Demonstrative Reference And Cognitive Significance

RONALD LOEFFLER

DEMONSTRATIVE REFERENCE AND COGNITIVE SIGNIFICANCE

1. INTRODUCTION

I sit on a bench in a mountain valley, with good view to both entrance andexit of a little street tunneling in the bordering mountains. I see a blue carentering the tunnel and, a few seconds later, a blue car of the same typeleaving the tunnel on the other side. Based on these observations I form abelief with the content

� This ↗ [entering car] = this ↗ [leaving car]�.

It is a demonstrative belief, the kind of belief we make explicit by usingsentences with demonstrative pronouns as components. More specifically,it is a demonstrative identity belief representing the entities picked outas being the same. Still more specifically, it is a cognitively significantdemonstrative identity belief. As opposed to its trivial siblings

� This ↗ [entering car] = this ↗ [entering car]�

and

� This ↗ [leaving car] = this ↗ [leaving car]�

my belief, if true, is informative. After all, for all that I know I may havegotten it wrong. For all that I know, the car entering and the car leaving thetunnel, though of the same type, may be numerically different.

Yet if my belief is true, it is necessarily true. Everything, I take it, is ne-cessarily identical with itself. And demonstratives designate rigidly. Oncetheir reference is fixed, they – or better, anaphoric expressions dependingon them – can be used over and over again to pick out the object referredto, and only it, in all the possible states of affaires in which that objectfigures.1 Given rigid designation plus each thing’s necessary identity withitself, my cognitively significant demonstrative identity belief, if true, isnecessarily true.

Partially in order to account for rigid designation, the Direct ReferenceTheory holds that the components of demonstrative thoughts responsible

Synthese 128: 229–244, 2001.© 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

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for singular reference – the thoughts’ referential components, for short –are the objects referred to themselves. If the referents themselves are thethoughts’ referential components, rigid designation is guaranteed trivially.A well-known consequence of this step is that the Direct Reference The-ory has difficulties accounting for the cognitive significance of a belieflike mine formed in front of the tunnel. People without a commitmentto direct reference take the modes of presentation of such a belief – thatis, the features responsible for the belief’s cognitive significance – to beaspects of the belief’s referential components. Thus Fregeans account forthe cognitive significance of my belief by stipulating intensional semanticitems - senses, or Fregean modes of presentation - as my belief’s referentialcomponents.2 For them, my belief is interesting and its siblings are trivialbecause its content, but not theirs, consists in two different senses, bothreferring to the same car. Fodor and his allies, on the other hand, arguethat modes of presentation are syntactic features of mentalese tokens.3

They hold that my belief is cognitively significant because its two re-ferential components, as opposed to those of its trivial siblings, are twosyntactically different and coextensional singular mentalese terms. Yet ifthe referents themselves are the referential components of demonstrativebeliefs, as the Direct Reference Theory holds, neither option is open andmy belief formed in front of the tunnel, if true, should turn out to be astrivial as its uninformative relatives are.

Amongst those endorsing the Direct Reference Theory, nobody hasgrappled as hard with problems concerning the epistemology of index-ical thought as John Perry.4 Much attention has been devoted to Perry’soriginal version of coping with these problems.5 Yet as Howard Wettsteinhas shown, this version, although it solves a lot of problems, cannot handlecases like my demonstrative identity belief formed vis à vis the tunnel.6 Inresponse to Wettstein, Perry has substantially revised his original theoryabout a decade ago, a revision that unfortunately went by largely un-noticed. I briefly introduce the core of Perry’s more recent take, leavingunmentioned many interesting details. Then I take a look at how Perry’stheory deals with particular cases of demonstrative thinking. After thatI argue that Perry’s theory collapses into a descriptivist position. Whileable to account for both the cognitive value and the rigid designation ofdemonstrative beliefs, this position should be unacceptable for anybodywith a commitment to direct reference.

