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De Se and Descartes:A New

Semanticsfor Indexicals
EDDY M. ZEMACH
THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY OF JERUSALEM

The propositional theory of belief has recently come under heavy

fire from various quarters. In the present article I wish to examine
one such line of attack: the arguments it uses, the evidence it brings
against the propositional theory, and the alternative accounts offered by its standard bearers. Those who lack the time or inclination to follow me down this torturous path may wish to know
that my conclusion is a vindication of the propositional theory,
albeit in a reformed form, enriched by a new, unorthodox device.
Robert Stalnaker' summarizes the propositional theory in two
theses:
A.

Belief is a relation between an animate subject and a prop-

osition.

B. Propositions have truth values, and their truth values do not

vary with time, place, or person.2
If belief is not given a mere behavioristic characterization and (e.g.,
Fodor's 3) mental sentences are to be recognized as (at least possible) representations of beliefs, a third thesis is called for:
C.

Some mental entities express propositions.

These mental entities need not be Fodor's sentences of Mentalese:

as argued by Castafieda4 if it is possible for one to refer to something by merely thinking, and thinking something of it, then some
referring devices and some proposition-expressing sentences are
mental entities.
The attack on the propositional theory of belief to be discussed
in this article takes its cue from the claim that indexicals and quasiindicators cannot be replaced (salva veritate) by descriptive terms
181

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in certain belief sentences, referred to as 'de se belief sentences'.

This proves, it is then argued, that some (and perhaps all, as Lewis
and Chisholm think) of the sentences embedded in belief sentences
can not be given a de dicto interpretation, and hence do not express
propositions. Let us call this view, that the objects of (some, or
all) beliefs are not propositions, the De Se Thesis.
Are there, then, ineliminable indexicals in belief sentences? If
so, can these sentences be interpreted de dicto? If not, does this
prove the De Se Thesis?
In order to answer the first question, let us try to replace the
indexical terms in a belief sentence by coreferential names or definite descriptions, without thereby changing their truth conditions
(and, therefore, their meaning). Take, e.g., Castanieda's famous
example. If the editor of Soul does not know that he is the editor

of Soul, then it seems that

(1)

The editor of Soul believes that he is a millionaire.

may differ in truth value from

(2) The editor of Soulbelieves that the editor of Soulis a millionaire.
when (2) is read de dicto. It is argued that the same is true of any
name or definite description of the editor of Soul substituted for
the second occurrence of 'the editor of Soul' in (2). I shall call the
said argument, The Irreducibility Argument. The evidence for this
argument is that the editor of Soul, being truthful and completely
candid, may be willing to assert a token of
(3)

I am a millionaire.

while dissenting from

(4) The editor of Soul is a millionaire.
(or vice versa: assent to (4) and dissent from (3)). This may happen
if the editor believes (erroneously) that someone else (not he, himself) is the editor of Soul. We shall get the same disparity in readiness to assent to (3) and (4), and, therefore, in the truth conditions
of (1) and (2), if we substitute a proper name for the definite
description in (4) and in the sentence embedded in (2): the editor
of Soul may have forgotten that the said name is his name.
Before we go any further, let us ask why do we expect such
indexicals to be replaceable, salva veritate, by coreferential terms.
Failure of substitutivity is one of the hallmarks of de dicto interpreted
belief sentences. If we wish to interpret (1) and (2) de dicto, why
should truth value be preserved through substitution of corefer-

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DE SE AND DESCARTES

entials? An additional argument is needed: let me call it The Vacuity Argument. It claims that indexical terms do not describe the
objects they refer to, and therefore a sentence containing an indexical does not express a proposition, unless the indexical is standing for a name or a definite description.
Let 'Bd(Fb)' abbreviate, Jones believes, de dicto, that Fb'. Now, if
'Bd(Fb)' is true, the believer identifies b via the property of beingb (if 'b' is a definite description), or via the property of being called
'b' (if 'b' is a proper name). E.g., 'Jones believes (de dicto) that
the doctor is coming' implies that Jones identifies the object of his
belief as having the property of being the doctor; 'Jones believes
that Smith is coming', read de dicto, implies that Jones identifies
the object of his belief as called 'Smith'. In other words, the referring terms contribute to the propositional content of these sentences. What, then, is the propositional content of (1)? It is not
true that the utterer of (3) has identified himself either as beinghe, or as being called 'he'; even if there are such properties they
are properties of all males; also, it is not necessary for the editor
of Soul to identify himself as a male in order to utter (3). Hence
(1) cannot express a de dicto belief unless the indexical in it stands
for some name or description. If it does not, since no non-indexical
term can take its place, as the Irreducibility Argument claims, then
(1) cannot be interpreted de dicto. In this case what the editor of
Soul is said in (1) to believe is not a proposition.
II

There seems to be one obvious way of trying to block this radical

conclusion. Perhaps (1), as normally interpreted, is not de dicto,
but, rather, de re: a belief of something (however referred to) that
it is F. In this case the De Se Thesis is not disproved, but it is
not proved, either.
Let 'Br(Fa)' abbreviate 'Jones believes de re of a that it is F'.
In such constructions the term 'a' is completely transparent and
purely referential, being the utterer'sdevice of referring to a. It is
not indicated in any way how the believer himself does, or would
be willing to, refer to it.
May (1), then, be interpreted simply de re? Indeed, (1) and
(2) need not have the same truth value, but this is objectionable
only if both are interpreted de re (since 'Br(Fa)' and 'a = b' imply
'Br(Fb)'.) But the natural reading of (2) is de dicto. (1), therefore,
may be interpreted as being de re. It is certainly not the case that
'Br(Fa) & a= b D Bd(Fb)'. Since in de re belief sentences that

