L’agence d’expertise indépendante INDEX, constituée d’architectes, d’artistes et de chercheurs, enquête sur les violences d’État en France et depuis la France. Dans cet entretien, iels expliquent comment iels réinvestissent politiquement la notion d’expertise dans les enquêtes policières, racontent leurs liens avec le collectif Forensic Architecture, explicitent ce qu’iels entendent par « vérité » dans les enquêtes en sources ouvertes et ce qu’iels mettent en place pour permettre une plus grande dissémination des outils de l’OSINT.

Frege held that indexical thoughts could be retained through changes of context that required a change of indexical term. I argue that Frege was partially right in that a singular mode of presentation can be retained through changes of indexical. There must, however, be a further mode of presentation that changes when the indexical term changes. This suggests that indexicals should be regarded as complex demonstratives; a change of indexical term is like a change between 'that φ' and 'that (...) ψ', where 'φ' and 'ψ' pick out relational properties that may nonetheless be conceived of by the thinker as intrinsic. (shrink)

It is widely thought that, in his later work An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth, Bertrand Russell argued that our natural languages could in principle do away with indexicals. This brief piece, by contrast, aims to show that, instead of suggesting the potential eliminability of such expressions, Russell outlined a semantic account of indexicals according to which such expressions fundamentally depend on the perspectival way in which they refer to worldly items. If correct, this proposal would not only (...) show that, in Russell’s later work, the meaning of expressions like indexicals is not exhaustively determined by the items they refer to: it would also show that Russell did not mean to eliminate indexicals from our natural languages at all. (shrink)

Two main methods for analysing de re readings of definite descriptions in intensional contexts coexist: that of evaluating the description in the actual world, whether by means of scope, actuality operators, or non-local world binding, and that of substituting another description, usually one expressing a salient or ‘vivid’ acquaintance relation to an attitude holder, prior to evaluation. Recent work on so-called descriptive indexicals suggests that contrary to common assumptions, both methods are needed, for different ends. This paper aims to (...) show that there is indeed a division of labour between the two methods of analysis and to identify criteria for choosing among alternative ways to model the second, substitutional method. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider whether tenses, temporal indexicals, and other indexicals are contextually dependent on the context of assessment (or a-contextual), rather than, as is usually thought, contextually dependent on the context of utterance (u-contextual). I begin by contrasting two possible linguistic norms, governing our use of context sensitive expressions, especially tenses and temporal indexicals (??2 and 3), and argue that one of these norms would make those expressions u-contextual, while the other would make them a-contextual (...) (?4). I then ask which of these two norms are followed by English speakers (?5). Finally, I argue that the existence of a-contextuality does not in any sense entail ?relativism? about truth (?6). (shrink)

Within the class of indexicals, a distinction is often made between “pure” or “automatic” indexicals on one hand, and demonstratives or “discretionary” indexicals on the other. The idea is supposed to be that certain indexicals refer automatically and invariably to a particular feature of the utterance context: ‘I’ refers to the speaker, ‘now’ to the time of utterance, ‘here’ to the place of utterance, etc. Against this view, I present cases where reference shifts from the speaker, (...) time, or place of utterance to some other object, time, or place. I consider and reject the claim that these counterexamples to the automatic indexical theory all involve non-literal uses of indexicals and argue that they cannot be explained away on the grounds that they involve conversational implicature or pretense. (shrink)

To avoid difficulties that arise when we appeal to speaker intentions or multiple rules to determine the meaning of indexicals, Cohen (2013) recently defends a conventionalist account of these terms that focuses on their context of tokening. Apart from some tricky cases already discussed in the literature, however, such an account faces a serious difficulty: in many speech acts, multiple apparent tokens are produced – for example when a speaker speaks on a telephone, and her utterance is heard both (...) where she speaks, and at the location of the receiver of the call. The ‘token-contextual’ account seems to imply that in such cases a speaker will simultaneously produce multiple contradictory utterances. Here I argue that to resolve such problems we cannot help but to invoke speaker intentions. However, by appealing to intentions at the level of the metaphysics of semantic tokens, rather than to decide their meaning, the token-contextualist can make this appeal without reintroducing the difficulties associated with intentionalist accounts that she hopes to avoid. The resulting metaphysics of semantic tokens is, interestingly, more complex than we might have expected. -/- . (shrink)