DEMONSTRATIVE REFERENCE AND COGNITIVE SIGNIFICANCE 231

2. PERRY’S THEORY

According to Perry’s revised theory, an indexical belief’s cognitive valueis determined by a systematic interplay between several propositional con-tents, all associated with an indexical utterance in virtue of the utterance’smeaning.7 No semantic or syntactic aspects of an indexical belief’s refer-ential components determine its cognitive value, contrary to what Fregeansor Fodorians would maintain, but rather additional propositional contents,associated with the utterance that expresses the belief. Two kinds of con-tent are crucial. First the content of the belief itself, which Perry callsinterchangeably the “official content”, the “incremental truth conditions”,or the “contentC” of an indexical utterance. This content is “what is said”first and foremost by performing the utterance. Given Perry’s commitmentto direct reference in particular and his notion of a proposition in general,the contentC of an indexical utterance with monadic predicate is a com-plex consisting in the referent itself and the property – or “condition”, asPerry calls properties more recently – designated by the monadic predicate.Second we have the content responsible for the belief’s cognitive value.Perry calls this content, again interchangeably, the “pure truth conditions”or the “contentM” of an indexical utterance. The contentM individuatesthe referent of the utterance descriptively. Thus both the contentC andthe contentM of an indexical utterance concern the same object: the ref-erent of the token-indexical in the utterance.8 But whereas the contentChas the referent itself as its referential component, given direct reference,the contentM singles that object out descriptively via an individuatingcondition. Perry calls this condition the “mode of presentation” of theutterance.9

According to Perry, the mode of presentation of an indexical utter-ance is determined by the type-specific meaning of the tokened indexical.Examples of such meanings for indexicals of English are:

This: any utterance of “this” designates x iff x is the mostsalient object in the context of the utterance.

I: any utterance of “I” designates x iff x is the speaker ofthe utterance.

Yesterday: any utterance of “yesterday” designates xiff x is the dayprevious to the day of the utterance.

Due to such type-specific meanings, indexical utterances (tokens) have aparticular referent in a context. On the face of it, these meanings just seemto be the semantic rules for indexicals that Kaplan called “characters” and

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Perry, in earlier writings, “roles”.10 However, there is a subtle difference.Characters are functions from a context of utterance to what Perry nowcalls contentC. They provide a referent in a context directly, without thehelp of a mediating condition.11 Perry has come around in the meantimeto reject this view.12 He now takes the type-specific meaning of a tokenedindexical as a function from the context of utterance to a mediating con-dition individuating the referent descriptively, rather than a function fromcontext to referent itself. This mediating condition is a certain relation inwhich one thing only, the referent, stands to the utterance itself. Dependingon the type of indexical that is tokened, one thing only is most salient inthe context of the utterance, is the speaker of the utterance, or is the dayprevious to the day of the utterance, etc. Thus, according to Perry, thetype-specific meanings of indexical utterances, instead of determining thereferents directly in the contexts of utterance, determine conditions relativeto the utterances and true of the referents alone. According to Perry, thesemediating conditions are the utterances’ modes of presentation. Corres-pondingly, the contentM of an indexical utterance with monadic predicateis a complex consisting in such a Perryan mode of presentation, with itsvariable bound, and the property designated by the predicate.13

Take, for the sake of illustration, my demonstrative utterance q of “thisis blue” about the car as it enters the tunnel. The contentC of q is a com-plex consisting in the car and the condition of being blue. Couched in thenotation of Perry’s 1990 paper, q’s contentC is:

〈x is blue; the car〉.The mode of presentation of q is the condition

〈x is most salient to the speaker at the time of y; x, q〉.And q’s contentM is

〈One thing is most salient to the speaker at the time of y andblue; q〉.

Thus both the contentC and the contentM of q have individuals as compon-ents. But only the contentC contains q’s referent (the car). The contentMis in fact a meta-proposition containing the utterance q itself, but not itsreferent. ContentM singles that referent out descriptively and relative to q,via q’s mode of presentation.


3. PERRY’S THEORY APPLIED

Let’s take a brief look at Perry’s theory in operation. Suppose that I forma belief, to be expressed by a demonstrative utterance r of “this is blue”,about the blue car leaving the tunnel and assume that the leaving car is theentering car. The contentC of this utterance is the same as the contentC ofq:

〈x is blue; the car〉.

But r, being numerically different from q, has a different contentM:

〈One thing is most salient to the speaker at the time of y and isblue; r〉.

Given this difference in contentM, Perry’s theory assigns different cognit-ive values to q and r, although both utterances have the same contentC –and this is how it ought to be.14

How about my cognitively significant demonstrative identity beliefformed vis á vis the tunnel? An utterance s of “this is this” expresses thisbelief.15 Assuming that the entering car is the leaving car, the contentC ofs is

〈x is identical with x; the car〉.

How are the two modes of presentation, each corresponding to one ofthe tokened demonstratives in s, indexed in order to explain the belief’scognitive significance? If they were indexed to the utterance s the modesof presentation would turn out to have the same content:

〈x is most salient to the speaker at the time of y; x, s〉.