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184

believer's way of referring to the entity, about which he believes

that it is F, is not specified, the Vacuity Argument supports a de
re reading.
This, in fact,. is the suggestion made by Boer and Lycan.5
De re belief is supposed to be a relation between a person, an
object, and a predicate or property and not a relation between a
person and a proposition or statement (as is the case with de dicto
belief). Thus we may regard sentences such as (1) simply as de re
belief sentences where the res in question is the believer himself.
My objection to this suggestion is that sentences like (1), as
commonly understood, have the logical features of de dicto belief,
and therefore cannot be construed as "unambiguously de re" 6 belief
sentences. De re belief sentences are referentially transparent; thus,
assuming a = b, 'Br(Fa)' does not give any additional information
about the believer over and above 'Br(Fb)', since neither 'a' nor
'b' reflect the believer's own way of referring. But a de se belief
sentence (abbreviated, from now on, as 'Bs(Fs)') does give an
important additional information over and above what is supplied
by 'Br(Fb)', even when s = b is assumed. The additional information is that the believer attributes 'F' to herself under the
description 's' (i.e., 'self'). In other words, 'Br(Fa)' does not imply
'Bd(Fa)', but 'Bs(Fs)' implies 'Bd(Fs)'. There is, of course, a legitimate de re reading of (1); under this reading it is implied by
(2), interpreted de re. But there is a great difference between (1)
as commonly interpreted and (1) interpreted de re: the former says
how the believer himself would refer to the object of his belief;
the latter does not. This is why we feel that (1) as commonly
interpreted implies, but is not implied by, (2) interpreted de re: it
simply says more.
Boer and Lycan are well aware of this objection. They call it
'The "Special Implication" objection'. They dismiss this implication, however, as nonsemantic, a mere (Gricean) conventional
implicature. The difference between (1), and (2) interpreted de re,
they say, is similar to the difference between 'Fa and Ga' and a
sentence such as 'Fa but Ga'. It is inappropriate to use the latter
form unless a certain relation holds between F and G, and when
that relation holds one is expected to use the more informative
form; but that is all; it does not amount to a difference in truth
conditions.
A simple consideration can show that this account is wrong.
Let us suppose that the "special implication" is only a pragmatic
implicature with no bearing on (1)'s truth conditions. Let Jones
know that an editor of Soul would draw a salary of $1,000,000

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185

annually, but forget that he is that happy editor. In this case Jones
will assert (4), but not (3). Boer and Lycan would then say that
(1) is unambiguously true. So let us grant this claim but ask: What
is it, then, that Jones forgot and therefore does not believe? Try
(1')The editor of Soul does not believe that he is a millionaire.
But this is impossible. (1) has the form 'Br(Fa)', and (1') has the
The two flatly contradict each other and cannot
form, '-Br(Fa)'.
both be true. Try then
(1") The editor of Soul believes that he is not a millionaire.
Fa)' and thus may be true if (1)
(1") is of the logical form 'Br(
is true. But (1 ") is false: poor Jones has no opinion on whether
he* is a millionaire or not; he neither believes that (3) is, nor that
(3) is not, true (de dicto). Surely there must be some way of describing this situation in plain English? But if (1) has but one
linguistic meaning, and it is, in this case, true, we have no way
of describing what Jones believes. This is absurd.
Finding it "hard to think of plausible explanation"' why we
tend to regard (1) as false in the above case, Boer and Lycan yet
argue that this is so with all de re belief. People tend to regard
'Jones believes that Fa' as false if Jones believes (de dicto) that Fb,
not knowing that a = b. Yet surely 'Br(Fa)' is then true? This argument, however, is fallacious. We can explain that tendency, in
the usual case, by saying that 'Bd(Fa)' is equivalent to a conjunction
of 'Br(Fa)' with several other sentences, some of which may be
false, and yet 'Br(Fa)' be true. But it seems that in our case, there
is no such false component (conjunct) of (1), as distinct from (1)
itself, to be blamed for (1)'s seeming falsity. But if we have to
consider (1), as usually used, to be false, then it is clear that
'believes' is used in (1) de dicto, or, at least, not de re.
For Lycan and Boer, 'I' is, in principle, dispensable: e.g., the
hunchback Igor, who refers to himself as 'Igor', does not have
any sentence like (3). But this is not true. Igor does have the term
'I' in his idiolect; it sounds like this: 'Igor'. That is to say, 'Igor'
does double duty in Igor's idiolect. Why else would he obey orders,
answer questions, etc. addressed to Igor and not, e.g., to Ivan?
Why does he always express the wishes of Igor and not those of
Ivan? If 'Igor believes that Igor is in danger', uttered by Igor,
is understood de re only, Igor's behavior is incomprehensible: for
why should he care if Igor is in danger? The only explanation is
that some tokens of 'Igor', used by Igor, mean 'I'. If Igor ceases
to believe that he is Igor he may still use 'Igor' to refer to Igor:

