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Handbook of Philosophical Logic pp 87–120Cite as

Indexicals

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Part of the book series: Handbook of Philosophical Logic ((HALO,volume 10))

Abstract

The central examples of indexical expressions (in English) are the pronouns I and ‘we’, and temporal and spatial words like ‘now’, ‘yesterday’, ‘here’ and ‘there’. These indexicals are syntactically simple, and can be used to form complex indexical descriptions such as ‘my father’ and ‘all our yesterdays’ (but since plural expressions raise special problems, we shall focus in this essay on singular indexicals). The characteristic feature of an indexical expression is, roughly, that its associated object is not given once for all, as it is for a proper name. Rather, the associated object changes in some systematic way from context of use to context of use, and one task of any semantics of indexicals is to explain or articulate the system which governs such changes. The literature also usually includes with indexicals other kinds of expression which have a salient semantic feature that changes as the context of use changes; for instance, demonstratives, such as ‘that man’, and tense operators, such as ‘it will be the case that’; so we will count these as indexicals too.1

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tulane University, New Orleans, USA

    Graeme Forbes

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  1. Graeme Forbes
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. King’s College, London, UK

    D. M. Gabbay

  2. Centrum für Informations- und Sprachverarbeitung, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany

    F. Guenthner

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Forbes, G. (2003). Indexicals. In: Gabbay, D.M., Guenthner, F. (eds) Handbook of Philosophical Logic. Handbook of Philosophical Logic, vol 10. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-4524-6_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-4524-6_3

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