Thus my identity belief would come out trivial, contrary to what we want.Instead of indexing to s as a whole, each mode of presentation couldbe indexed to its respective token demonstrative in s. On this analysis,the difference in indices would ensure that we have indeed modes ofpresentation with different contents and, accordingly, Perry’s theory wouldassign cognitive significance to my belief. However, indexing the modesof presentation to different demonstrative tokens in the utterance, insteadof to the utterance as a whole, would also make my belief’s boring siblingscognitively significant. After all, they too are expressed by utterances of“this is this”.

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A number of people have pointed out this as well as related problems.16

Since the discussion below is unrelated to these difficulties, I abstain fromdeveloping general strategies on behalf of Perry to resolve them. Withregard to the specific case at hand, Perry could perhaps account for thecognitive significance of my demonstrative identity belief by holding thatits two modes of presentation, instead of being indexed to the utterance s orthe token demonstratives in s, are indexed to suitable other demonstrativeutterances about the car, performed while it is entering and while it is leav-ing the tunnel. Candidate utterances would be, for example, the utterancesq and r. On this analysis – indexing to accompanying utterances ratherthan to s or the token demonstratives in s – my demonstrative identitybelief, but not its boring siblings, would come out cognitively significant.Which is what we would want.

As these reflections indicate, Perry’s theory does not work quite assmoothly as it appears to work at first glance. But let’s leave this discussionanyway and turn to the main point.

4. AN ARGUMENT AGAINST PERRY’S THEORY

The point of stipulating modes of presentation is epistemic. Modes ofpresentation are supposed to be the reason why, for example, your beliefb1

�This ↗ [Venus in the morning] is a planet�

does not justify your belief b2

�This ↗ [Venus in the evening] is a planet�,

unless you also believe of the heavenly bodies picked out on the two occa-sions that they are the same. Again, Fregeans and Fodorians take modes ofpresentation to be semantic or syntactic features of beliefs over and abovethe extensions of their contents. If so, modes of presentation render theinference from b1 alone to b2 invalid. And Fregeans and Fodorians appealto this logical relation between b1 and b2 to explain why b1 alone does notjustify b2.17

Perry’s strategy seems to be different. He holds that b1 and b2 have thevery same content – the contentC of the utterances expressing these beliefsis the same. Hence inferring b2 from b1 alone does not violate the rules oflogic; the inference is just an instance of p, therefore p. Therefore, Perrythinks that he cannot appeal to the logical relation between b1 and b2 in


order to explain their epistemic relation. As seen, he instead explains thisepistemic relation in terms of certain other propositions – the contentsM

of the utterances expressing b1 and b2. According to Perry, you are notjustified to form b2 on the basis of b1 alone because you associate differentcontentsM with b1 and b2 respectively.

Yet this cannot be the whole story. If the contentsM were just associatedwith b1 and b2 the problem why b1 and b2 differ in cognitive value wouldremain. It would not be obvious at all how your associations could preventb1 from being a sufficient reason for b2. Your associations would not re-place b1 and b2. They rather would presumably just be further beliefs.18

Having these beliefs, you still would be in state b1 and state b2. And b2,assumed by the Direct Reference Theory to have the same content as b1,is straightforwardly inferable from b1. Hence if the contentsM were justassociated with b1 and b2, they could not in the least help explain why b1alone does not justify b2.

In order to get matters straight Perry has to assume more than a merelyassociative relation between demonstrative beliefs and certain contentsM.And in fact he does seem to assume more. According to Perry, the semanticprinciple governing our understanding of demonstrative expressions is:

An utterance of a token of “This X” refers to an object y if y is the object of the kinddesignated by the utterance of “X” that is most salient to the audience of the producer ofthe token at the time of the utterance.19

According to this principle, when performing a demonstrative utter-ance we do not just associate a contentM, derived from this principle, withthe directly referential demonstrative belief expressed. We rather identifythe object that contentM singles out descriptively with the referent of thetokened demonstrative (the belief contentC’s directly referential compon-ent). And this identification, rather than a mere association of a contentMwith a contentC, has to determine the cognitive value of the demonstrativebelief.20 Your beliefs b1 and b2, say, differ in cognitive value because yourecognize the referent of b1 as the thing most salient in the context of theutterance expressing b1 and a planet, and the referent of b2 as the thingmost salient in the context of the utterance expressing b2 and a planet,but you may fail to recognize that both things are the same. Thus certainidentity propositions, rather than merely associated contentsM, have to beresponsible for why b1 alone does not justify b2. In the case of your beliefsb1 and b2 as well as their respective utterances ub1 and ub2 these identitypropositions are:

〈x is most salient in the context of y and a planet; Venus, ub1〉,(pb1)

236 RONALD LOEFFLER

and

〈x is most salient in the context of y and a planet; Venus, ub2〉.(pb2)

Yet of course, these identity propositions can again not just be associ-ated with your beliefs b1 and b2. If they were, the same line of argumentwould apply once more: b1 alone, being type-identical with b2, should stilljustify b2. But if they cannot just be associated with b1 and b2, the onlyoption left for Perry is, I think, to assume that the identity propositions(pb1) and (pb2) themselves are the contents of b1 and b2 respectively. Thatis, instead of explaining b1’s and b2’s difference in cognitive value in termsof an interplay between directly referential propositions (the contentsC

of b1 and b2) and descriptive meta-propositions (the contentM associatedwith b1 and b2), Perry has to hold, if I am right, that this difference incognitive value is due to an interplay between directly referential and de-scriptive elements in certain identity-propositions (the propositions (pb1)and (pb2)), and that these identity-propositions are the contents of b1 andb2 respectively. If so, b1 and b2 differ in cognitive value because they differin content. And b1 alone does not justify b2 because the inference from b1to b2 is invalid. Thus I hold that Perry has to join, after all, Fregeans andFodorians in treating the cognitive values of demonstrative beliefs as afunction of the logical features of their contents.

Perry could object to this train of thought. He could maintain that thewhole line of argument is based on what he calls the “principle of uniquecontent”. This is the principle that indexical utterances have only onecontent: official content or contentC.21 As the presentation of Perry’s the-ory in the previous section already suggested, Perry rejects this principle,adopting a position that he calls “critical referentialism”.

There is no reason to postulate that an utterance has a unique “semantic content” thatencapsulates all of the information it semantically conveys. [. . . ] the referentalist can em-ploy other aspects of content, such as contentM, to explain the motivations and impact oflanguage on semantically competent speakers and listeners, without having to elevate it toofficial content. [. . . ] There are many other propositions systematically associated with anutterance in virtue of the meaning of the words used in it, which can and must enter into theexplanation of the significance the utterance has for competent speakers and listeners.22

An indexical utterance has essentially both a contentM and a contentC,according to critical referentialism (as well as other contents that are irrel-evant in the present context).23 Perry could hold that my line of argumentgot off the ground only by neglecting this doctrine. Only by treating thecontentsC of your beliefs b1 and b2 and the contentsM of the utterancesexpressing them separately, he may argue, could I force the contents (pb1)and (pb2) in as the allegedly actual contents of b1 and b2. Yet given critical


referentialism, it is essential to the contentsC of b1 and b2 respectively tointerplay with the contentsM of the utterances expressing them. And Perrycould hold that this interplay suffices to explain b1’s and b2’s difference incognitive value. No appeal to (pb1) and (pb2) is needed.

In order to assess this potential rejoinder, we have to clarify what ex-actly the nature of the interplay is between a contentC and its contentsM.Above I took it to be associative, and this assumption was well motivated.For example, the passage just quoted says that “many [. . . ] propositions[are] systematically associated with an utterance in virtue of the meaningof the words used in it [. . . ]”. This suggests that an utterance mediates, invirtue of its meaning, between its contentC and its contentM. Since Perrytakes the relation between each content and the utterance as “systematic-ally associative”, the resulting relation between the two contents, mediatedby the utterance, has to be associative too.24 Yet the assumption of an asso-ciative relation between contentC and contentM got my line of argument offthe ground. Therefore, this relation has to be stronger for Perry’s potentialrejoinder to rebut my line of argument.

But can it be stronger? The relation between contentC and contentMis certainly not logical or conceptual. For example, the contentC of yourbelief b1 is

〈x is a planet; Venus〉.And this content does not imply the corresponding contentM

〈One thing is most salient in the context of x and a planet; ub1〉.Venus’ being a planet does not imply that the utterance ub1 exists, leavealone that any planet is most salient in its context. Nor does the reversehold. The fact that a certain planet is most salient in the context of ub1does not imply Venus’ existence, leave alone its astronomical status as aplanet. Thus conceptually speaking, the contentC and the contentM of ub1are very far apart.