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186

e.g., as in some mentally disturbed people, he may correctly identify Igor's body as Igor's, but disclaim any responsibility for its
motions or any interest in its fate. That his behavior will then
radically change is enough evidence that his beliefs have changed,
too. Since his de re beliefs have not changed, de se is not de re.
Again we see that the term 'believes', as appearing in (1) and
(3), is much closer to de dicto than to de re belief. Jones' believing
(de dicto, of course) that p, is sufficient to explain why he acts as
he does, given that he does not like that p to be the case. Similarly,
'Bs(Fs)' being true of Jones is sufficient to explain why he acts as
he does, given that he does not like to be F. But 'Br(Fb)' being
true of Jones does not explain why Jones acts as he does, even if
he does not like b to be F. E.g., that Jones does not like his sister
to be in debt does not explain why he pays Mrs. Smith's debts
if he does not believe (in addition to his de re belief of Mrs. Smith
that she is in debt) de dicto, that Mrs. Smith is his sister.
III

So far, everything seems to indicate that the De Se Thesis is probably right: if (1) is not to be interpreted de re, we need another
sense of 'belief', akin to de dicto belief, which is not, however, a
relation between the believer and proposition. This seems to indicate the De Se Thesis. Should we, then, accept a non-propositional
theory of belief, in one of the versions suggested by Kaplan, Perry,
or Lewis?
The view advocated by D. Kaplan in his unpublished book
Demonstrativesis that a de se belief sentence does not describe the
believer as holding a proposition; but rather as standing in the
belief relation to an n-tuple, one of whose members is the believer
himself. The attribution of a belief to a person is mainly needed,
however, for the explanation of behavior by reasons. To say that
Jones did A because he believed that p, is not merely to cite a
cause of Jones' behavior (although it is that, too) but also to specify
Jones' own reasons for action. A belief must, therefore, be a representation of reality: the world according to Jones. But Kaplan's
version of the De Se Thesis makes this impossible, since, according
to it, what sentences like (1) express is not a mentally representable
version of reality. According to Kaplan, the editor of Soul himself
is a part of what (1) means. But the editor of Soul cannot be bodily
present right there in his own mind. How, then, can a belief
sentence, part of the meaning of which is the editor of Soul, all
200 pounds of him, be a reason for Jones' behavior or constitute
his view of the world? A set of external objects, such as Mr. Jones,

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187

or his umbrella, cannot be one's reason for action because one

may be unaware of these objects' existence. Secondly, it is possible
that Jones is unaware of the special relation (i.e., that of Belief)
existing between the members of the said set. How, then, can a
relation, which one does not know exists, be one's own explanation
(i.e., reason) of one's behavior?
On Perry's view, the believer's behavior is explained by one's
belief states and not by the propositions believed. If I believe that
I am in danger and Jones believes that I am in danger we believe
the same proposition, but are in different belief states; if I believe
that I am in danger and Jones believes that he is in danger we
believe different propositions but are in the same belief state. This
view, however, fails to account for the fact that, if one's belief
that one is in danger is one's own reason for action, it must be
a mental content or a representation of the world to one. But a
belief state is not a mental content: it is merely a state of the
organism apt for certain behavior. Thus although a belief state
would determine for what kind of action is the believer ready, this
is not an explanation of the believer's reasons for the said action.
To substitute belief states for beliefs in such accounts is to get the
vacuous "explanation", that Jones behaved in a certain way because, according to him, he was in a state which is apt for this
kind of behavior. If Perry is right, then my believing that I am
in danger cannot be a reason for me to run away. But this defeats
the purpose of talking about human beliefs in the first place.
It is interesting to note that Perry makes the same charge, of
failing to explain human action, against the theory (which he attributes to Castafieda) that 'I' has a different sense for each user
or on each occasion of its use.8 If i is the meaning of 'I' for Ivan,
says Perry, and Ivan believes that-i-sees-carrot, Ivan would still
not grab the carrot unless there is a neural connection between
Ivan's state on that occasion and his action-center. This, of course,
I grant. But how does this show that the sense i is really redundant
in explaining behavior? It is like saying that since automatic response is possible, typical human reasoning is redundant. The
question is not, what makes Ivan grab when he believes that-i-seescarrot, but rather, what is Ivan's reasonfor grabbing upon believing
that: there is a carrot in front of i? That is, au fond, just another
way of asking Castafieda's original question, thus: what is it that
Ivan believes, when he believes that: I am i? This question should
be answered, not dodged.
Perry, exactly like Lycan and Boer, cannot answer this question, since, like them, he holds that (1) is strictly true (even though

