

References

Ciecierski, T. (2019). Hybrid Expressions. In: Bella, G., Bouquet, P. (eds) Modeling and Using Context. CONTEXT 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 11939. Springer, Cham.

Frege, G. (1956). The thought: A logical inquiry. Mind 65 (259):289-311.

Kripke, S. (2008). Frege's Theory of Sense and Reference: Some Exegetical Notes. Theoria 74 (3):181-218.

Kaplan, David (1989). Demonstratives: An Essay on the Semantics, Logic, Metaphysics and Epistemology of Demonstratives and other Indexicals. In Joseph Almog, John Perry & Howard Wettstein (eds.), Themes From Kaplan. Oxford University Press. pp. 481-563.

Künne, W.(1992). Hybrid proper names. Mind 101, 721–731

Künne, W. (2010). Sense, reference and hybridity. Dialectica 64, 529–551

Penco, C. (2013). Indexicals as demonstratives: on the debate between Kripke and Künne. Grazer Philophische Studien 88, 55–73

Perry, J. (1977). Frege on Demonstratives. The Philosophical Review, 86(4), 474–497. https://doi.org/10.2307/2184564

Textor, M. (2007). Frege’s theory of hybrid proper names developed and defended. Mind 116, 947–981

Textor, M. (2011). Frege on Sense and Reference, Routledge

Textor, M. (2015). Frege’s theory of hybrid proper names extended. Mind 124, 823–847

Tichy, P. (1986). Frege and the case of the missing sense. Grazer Philophische Studien 27(1), 27–47