Could some non-conceptual relation between content C and contentM,stronger than a mere association, explain the cognitive value of a beliefwith contentC? It is hard to imagine what such a relation could be. In thequote above, Perry talks about contentM as an “aspect of content”. Thismay suggest that, contrary to the doctrine of critical referentialism, anindexical utterance has indeed only one fundamental content, only aspectsof which can be made explicit and which mediates between contentM andcontentC as its aspects. Yet first, I very much doubt that Perry’s criticalreferentialism follows such a Hegelian thought-pattern. Second, if it did

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indeed follow such a pattern, the relation between contentM and contentCshould be conceptual, since some mysterious fundamental content medi-ates between the two. But as just seen, conceptually speaking contentMand contentC are very far away from each other. This indicates that nomysterious fundamental content mediates between the two.

In the light of these reflections I take it that Perry cannot postulate morethan an associative relation between contentM and contentC and that myargument is consistent with the doctrine of critical referentialism. Thus Ihold that Perry has to alter his theory, assuming propositions like (pb1) and(pb2) as the contents of demonstrative beliefs. In the reminder of this paper,whenever I use expressions like “demonstrative content” or “demonstrativebelief”, I thereby mean propositional contents like (pb1) and (pb2), or be-liefs with contents of this form respectively. To hold that Perry should takepropositions like (pb1) and (pb2) as the contents of demonstrative beliefs iscertainly a major revision of his theory. Still even if we carry out this step,the theory maintains its distinctly Perryan spirit so far. The contents ofdemonstrative beliefs still have directly referential components. Moreover,the cognitive values of these beliefs remain functions of precisely thosedescriptive elements that Perry takes to be modes of presentation. Themain alteration so far is only that, instead of treating the directly refer-ential element and the Perryan mode of presentation of a demonstrativeutterance as components of separate propositions that are systematicallyassociated with the utterance, the revised theory treats them as parts of aunique demonstrative content expressed by the utterance.25

Let’s take a closer look at the altered theory. The theory has to meettwo constraints. First, the cognitive values of demonstrative beliefs haveto come out right. The descriptive element of a demonstrative content – itsPerryan mode of presentation – is supposed to take care of this constraint.Second, demonstrative contents still have to designate rigidly. The directlyreferential component of a demonstrative content is supposed to handle thisdemand. In order to see whether the altered theory can accommodate bothrequirements, let’s switch to a demonstrative belief with modal elements.Take a token-belief b3, to be expressed by a demonstrative utterance ub3,with a content of the form

�This ↗ [α] is necessarily F�.(1)

According to Perry’s unrevised theory, ub3’s contentC would be

〈x is necessarily F ; α〉.The corresponding contentM would be

〈One thing is most salient in the context of y and necessarily F ;ub3〉.


Thus according to the revised theory, the content of b3 should be

〈One thing is most salient in the context of y and is identicalwith x and is necessarily F ; α, ub3〉.

Regimented and put into corner quotes, b3’s content thus has the logicalform

�(∃x)α = x ∧ [xRub3 ∧(y)(yRub3 → y = x)] ∧ �Fα�,26(2)

with “R” standing for the being-most-salient-in-the-context-of relationthat the referent α uniquely bears to ub3, and the whole square-bracketedchunk as the descriptive component determining the cognitive value of b3.Yet this cannot be right. The referent α itself is part of (2), according to thedoctrine of direct reference. So if α = β, b3 alone justifies a belief b3∗

�(∃x)β = x ∧ [xRub3 ∧(y)(yRub3 → y = x)] ∧ �Fβ�.(3)

Take your demonstrative belief b1 about Venus in the morning. On thecurrent account, the content of this belief is that it (Venus in the morning) ismost salient in the context of ub1 and a planet. Given direct reference plusVenus’ identity with itself over time, this belief alone should justify yourbelief b1∗ about Venus in the evening, that it is the most salient object in thecontext of ub1 and a planet – which is unacceptable. This insight seems toreveal a dilemma. As long as demonstrative contents have directly referen-tial components, as the Direct Reference Theory holds, Perry’s theory is inprinciple blocked from meeting the epistemic constraints on demonstrativethoughts. For any demonstrative belief we can find possible coreferentialbeliefs that, according to Perry’s theory but contrary to epistemic prin-ciples, should be justified by that demonstrative belief alone. On the otherhand, if we do away with referents as component parts, only descriptiveelements remain and we appear to loose the means to account for rigiddesignation.27

As it turns out, however, this last impression is wrong and there is nodilemma. In (2), α’s being in the scope of the modal operator guaranteestrivially that α gets picked out in all the possible worlds where α exists.But exactly the same can be achieved by quantifying into the scope of themodal operator.