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188

somewhat misleading) if (2) is true.9 This makes it impossible for

Perry to say what is it that the amnesiac editor fails to believe
when he cannot answer the question, "are you the editor of Soul?"
What new information, what new believablecontenthe acquires when
he learns that he is the editor? Thus, as a theory of human behavior
and reasoning, Perry's suggestion is not adequate.
McGinn, whose views are otherwise close to Perry's (see
McGinn 1983, p. 65, n.), collapses Perry's distinction between
propositions and belief states. "To think of something indexically
is to think of it in relation to me, as I am presented to myself in
self-consciousness" (ibid., p. 17), he says. This would suggest a
view close to Frege's or to Castafieda's (to be discussed later on
in this paper) that every use of an indexical involves a reference
to some privilegedly-accessed state of the user, and hence has a
different sense for each user (or use). McGinn, however, rejects
this view; in his opinion, "the concept expressed by a given token
of 'I' or 'now' or 'here' is the same as that expressed by other
tokens of those types; which is to say that the mode of presentation
and hence cognitive significance associated with different tokens
of a given indexical (type) expression is constant" (ibid., p. 68).
How, then, does my thought, that I am tired, differ in content
from your thought, that you are tired? It doesn't: "The contextof
thought or utterance is what ties the indexical mode of presentation
down to particular things, not the concepts in the mind of the
thinker" (ibid., p. 67). Since McGinn holds that indexical sentences
express thoughts, i.e., propositions, it seems to follow (if I am tired
and you are not) that the same proposition expressed, once by my
token of 'I am tired' and once by your token of the same sentence,
has to be both true and false. How is that contradiction to be
resolved? McGinn does not say.
McGinn says that he agrees with Castafieda and Perry "that
indexical attitudes are integral to agency" (ibid., p. 70). But it is
precisely human agency which his theory fails to explain. McGinn's
claim is that all those having the belief that p (where 'p' is, 'my
house is on fire') will behave in (essentially) the same way. This,
however, is absolutely untrue: If I believe that my house is on
fire I give the fire department a different address than you would
give them were you to believe that your house is on fire. How
can McGinn explain this difference in our behavior, if, as he claims,
what is "in our heads" is exactly the same? People's behavior is
caused by what is "in their heads". If, indeed, all those who say
'I am hungry' have the same thing in their heads, why do they
proceed to put food in different mouths? King Francois I is reported
to have said, "I and Emperor Karl are of the same mind, desiring

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189

exactly the same thing: Milan". That this is told as a joke (surely
what these monarchs wanted was not the same: why else did they
fight?) shows that McGinn's "first and fundamental" semantic
principle, that "the concept corresponding to an indexical word
type" (i.e., "what is in the mind of a thinker by way of a representation of the object of his thought") "is the same for any
token of that type" (ibid., p. 64), is quite untenable.
David Lewis takes belief sentences to report a direct self-attribution of a property to a person. Thus, to believe (3) is to selfattribute the property, is a millionaire; to believe that p, is to selfattribute is in a p-world, etc. But this, technically brilliant, move
merely conceals the problem instead of solving it. Our problem
was that in order to attribute a property to oneself one ought to
have some concept of oneself, which seems to require having some
representation of oneself in mind. How else would I know that
the property is attributed to me, rather than, say, merely stated to
exist? Claiming that self-attribution is "primitive" does not help
us understand the concept self, but that is precisely what we need
to understand in order to self-ascribe anything at all.
Another argument is this: For Lewis, 'I am tired' and 'you
are tired' have entirely different logical forms: the first is a selfascription of tiredness,the second, a self-ascription of being in a world
whereyou are tired. Implausible as it is, this is not the worst of it.
In 'I believe that I am tired' and in 'You believe that I am tired'
the very same sentence, 'I am tired', gets two different readings.
The first sentence is taken as a self-ascription of, believed to selfascribe tiredness; the second is a self-ascription of being in a world
whereyou ascribe tirednessto me. The second reading not only uses
an unreduced indexical (me); it also fails to match the reading of
'I' elsewhere.
Chisholm's theory, which is very similar to Lewis's, is subject
to more or less the same difficulties. Sosa's similar Perspectival
Theory takes propositions to have truth values at perspectives
where S is a person and t, a time. This technical refor<S,t>,
mulation of the problem, however, does not solve it. Suppose that
my belief that I am tired is true at <S,t>.
What is it that I
believe? How is 'I' interpreted? What are the truth makers which
make (1) false and (2) true at the same perspective? Lewis, Chisholm and Sosa avoid this question altogether.10
IV
We have arrived at a total impasse. Or have we conceded too much
too quickly to the Irreducibility Argument? There is a neo-Carte-

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sian argument intended to show that the indexical in (3), and the
quasi indicator in (1), may yet be eliminable after all.
Descartes may have discovered a term which any rational creature must be willing to use instead of 'I' in (3). Jones may be
ignorant of the fact that he is Jones, or the editor of Soul. But he
cannot be unaware of the fact that he thinks this very thought
about being a millionaire, i.e., that he is the believer of this belief
token. So then, we can say that the utterer of (3) must be willing
to utter, or think,
(5)

The believer of this very thought is a millionaire.

i.e.,

(5') This belief-token is believed by a millionaire.

If this is so, we can get a straight forward de dicto version of (1):
(6) The editor of Soulbelieves that the one who thinks thatthought
is a millionaire.
.e.,
(6') The editor of Soul believes that, that belief- token is believed
by a millionaire.
when the expressions 'that thought', and 'that belief-token', refer
to one specific token of (3) or of (5).
If (6) is substitutable, salva veritate,for (1), and (5) for (3), then
our troubles are over: De se belief is just one kind of de dicto belief.
According to (1), the editor of Soul consciously thinks that he is
a millionaire. Therefore there is at least one token of (3) which
is believed by the editor of Soul to be believed by a millionaire.
That token may be referred to by the editor of Soul in any way,
e.g., as 'That (token) thought', 'this', or even as 'Tom'. We may
now use the editor's own term to refer to that thought-token and
construct a definite description of the editor of Soul which he must
acknowledge as referring to him, e.g., 'the thinker of that thoughttoken' or 'the thinker of Tom'. A sentence which will include that
definite description, plus the words 'is a millionaire' will have to
be acceptable to the editor of Soul if (3) is acceptable to him. We
seem, then, to have found an adequate paraphrase to (3) and to
(1), the ineliminability argument is defeated, and so is the De Se
Thesis.
Unfortunately, this is not the case. Although we have replaced
the indexicals in (1) and (3) by non-synonymous coreferential terms
as required, the new sentences (5) and (6) again contain indexicals.