It is argued there is nothing special or deviant about the use of 'now' to refer to a time in the past (or about the use of 'here' to refer to a distant place) — no need to appeal to pragmatic mechanisms such as context-shifting to account for such uses. Such uses are puzzling only if one (mistakenly) maintains that 'here' and 'now' are pure indexicals. In the paper it is claimed that they are more similar to demonstratives than (...) to pure indexicals. Updated material on this can be found in *Truth-Conditional Pragmatics*, Chapter 6, 2010. (shrink)

Accounts for referential communication (and especially communication by means of definite descriptions and indexicals) in the mental file framework.

A simple view about “now” is that it picks out the time of the speech act in which it is used. A major advantage of this view is that it incorporates a semantical claim about reference in the larger framework of speech acts. However, the view cannot account for uses of “now” in so-called “answering machine” cases of speech acts, where we lack both clear intuitions and a widely accepted metaphysical view about their temporal locations. I first show that this (...) problem is not limited to indexicals and answering machines. I then propose a different token-reflexive, speech act-friendly view: that speakers set detonation conditions for tokens of “now”, which, when the conditions are met, pick out the time of their detonation. (shrink)

The received view about indexicals holds that they are directly referential expressions, and that the semantic contribution of an indexical consists of that thing or individual to which the indexical refers in the context of its utterance. The aim of this paper is to put forward a different picture. I argue that direct reference and indexicality are distinct and separate phenomena, even if they cooccur often. Still, it is the speaker who directly refers to the things that she is (...) talking about, and those things matter for the truth of her utterance. Indexicals, on the other hand, merely help the interpreter identify the speaker's intended reference. Typically, indexicals encode descriptive conditions that the context must meet to make the utterance true. For example, the demonstrative 'this' encodes the condition that the subject matter, ie that about which one is talking, should be salient and proximal to the speaker. The semantic contribution of an indexical, I suggest, consists precisely of such descriptive conditions. I will offer a formal account, dubbed contextual update semantics, and show how it captures the main conceptual motivation and how it handles embedded indexicals, which may seem problematic at a first glance. (shrink)

(1) Jenny is coming to visit me tonight. (2) I’m going to visit Jenny tonight. In these examples, it is where I am (my home, let us suppose) that is the center of the coming and going. This may suggest that the perspective point is always the perspective of the speaker, and that comings are always towards the speaker and that goings are away from the location of the speaker. But this isn’t necessarily so. For example, suppose that a colleague (...) from work calls me at home to find out why I’m late for a meeting. I could reply. (shrink)

In this paper, I advance a new view of the semantics of indexicals, using a paper by Quentin Smith as my starting point. I make use of Smith’s examples, refined and expanded upon by myself to argue, as Smith does, that the standard view, that indexicals refer to some prominent features of the context according to an invariant rule called the character, does not agree with a wide range of phenomena. I depart from Smith, however, in denying that (...) we need more complex rules, which he does not give, called metacharacters to account for all the deviations, and instead argue for a view of indexicals as just being special cases of demonstratives. I show how demonstratives can be substituted for indexicals to support this view, and I adduce recent work in the semantics of demonstratives to explain how it can work. (shrink)