�(∃x)α = x ∧ [xRub3 ∧ (y)(yRub3 → y = x)] ∧ �Fx�(4)

is logically equivalent to (2). (4) individuates α with respect to the actualworld and represents it to be necessarily F . The variable in the scope of the

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modal operator picks out the object, and only it, individuated descriptivelywith respect to the actual world, in all the possible worlds where that objectexists. Of course, (4) still cannot be the logical form of the content of b3.If α = β, b3 alone justifies a belief b3∗∗

�(∃x)β = x ∧ [xRub3 ∧ (y)(yRub3 → y = x)] ∧ �Fx�,(5)

and we don’t want that.The troublemaker is the identification in (4) consisting partially in the

direct referent α. In (2) this element ensured the identity of the direct refer-ent with the thing singled out descriptively. That is, in (2) this identificationwas the joint between matters concerning rigid designation and mattersconcerning cognitive value. Yet as just seen we can take care of rigiddesignation by quantifying into the scope of the modal operator, instead ofhaving the rigidly designated thing itself sitting there. Hence the troublingidentification is redundant and can be dropped. So we wind up with

�(∃x)[xRub3 ∧ (y)(yRub3 → y = x)] ∧ �Fx�.(6)

This should be, I hold, the logical form of the content of b3, according toPerry’s theory. Since (6) does not have referents as component parts, andsince moreover the heart of Perry’s modes of presentation – individuationof the referent as the only thing standing in a certain relation to an utterancetoken - is preserved, contents like (6) can be expected to meet the epistemicconstraints on demonstrative thoughts. For example, the content of mycognitively significant demonstrative identity belief formed vis à vis thetunnel has, on this account, the (tedious) logical form

�(∃x)(∃y)[xRua ∧ (v)(vRua → v = x)

∧yRub ∧ (w)(wRub → w = y)] ∧ x = y)�,

with ua and ub being, in the light of my remark at the end of Section 3,accompanying demonstrative utterances concerning the car as it enters andas it leaves the tunnel. And one of its trivial siblings would come down to

�(∃x)[xRua ∧ (y)(yRua → y = x)] ∧ x = x)�.

Obviously the former proposition reflects cognitive significance and thelatter triviality.


5. CONCLUSION

What have we done? If my line of reasoning is correct, Perry’s theory hasto be stripped of all its directly referential elements. No referent constitutesa content of the form (6). Thus Perry’s theory ceases to be a species of theDirect Reference Theory. More significantly, Perry’s theory collapses, orso I argued, into a descriptivist position. But if so it turns out that, contraryto common wisdom, Descriptivism is compatible with at least one kind ofrigid designation: the rigid designation of demonstratives and other index-icals. Finally, if my line of argument is sound, Perry’s theory collapses intoan internalist account of demonstrative contents. No external objects arepart of such contents.

I do not have a knockdown argument against the position that we ar-rived at. However, I doubt that it is an attractive one. Kaplan seems tohave been mainly motivated to develop the Direct Reference Theory inorder to capture the striking “directness” of indexical and demonstrativereference.28 Yet the theory we ended up with is descriptivist rather thandirectly referential. And descriptivism cannot capture the “directness” ofdemonstrative reference that struck Kaplan so much.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Arthur Fine, David Hull, Michelle Little, andMeredith Williams, as well as three anonymous reviewers - two Synthesereviewers and one reviewer who commented on a very different early ver-sion of this paper – for extremely helpful criticism and suggestions onearlier drafts of this paper.

NOTES

1 Cf. Kaplan (1989a).2 Cf. e.g., McDowell (1984), Evans (1981, 1982, Ch. 6.2), Peacocke (1983, Chs. 5–6).3 Cf. e.g., Fodor (1990, 166–72). For an elaborated theory of indexical reference alongFodorian lines, cf. Segal (1989).4 Other Direct Reference Theorists ignore these problems, arguing that the Direct Refer-ence Theory is a semantic theory and that it therefore does not have to deal with questionsconcerning cognitive values. Cf. Wettstein (1986). For a comment on this view, cf. Perry(1988).5 Cf. Perry (1977, 1979).6 Cf. Wettstein (1986), Perry (1988) (plus the postscript in Perry (1993, 245–7)). Wettsteinuses a true and cognitively significant instance of “he is he” as his example. Cf. Wettstein(1986, 196).