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191

Therefore, as shown by the Vacuity Argument, they do not express

complete propositions unless shown to be replaceable, salva veritate,by purely descriptive terms. As they stand, replete with unredeemed indexicals, it is still impossible to construe them de dicto.
Using names instead of indexicals will not rectify matters, even
when those names are exactly those used by the believer. Suppose
the editor of Soul has indeed dubbed his token of (3) 'Tom'. Does
then
(7)

Tom is thought by a millionaire.

express the proposition expressed by Tom itself? Certainly not.

The editor may forget how he dubbed the said token of (3) and
thus withold assent from (7). It would then be quite erroneous to
say that (1) is synonymous with
(8)

The editor of Soul believes that Tom's thinker is a millionaire.

read de dicto. In these circumstances (8) is false while (1) is true;

hence, they express different propositions.
This problem may be generalized. Suppose that
(9) Jones believes that he is in pain.
is paraphrased by
(10) Jones believes that i is in pain.
The remarkable thing about (9) is that it cannot possibly be false
due to Jones' failing to identify the subject. Yet for any definite
description or proper name we substitute for 'i' in (10) such a
failure is possible. Hence, 'i' cannot be a definite description or
a name. On the other hand if it is a variable or some directly
denoting device (assuming that such devices exist) it does not represent its referent; the embedded sentence expresses no proposition,
and it cannot be believed, contrary to what (10) says.
A Cartesian solution appealed to several philosophers. Stalnaker, e.g., distinguishes propositionsfrom propositionalconcepts.Usually, given a sentence, we take it to mean what it means by virtue
of its causal relations in the actual world, although we may evaluate
it in a variety of other possible worlds. Stalnaker, however, points
out that the sentence can also be interpretedin many possible worlds.
For n worlds, the propositional concept expressed by a sentence
is a matrix of n times n truth values. 1 To believe an indexicalless proposition is, according to Stalnaker, to assign T to all positions in the diagonal of that matrix (i.e., where the world of
interpretation is also the world of evaluation). Names, therefore,
are less rigid in designating than indexicals. 'I', e.g., refers to its

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actual utterer in all possible worlds, while a name like 'Lingens'

refers in each world to whoever is appropriately related to that
name-token in that world. Thus the actual Lingens' belief, that
Lingens is F, is true in some worlds (including the actual world)
where he is in fact F and designated by that token of 'Lingens',
but also in some other worlds where the said token denotes someone
else. The amnesiac Lingens believes the proposition that Lingens
is F, but since this proposition is made true in different worlds
by different people denoted by this token of 'Lingens', he may
not know that he makes it true. This, according to Stalnaker, explains how Lingens knows who he is, and knows who Lingens is,
and knows that Lingens is F, but does not know that he is F.
Stalnaker therefore claims that although Lingens may fail to
identify the referent of 'Lingens' (or any other name or definite
description) in the real world, he possesses a strategy for identifying, without failure, the referent of his token of 'I' in the real
world. What concept makes this infallible identification possible?
Here the Cartesian ploy comes in: "As Descartes might remind
us, when Lingens is wondering who he is, he knows at least that
he (or someone) is wondering this - that his particular act of
asking himself 'who am I?' exists . . . that a person thinking that
thought will be an inhabitant in each of the possible situations
compatible with his knowledge". 12 In general, "possible situations
in terms of which internal states and processes are defined ... all
contain a representation of the mental state or process itself." 13
This, however, is no answer at all. A representation may represent several distinct objects. How can the believer single out the
right one? How is the believer to know that of all the people to
whom that thought ("who am I"?) occurred, it is he who is denoted
by his representation of the said thought? To know that a thought
of a certain kind exists, that every possible world contains it, is
not to know that it is my thought: Can it not be someone else's?
According to Stalnaker, for Lingens to realize that he himself is
Lingens, is to realize that whoever the said representation represents, is, in fact, Lingens. But this is surely wrong? Surely I
may believe that Lingens is the person who has entertained a
thought so-and-thus-ly represented, without believing that I am
Lingens? Stalnaker's account fails, therefore, to explain what is
it that I come to believe when I realize that I myself am Lingens.
Searle's theory of indexicals (Intentionality, pp. 218-30) cites the
self-referentiality of indexical expressions which, Searle says, is
"shown" rather than explicitly stated; therefore, 'I' is not synonymous with 'the utterer of this token', etc. What, then, is the
sense ''shown" by an indexical expression and how is it mentally

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represented? Of course, indexical terms refer to themselves. But

