The Problem of the Essential Indexical and Other Essays, Expanded Edition

This book includes famous papers such as “The Problem of the Essential Indexical” and “Frege on Demonstratives” and “Cognitive Significance and New Theories of Reference” ; papers co-authored with Mark Crimmins (“The Prince and the Phone Booth”) and David Israel (“Fodor on Psychological Explanations”) and related papers on situation semantics, direct reference, and the structure of belief. Perry has added “afterwords” that discuss responses to his work by Gareth Evans,Robert Stalnaker, Barbara Partee, Howard Wettstein and others.

No word in English is shorter than the word “I”. And yet no word is more important in philosophy. When Descartes said “I think therefore I am” he produced something that was both about himself and a universal formula. The word “I” is called an “indexical” which means who it stands for depends on who says it, not just on its meaning. Other indexicals are “you” , “here” and “now”. Perry discusses how these words work, and why they express important philosophical thoughts. He claims that indexicals pose a challenge to traditional assumptions about language and thought, and for that reason a number of these papers sparked lively debates. The papers have been influential in philosophy, linguistics and other areas of cognitive science.

Recipient of numerous international academic awards, John Perry is Henry Waldgrave Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Stanford University, where he has chaired the pholosophy Department and directed the Center for the Study of Language and Information, which he helped found.

Contents

10/1/2000