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7 Cf. for the following Perry (1990), in particular pp. 180–6 and Perry (1997). For thesake of brevity I talk in the following paragraphs about indexicals in general, takingdemonstratives as a species of them.8 Perry draws a terminological distinction between utterances and tokens. The former areintentional actions – speech acts – the latter traces, if any, of such acts, such as scribbleson paper or traces on tapes. (Cf. Perry (1997, 592).) It suffices for my purposes if I use thewords interchangeably here, meaning in either case what Perry means by “utterance”.9 At different places Perry mentions at least two further kinds of content, which he calls“contentD” and “refocusing truth conditions” respectively (cf. Perry (1997, 601; 1990,181–2). Neither content concerns the core of Perry’s doctrine of indexical reference.10 Cf. e.g., Kaplan (1989a, 505–7), Perry (1977, 480–1).11 “The ‘direct’ of ‘direct reference’ means unmediated by any propositional component,not unmediated simpliciter. The directly referential term goes directly to its referent, dir-ectly in the sense that it does not first pass through the proposition”. (Kaplan 1989b, 569).Cf. also Kaplan (1989a, 483–4).12 Cf. for Perry’s recent critique of Kaplan’s view (Perry 1997, 598–9).13 In his 1990 paper, Perry indicates that there are other kinds of modes of presentationtoo, which he describes as “ways of thinking” about an object that allow one to “recog-nize” it “in a variety of contexts” (Perry 1990, 183). Perry does not specify the nature ofthese modes of presentation, nor whether they are relevant for indexical thinking. In thefollowing I will ignore them, assuming that associations of the contentsM just introduceddetermine the cognitive value of indexical beliefs in at least some cases, according toPerry’s theory. My discussion concerns these cases only.14 Given that the demonstrative beliefs expressed by q and r do not differ in any intrinsicrespect, the question is whether these are indeed numerically different beliefs. If Perrydoes not want to respond affirmatively to this question, he could perhaps hold that q andr express the same token-belief – a belief whose cognitive value changes over time. Thechallenge for Perry would then be to explain this change in terms of his theory.15 Given the crucial role that utterances play for the epistemology of indexical beliefs,Perry has indeed to hold, it seems to me, that all such beliefs are related to actual utterances.These utterances do not have to be public – one can engage in indexical thinking withoutmuttering or scribbling anything – but they have to be at least actual utterances in forointerno.16 One related problem is that Perry’s theory implies, as it stands, that different demonstrat-ive utterances always express beliefs with different cognitive values – because cognitivevalues are internally tied to particular utterances. Yet it seems clear that, say, two utterancesof “This is red”, made by the same person in the same context about a red object, donot express beliefs that would differ in cognitive value. Cf. Corazza and Dokic (1992,187–190). Cf. also Majhi (1997, 231–233).17 For those who wonder how it could be otherwise it is worth mentioning that in hisoriginal theory, Perry distinguished sharply between belief states and their contents. Andhe treated, in an intuitively plausible way, cognitive values as a function of the non-logicalfeatures of belief states, as opposed to the logical features of their contents.18 Actually Perry is vague with regard to this point. He says that if “someone has masteredlanguage, they will be attuned to the principles that govern relations between uses of termsand their references, even if they cannot articulate them and do not have the conceptsnecessary to believe them” (Perry 1990, 188; Perry’s emphasis). The challenge for Perry