Searle claims that they do so by means of their mentally representable senses. How, then, do I represent in my mind the sense
of my token of 'I'? It seems that in order to do so I have to use
the same indexical, or a similar one, in my head to refer to the
above token. But then senses cannot determine the reference of
indexicals, since they too use them. It seems that senses are redundant, and direct reference must be possible. Thus, failing to
give an indexical-free sense to indexicals, Searle has failed to show
that they have any senses. His answer to Perry's puzzle of Hume
and Heimson fails for the same reason: Searle claims that there
is a difference in propositional content between what Hume gleans
from his token of 'I am Hume' and what Heimson gleans from
his. But then Hume and Heimson must have qualitatively different
mental representations. To say that the propositions are different
because they refer to different items is to beg the question, because
he explains difference in reference by means of independently identifyable difference between mentally represented propositions. At
this point Searle invokes the believer's background and network
of capacities, but these give us only the trivial "objective" difference in reference conditions, and not the required "subjective"
difference in the way senses are mentally represented.
Searle tries another way out: To differentiate the satisfaction
conditions of his seeing Sally (rather than the qualitatively identical
Twin-Sally) Searle requires that the cause of his visual experience
be the same woman who caused his previous visual experiences
x, y, z (ibid., pp. 67-8). But this too is question-begging. If Searle
cannot internally differentiate Sally from Twin-Sally, how can he
differentiate x, y, and z from twin-x, twin-y, and twin-z? The right
satisfaction conditions cannot be mentally represented in this way.
The most ambitious solution along Cartesian lines is offered
by H.N. Castafieda, who was also the first to formulate the problem
in precise terms. 14 But while in his earlier papers Castafieda seemed
to hold that 'I' is unanalyzable, 15 he has later offered an anlysis,
using his theory of guises. On this theory, objects are ontologically
composed of guises (e.g., Jocasta's Son, and Jocasta's second husband, are distinct, though consubstantiated, guises of Oedipus).
Now, by an indexical use of 'I' the utterer refers to a momentary
I-guise of his. States of affairs have guises too, and these are the
propositions. Some of those propositional guises are demonstrative
guises, i.e., items in the experiential (e.g., perceptual) field of the
subject, and "indicators are expressions used to make immediate
and strict references ... to items present in one's experiences".16
While I find the special I-guises baffling, in the way that I

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find Chisholm's or Lewis' "self" hard to understand, the demonstrative-guise approach seems very fruitful. But it, too, fails to
meet the test set by Castafieda himself. (3) cannot be synonymous
to
(11) That propositional guise (or: this I-slice) is so-and-thusly related to a millionaire.
because one may fail to identify the propositon expressed by (1 1),
interpreted de dicto, and yet believe (3). Moreover, (11) uses indexicals and thus fails to specify a complete proposition. It would
not help to replace those indexicals, e.g., by the definite description
'the propositional guise such that...' since there may be more than
one such guise; the uniqueness condition is violated and the definite
description will fail to refer.
Castalieda has set the standard on what a theory of first-person
demonstratives should do: it should formulate a semantic rule which
"can account for the de dicto reference that a speaker must be able
to make when she uses the first person pronoun". 17 But the semantic rule he proceeds to formulate (I-HE*), that a speaker who
uses the first person pronoun indexically refers to himself as himself,18
is uninformative. How does the proposition, that I myself as myself
am a millionaire, differ from the proposition, that I am a millionaire? I do not think that this Adamsian-Chisholmian move is
illuminating.
On the other hand I think that Castafieda's Cartesian gambit
does lead in the right direction. We saw, earlier, that all definitions
of 'I', by reference to one's own mental contents, or events, or
guises, etc. fail, because, unlike 'I', they do not guarantee an
infallible recognition of that which is referred to. Reference can
be achieved by descriptions, names, or demonstratives. A purely
qualitative definite description will never do, since one may fail
to believe it applies to the object it denotes. It may also fail the
uniqueness condition, and denote nothing. A name will not do
either: although it may refer to the right object, the believer may
not know, or forget, what this name denotes. An indexical will
not do at all: although a semantic rule may determine its reference,
the believermay not know this rule or confuse it with another. Descartes, and Castalieda's, challenge, however, was to find a semantic
rule for 'I' which not only would guarantee it against failure of
reference (Kaplan's rule, that 'I' refers to its user, is quite sufficient
for this) but would also give it a mentally representable meaning,
and guarantee that, whoever understands that meaning, cannot
fail to believe that it is satisfied by the reference of the said token
of 'I' and by it only. Can this challenge be met?

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V

Let us, then, make a fresh start, and get on a new road which
will, hopefully, lead us to find the propositional content of indexical
sentences. In his famous "On Referring", P.F. Strawson mentions
a bridge which has an "Unsafe for Lorries" sign posted on it.
Certainly, we get the message; but how? Where is the grammatical
subject of the sentence? Strawson suggests that, in such cases, the
subject is "understood". This is certainly true, but not sufficient.
How is it understood? It seems to me that the situation is essentially
this: What we have in front of us is not an open sentence which
lets us guess what its subject might be. Rather, what we have is
a completesentence, only part of which (the predicate) is referential.
The bridge was not used to refer to anything or to represent anything. The entity of which the referential part of the sentence is
predicated is present in the sentence, so to speak, "in person".
The grammatical subject of this sentence is the bridge itself.
In the said sentence, the bridge is displayed, not referred to.
Let us call such sentences, i.e., sentences parts of which consist
of items displayed, and not used to refer, display sentences.Display
sentences abound around us: the sign 'Keep Off' on a road; 'Shake
well', on a bottle; the date written at the head of a letter; 'New,
Improved' on a cereal box; '$100' on a dress, etc. John Searle,
in his SpeechActs, has suggested a very similar theory for quotations.19
Searle rejects the common view that the quotation operator is a
name-forming device; its function, he claims, is to serve as a display
box. An expression in quotes does not referto the enclosed words;
it displays them. Quotation producesthe item, to which the predicate
refers, without referring to it. The words, of which the sentence
says something, are right there in the sentence, in the display box.
No need to refer to them by a symbol. Unfortunately, Searle's
theory received very little attention: perhaps it didn't seem to have
other applications, and thus to be a mere change of nomenclature.
It seems to me, however, that the theory of display sentences is
very fruitful indeed, and can be successfully used in various areas
including that to which the present article is devoted.
If 'your father' and 'my brother' refer to the same object, they
specify different methods for locating it; thus, they have different
senses. Now what is the sense of a displayed item, which does not
refer and thus specifies no particular way or method for locating
anything? It makes some contribution to the meaning of the sentence, and therefore it has a sense of its own. But what is this
sense? It seems that it must be identical with the item itself, since
the item is not presented through one of its facets, or

