Fiction as a Base of Interpretation Contexts

Synthese 153 (1):23-47 (2006)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

In this paper, I want to deal with the problem of how to find an adequate context of interpretation for indexical sentences that enables one to account for the intuitive truth-conditional content which some apparently puzzling indexical sentences like “I am not here now” as well as other such sentences contextually have. In this respect, I will pursue a fictionalist line. This line allows for shifts in interpretation contexts and urges that such shifts are governed by pretense, which has to be understood in terms of socially shared make-believe games. By appealing to pretense so conceived, I will show that the fictionalist perspective is halfway between an intentionalist perspective, according to which the above indexical sentences have to be interpreted in a shifted intended context, (this perspective is primarily defined by Predelli 1998, Analysis 58, 107; Mind and Language 13, 400) and a conventionalist perspective, according to which indexical reference shifts in accordance with a conventional setting. (For this perspective, cf. Corazza et al. 2002, Philosophical Studies 107, See also Corazza 2004, Reflecting the Mind: Indexicality and Quasi-Indexicality, Oxford University Press). Finally, I will claim that the fictionalist analysis of cases of non-ordinary uses of indexicals like “here” and “now” can be retained in face of a new alternative analysis of those cases in terms of an ‘unbound anaphora’ – theory (cf. Corazza 2004, Synthese 138, 145).

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 103,486

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Reflecting the Mind: Indexicality and Quasi-Indexicality.Eros Corazza - 2004 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK.
I.K. Romdenh-Romluc - 2006 - Philosophical Studies 128 (2):257-283.
Does the truth-conditional theory of sense work for indexicals?Mark Textor - 2010 - Nordic Journal of Philosophical Logic 6 (2):119-137.
Constructing Contexts.Brett Sherman - 2015 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 2.
Perspectival Indexicality in Fiction.Zoltán Vecsey - 2013 - Journal of Philosophical Research 38:367-376.
Contexts: A Study in the Semantics of Indexical Expressions.Stefano Predelli - 1997 - Dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
172 (#141,921)

6 months
12 (#239,387)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Alberto Voltolini
University of Turin

Citations of this work

Normative Fiction‐Making and the World of the Fiction.Manuel García-Carpintero - 2019 - Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 77 (3):267-279.
Semantics of fictional terms.Manuel García-Carpintero - 2019 - Teorema: International Journal of Philosophy 38 (2):73-100.
I Am Still Not Here Now.Stefano Predelli - 2011 - Erkenntnis 74 (3):289-303.

View all 25 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Demonstratives: An Essay on the Semantics, Logic, Metaphysics and Epistemology of Demonstratives and other Indexicals.David Kaplan - 1989 - In Joseph Almog, John Perry & Howard Wettstein, Themes From Kaplan. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 481-563.
Themes From Kaplan.Joseph Almog, John Perry & Howard Wettstein (eds.) - 1989 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Afterthoughts.David Kaplan - 1989 - In Joseph Almog, John Perry & Howard Wettstein, Themes From Kaplan. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 565-614.
I am not here now.Stefano Predelli - 1998 - Analysis 58 (2):107-115.

View all 18 references / Add more references