is, of course, to spell out what this “attunement”, so crucial for his theory of cognitivesignificance, consists in if not in certain beliefs.19 Perry (1990, 181; emphasis added).20 It has to be emphasized that Perry himself is very clear about this in his 1990 paper.He holds that the crucial identification is brought about via associating a proposition thatmediates between an indexical utterance’s contentM and its contentC. Perry calls this me-diating proposition the “refocusing truth condition” of the indexical utterance. In the caseof your belief t , the refocusing truth condition would be something like 〈x is the thing mostsalient in the context of t ; x is a planet〉. Cf. Perry (1990, 181–2).21 Cf. Perry (1990, 182). In his 1997 paper, Perry calls the assumption that the principle ofunique content holds the “fallacy of misplaced information”. Cf. Perry (1997, 606).22 Perry (1997, 606).23 Cf. footnotes 9 and 20.24 In his 1990 paper, Perry elaborates on this associative relation between utterance-meaning and content by comparing them with Humean constant conjunctions: “TheHumean picture is very simple. What gets us beyond the confines of any matter of fact aregeneral principles. [. . . ] Now think of the conventions of language, as associating typesof utterances with types of situations they describe, and thus as assigning truth conditionsto utterances. These conventions also generate content. [. . . ] Types of utterances are notconstantly conjoined with the situations of the type that language conventionally associateswith them. Sometimes people lie, and sometimes they just do not get things straight. Butthe mechanism of content is the same: general principles that take us from the type of oneevent to another type of event identified in terms of the objects involved in the first event”(Perry 1990, 180; emphasis added).25 The alteration requires an adjustment. Demonstrative assertions have now to be taken asexpressions of partial belief contents only. A demonstrative assertion is a claim about anexternal object, not a claim about an utterance. Accordingly “what is said” by performing ademonstrative assertion has to consist only in those components of a demonstrative contentthat correspond to Perry’s original contentC. Perry’s original theory contains a similarclaim: only contentC is “what is said” by performing an indexical utterance, not contentM– although the latter also is a content of the utterance. Cf. Perry (1997, 599).26 Given the commutativity of conjunction, the square brackets are redundant; they onlyserve the purpose here of making salient the descriptive elements responsible for cognitivevalues.27 The problem is that the descriptive elements, responsible for cognitive values, do notdesignate rigidly. They only single out an individual via a continguent relational property.Cf. Perry (1990, 173; 1993, 27–8).28 Cf. Kaplan (1989a, 483–4; 1989b, 569).

REFERENCES

Corazza, E. and J. Dokic: 1992, ‘On the Cognitive Significance of Indexicals’, Phil. Stud.66, 183–96.

Evans, G.: 1981, ‘Understanding Demonstratives’, in G. Evans, Collected Papers, Claren-don Press, Oxford, pp. 291–321.

Evans, G.: 1982, The Varieties of Reference, Clarendon Press, Oxford.

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Fodor, J. A.: 1990, ‘Substitution Arguments and the Individuation of Beliefs’, in J. A.Fodor, A Theory of Content and Other Essays, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, pp. 161–176.

Kaplan, D.: 1989a, ‘Demonstratives. An Essay on the Semantics, Logic, Metaphysics, andEpistemology of Demonstratives and Other Indexicals’, in J. Almog, J. Perry, and H.Wettstein (eds), Themes from Kaplan, Oxford University Press, Oxford, NY, pp. 481–563.

Kaplan, D.: 1989b, ‘Afterthoughts’, in J. Almog, J. Perry, and H. Wettstein (eds), Themesfrom Kaplan, Oxford University Press, Oxford, NY, pp. 481–563.

Majhi, R. C.: 1997, ‘John Perry on Cognitive Significance’, Indian PhilosophicalQuarterly 24, 225–237.

McDowell, J.: 1984, ‘De Re Senses’, in Ch. Wright (ed.), Frege. Tradition and Influence,Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 98–109.

Peacocke, Ch.: 1983, Sense and Content. Experience, Thought, and Their Relations,Clarendon Press, Oxford.

Perry, J.: 1977, ‘Frege on Demonstratives’, The Philosophical Review 86, 474–497.Reprinted in J. Perry: 1993, pp. 3–26.

Perry, J.: 1979, ‘The Problem of Essential Indexicals’, Nous 13, pp. 3–21. Reprinted in J.Perry: 1993, pp. 33–50.

Perry, J.: 1988, ‘Cognitive Significance and New Theories of Reference’, Nous 22, 1–18.Reprinted in J. Perry: 1993, pp. 227–245.

Perry, J.: 1990, ‘Individuals in Informational and Intentional Content’, in E. Villanueva(ed.), Information, Semantics, and Epistemology, Cambridge University Press, Cam-bridge, UK, pp. 172–89. Reprinted in J. Perry: 1993, pp. 279–300.

Perry, J.: 1993, The Problem of Essential Indexicals and Other Essays, Oxford UniversityPress, Oxford, NY.

Perry, J.: 1997, ‘Indexicals and Demonstratives’, in B. Hale and Ch. Wright (eds.), ACompanion to the Philosophy of Language, Blackwell, Oxford, pp. 586–612.

Segal, G.: 1989, ‘The Return of the Individual’, Mind 93, 39–57.Searle, J.: 1983, Intentionality. An Essay in the Philosophy of Mind, Cambridge University

Press, Cambridge, UK.Wettstein, H.: 1986, ‘Has Semantics Rested on a Mistake?’, The Journal of Philosophy 83,

185–209.

Department of PhilosophyNorthwestern UniversityEvanston, IL 60208U.S.A.

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Demonstrative Reference And Cognitive Significance