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196

aspects, as is the case when an item is referred to by a linguistic

term. The displayed item is wholly present, and therefore it is its
sense.
The meaning of a sentence is a proposition. Now if the meaning
of a display sentence includes such hefty items as bridges, how
can we understand it? Surely we cannot take it, so to speak, into
our heads: There is not enough room there for a bridge, a cereal
box, or even for written words. Instead, we do as Strawson suggested: the subject of the display sentence is "understood"; i.e.,
we make a "mental word" or "mental picture" to represent it
in a certain way. Thus the proposition we understand and believe
when we encounter most display sentences is usually not the meaning of the displayed sentence itself, but a counterpart proposition:
a proxy which includes the sense of some mental representation
of the bridge, instead of the bridge itself.
In some important cases, however, we need no proxy in order
to understand a display sentence: this is when the displayed item
is itself mental. We need no mental substitute for it since we can
use it, i.e., display it, in our mental sentence, just as the cereal
company uses (i.e., displays) the box with the "new, improved"
on it, and quotations exhibit the quoted words and do not refer
to them by names. Thus, in order to believe that this pain is terrible
I do not have to represent it or make up a mental word to stand
for it. Having the pain, right there in my mind, I may use it,
i.e., the very thing my belief is about, as the subject term in my
mental sentence.
One remarkable thing about display sentences is that the propositions they express cannot be false due to the inexistence of their
subject. The subject is right there in the sentence, and so, if the
sentence exists, so does it. This feature display sentences share
with self-referential sentences. There is another remarkable feature
of display sentences, however, not shared by self-referential sentences: Display propositions cannot be erroneously believed, or
disbelieved, due to misidentification of the subject. Such mistakes
are possible for one who understands a sentence if one has to
identify the subject of predication by using a term which refers
to it; one may understand the term 'the bridge' yet fail to identify
the bridge (say, it is camouflaged). But if the proposition believed
is a display proposition, there is no way one can go wrong in
identifying its subject (if you are not aware of my pain, you can
misidentify the subject of the proposition I expressed by uttering,
'it's terrible'; but I cannot).
Now these two features, precisely, are those which characterize

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egocentric sentences, according to Descartes (see also Shoemaker,

1963, p. 81 ff.). The proposition expressed by (3), e.g., cannot
be false due to the editor of Soul's misidentifying its subject, while
the propositions expressed by any sentence resulting from replacing
the indexical by a descriptive referential term may be false in that
way. Thus none of these propositions is the content of (3). The
propositions expressed by (1) and (3) are display propositions. The
reason why no referential (including no indexicals or quasi-indicators) belief sentence could replace (1) salva veritate is, that no
referential proposition is identical with any display proposition.
Following Kaplan, we can distinguish two kinds of meaning:
senses (index-to-reference functions) and characters (state-to-sense
functions). This will enable us to meet McGinn's constraint, that
a single referential type-word should have a single meaning. Although on the present view the same (type) indexical may have
different senses on different occasions of use, the strategy for computing those senses, i.e., the character, is the same for all tokens
of the same type. While the sense of 'I', e.g. (and therefore any
proposition expressed by an indexical sentence) includes, as we
shall see, a displayed element which may vary from one occasion
of use to another, the character of 'I' is a purely linguistic constant,
and can be expressed in a definition. This, then, is the subject
matter of the next, which is the last, chapter of this essay: defining
the constant meaning (i.e., the character) of indexical expressions.
VI

How can a sentence, which is a mere string of signs, express a

proposition? Simple (containing no embedded) indicative sentences
consist of two terms. Usually, both terms are referentiallyused. The
subject term refers to a single object (or sequence; in this case,
its elements refer consecutively to the elements of the sequence);
the predicative term may refer to many distinct objects (or sequences). We use a sign referentially by regarding it as belonging
to a certain type, other tokens of which are connected to a certain
kind of objects in our linguistic community. Thus, the sentence
can be regarded as saying something. Now if both its terms refer
to the same entity, what the sentence says, i.e., the proposition,
is true. In the sentnece 'Socrates is wise', e.g., the subject term
is 'Socrates', and the predicate term (intended to refer to oneobject sequences) is, 't is wise'. That these terms are juxtaposed
in one sentence signifies the claim made by those who use this
sentence, that there is exactly one object which both these terms
refer to, i.e., which is both Socrates and wise.

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Let us use the symbol 'F-' in front of a term to indicate that

this term is referentially used. Let us use the symbol '-' between
two terms to indicate that these terms are juxtaposed in a sentence,
i.e., that if both are referentially used they are intended to refer
to (i.e., be satisfied by) one and the same object (or sequence of
objects). The sentence 'Socrates is wise', e.g., as used for expressing a proposition, has the following structure:
12.

F- 't is wise'.

