Abstract
In this paper I defend Kaplan’s claim that the sentence “I am here now” is logically true. A number of counter-examples to the claim have been proposed, including occurrences of the sentence in answerphone messages, written notes left for later decoding, etc. These counter-examples are only convincing if they can be shown to be cases where the correct context with respect to which the utterance should be evaluated is the context in which it is decoded rather than encoded. I argue that this is not the case, and draw on the distinction between force and content to suggest an alternative account of how information is communicated in these cases that is consistent with Kaplan’s semantic theory.
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Notes
The term ‘contextualism’ might be thought misleading insofar as notions of context-sensitivity and indexicality are often conflated. If such a conflation is allowed, Kaplan’s semantic theory is a theory of context-sensitive expressions. However, the kind of context-sensitivity displayed by indexicals is not problematic for formal semantics (at least if Kaplan’s position is correct), for although the content of an indexical expression varies according to context, it has a fixed meaning (what Kaplan calls a character) across all contexts. The contextualist challenge (e.g. Recanati 2003) aims to demonstrate that wider contextual considerations thwart the whole enterprise of natural language semantics. MacFarlane (2007) calls the latter ‘nonindexical contextualism’ to distinguish it from the former. I will use the term ‘contextualism’ as synonymous with ‘nonindexical contextualism’ in what follows.
Indexes may require more elements depending on the expressions contained in the sentence uttered. I assume a fairly simple case here.
I am assuming Kaplan’s conception of indexicals as directly referential; thus content and referent coincide in this case.
It should be noted that ‘here’ is ambiguous between the pure indexical ‘here’ and a demonstrative use. The latter is displayed when e.g. I point to a location on a map and say ‘here is Everest’. The demonstrative use clearly allows for true utterances of ‘I am not here now’. The arguments of this paper are concerned only with the pure indexical ‘here’. For further discussion of this distinction and of alleged cases of ambiguity even within the scope of what are traditionally seen as pure indexical uses, such as those arising from uses of the historical present tense, see Corazza (2006).
Note that the distinction between locutionary and illocutionary speech acts is not to be confused with the distinction between literal meaning and speaker’s meaning: it is a distinction in force, not intention.
This point marks an important difference between my view and that of Voltolini (2006). Voltolini seeks to solve the answerphone problem by interpreting the authors of recorded messages, etc., as engaging in an act of pretend assertion. As will become clear shortly, I am sympathetic to this claim. However, whereas Voltolini builds this insight into a sophisticated ‘fictionalist’ theory whereby the shared practice of engaging in such pretences generates a context-shift that facilitates deferred utterance (his view can be understood as a fictionalist alternative to Predelli’s intentionalist theory designed to accommodate the observations regarding context-setting made by Corazza et al. and Romdenh-Romluc), I will argue that the absence of assertoric force disarms DUI altogether, thus removing the motivation for endorsing any form of context-shift in the cases under consideration.
I am grateful to an anonymous referee for the examples employed in this section, and for the suggestion to respond to them.
Along with a deliberate ambiguity in the second clause which is of no immediate relevance to our discussion.
References
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Acknowledgements
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the University of Southampton. I would like to thank the audience there, as well as an anonymous referee, for helpful comments.
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Stevens, G. Utterance at a distance. Philos Stud 143, 213–221 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-007-9199-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-007-9199-4