Jason Stanley has argued that in order to obtain the desired readings of certain sentences, such as “In most of John’s classes, he fails exactly three Frenchmen”, we must suppose that each common noun is associated with a hidden indexical that may be either bound by a higher quantifier phrase or interpreted by the context. This paper shows that the desired readings can be obtained as well by interpreting nouns as expressing relations and without supposing that nouns are associated with (...) hidden indexicals. Stanley’s theory and the present alternative are not equivalent, however. They differ over the status of sentences such as “Every student is happy and some student is not happy”. On Stanley’s theory, this sentence will be true in some contexts, while on the present alternative it will be true in no context. Considerations in favor of the present theory’s verdict on such sentences are presented. The broader question at issue is the correct way to incorporate context-relativity into formal semantics. (shrink)

Demonstratives and Indexicals In the philosophy of language, an indexical is any expression whose content varies from one context of use to another. The standard list of indexicals includes pronouns such as “I”, “you”, “he”, “she”, “it”, “this”, “that”, plus adverbs such as “now”, “then”, “today”, “yesterday”, “here”, and “actually”. Other candidates include the tenses … Continue reading Demonstratives and Indexicals →.

In this paper we give some suggestions from etymology on the contrast between Kaplan’s direct reference theory and a neo-Fregean view on indexicals. After a short summary of the philosophical debate on indexicals (§1), we use some remarks about the hidden presence of a demonstrative root in all indexicals to derive some provisional doubts concerning Kaplan’s criticism of what he calls “sloppy thinker” (§2). To support those doubts, we will summarise some etymological data on the derivation of (...) the so-called “pure indexicals” from an original demonstrative root (§ 3). The aim of the paper is to consider etymological data as providing evidence for alternative theories of language and fostering new directions in linguistic and philosophical research on specific topics. (shrink)

Spinoza distinguishes between three grades of knowledge, (i) sense perception and hearsay; (ii) abstract scientific knowledge; (iii) intuitive reason. It is implied that our intellectual ideal should be to pass from the first to the second, and then from the second to the third. It is problematic, however, how such supersession of the first kind of knowledge is an intelligible ideal. For, on the face of it, it is this alone which can direct our attention on to those particulars (single (...) individuals) a better understanding of which is the main value of the second and third types of knowledge. But perhaps the third (if not, the second) kind of knowledge targets particulars from its own resources. However, it is doubtful that this is quite Spinoza's position. So there is something of a problem as to how he conceives the clearest knowledge of particulars which it makes sense to strive for. There is even a related problem as to how God can possess such knowledge, at least of particulars qua extended. An attempt is made to find a Spinozistic answer to these problems including a Spinozistic account of indexicals such as 'this'. (shrink)

This paper examines the roles of indexicals in explicating speakers’ intentions and constructing common ground in the context of a continuum with two extreme endpoints, the intracultural at one end, and the intercultural at the other, within the framework of the socio-cognitive approach proposed and developed by Kecskes and Kecskes and Zhang. Thirteen participants from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds were recruited to represent varying degrees on the intra- and intercultural continuum. They were divided into three groups: American English (...) speakers, speakers from Asian countries, and a group of speakers, each of whom represents linguistically and culturally different countries. Eight extracts were drawn from the data of up to three hours of recordings, including discussions on one topic, and retrospective interviews retrieving the speakers’ intentions for using deixis. The results reveal that the closer the interlocutors were towards the intercultural communicative context endpoint on the continuum, the more they employed four types of indexicals as common ground construction strategies. Those strategies included the explicit manifestation of intentions, clarification, and confirmation of referent identification in actual situational context, elicitation of information, disambiguation and explanation of similar salient specifics in their home culture in an effort to sustain cooperative communication. This study enhances our understanding of different functions of indexicals in interactions on the intra- and intercultural continuum, which resulted from different levels of context interpretation and common ground. (shrink)

The approach to the meaning of indexicals adopted in this paper is based on the theory known as Montague grammar. Accepting, in general, that kind of theory { especially in its modied version, which is due to Thomason and Kaplan 1 { I point out certain inadequacy in its treatment of the meaning of some indexical expressions and suggest some modication of its theoretical framework in order to avoid that shortcoming.