I- 'Socrates'

Again, the sentence 'Socrates taught Plato', as used, can be represented thus:
13.
etc.

F- 'Socrates, Plato'

F 'm taught ?1'.

20

Some sentences include terms which are displayed, and not

referentially used. In the example discussed above, the sentence
which consists of the bridge and the words 'unsafe for lorries'
written on it contains one term, the bridge, which is displayed
and does not refer to anything. In such sentences the referential
term is used to refer to the displayed term. The juxtaposition of
these terms in one sentence indicates that 'unsafe for lorries', as
referentially used in English, applies to the bridge. Thus, the whole
sentence is made to express the proposition that the said bridge
is unsafe for lorries. Let us describe this sentence, as used, thus:
14. This bridge

F- ' unsafe for lorries'.

(14) is to be distinguished from the sentence 'this bridge is unsafe

for lorries', which includes the words 'this bridge' rather than the
bridge itself, and these words are referentially used. The latter
sentence, as used, is
15.

H 'This bridge'

H 't is unsafe for lorries'.

Words need not be referentially used. They, too, may be displayed in a sentence. E.g., in
16.

'Water'

H 't is a five letter word'.

the word 'water' is displayed (thus, no 'H' in front of it); but in

17.

H 'Water'

H 't is a colorless liquid'.

it is referentially used.
Written or spoken signs are not the only items which can be
used referentially: some mental items do also serve as words of
sort; they can be used to refer to things, and, qua terms, form

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sentences. Mental sentences, like ordinary sentences, express propositions. But what would a mental sentence be? Ordinary sentences
are formed by our convention, that juxtaposing the written (or
voiced) signs in some linear (spatial or temporal) proximity indicates our intention that they should serve as coreferential terms.
But how are mental sentences formed out of the diverse mental
contents? This calls for a short digression on the subject of the
epistemic presentness, selves, and intentionality.
If I am to have a belief about Jones I must somehow represent
Jones in my mind (and my beliefs are influenced by the way I
represent him). But we saw earlier that such representation is not
necessary when the object of my belief is itself a mental item. The
reason for this is that some mental items are epistemicallypresent to
others without representation. If I believe that, a year ago, I was
in pain, then that belief must contain some symbol which represents
the absent pain and refersto it. But if I believe that I am in terrible
pain right now, then, in the normal case, I do not have to represent
the pain symbolically: it, itself, is epistemically present to, and can
be made a part of, the concomitant belief. This particular belief
has a privileged epistemic access to this particular pain. They form
one thought: one mental sentence.
That some mental items be epistemically present to others is
conceptually necessary; otherwise, thinking would not have been
possible. If every object had to be symbolically represented in a mental item in order for that mental item to be about it, every train
of thought, which is extended in time, would have had to represent
its past parts continuously in every new temporal segment of the
process of thinking. Thus, each infinitesimal segment in the process
of thinking would have had to incorporate an infinite number of
symbolic representations of the previous segments. Since this is
not possible, we must conclude that some mental events may be
present to others themselves, in propriapersona, and not via symbolic

representations.

21

This inclusion of a thought's object in that very thought produces a minimal self: an entity which is reflectively self-aware. In
our example, such mini-self consisted of a certain pain, epistemically present to the thought about it. A merethought, i.e., a mental
sentence which includes only symbolic representations, is not a
self; but a thought to which another is present, is.
Perhaps this is the basic distinction between knowledge by description and knowledge by acquaintance: Knowing that I was (or
that someone else is) in pain, having all the information one can
have about that pain, etc., is nothing like being in pain. Being in

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pain hurts, having information about it doesn't hurt, no matter how

detailed the information is. This distinction is often neglected. The
empiricists failed to understand the concept of symbolic representation; hence Hume's strange notion of ideas as "faded" impressions. But surely having informationabout an intense pain is not at
all like having a slight pain. On the other hand some modern philosophers often speak as if experiencing pain is nothing but an
acquisition of certain beliefs.22 But this, again, is absurd; knowledge
by description of a is an acquaintance with a symbolic representation of a, not with a. To be acquainted with a is to have a
epistemically present to one's belief.23
We now have an answer to the problem of how believing an
indexical proposition contributes to the justification of action, an
explanation that Perry-style semantics could not provide. If the
experience e is unpleasant then the belief b, to which e is epistemically present, is pragmatically justified in bringing about an
intention, i, to eliminate e (or, if e is pleasant, to sustain it). End
of digression.
Let us then use square brackets to refer to mental items. Let
[p] be the thought that p, and [a] the mental term which may be
used to refer to a. When it is so used, e.g., within a thought, we
shall mark this use by writing 'F-[a]'. Following the reasoning of
the above digression, I shall use the juxtaposition sign also for the
epistemic presentness of mental items which constitute one thought.
In some mental sentences both terms are referentially used: e.g.,
18.

1-[ Uones]

F-

[ill t].

In others, one of the terms is displayed, as in

19. That pain -[terrible A].
which consists of that pain, and a mental word which is synonymous with the English word 'terrible'. Mental words, like ordinary words, may be displayed rather than referentially used, as
in
20.

[hunting t]

H [nice I].

which does not say that hunting is nice, but that it is sometimes
nice to think of hunting (i.e., some hunting-thoughts are nice).
Now, a certain belief about an experience which is epistemically
present to it, is the belief we look fQr: a belief which is infallibly
about oneself. The experience may be any experience at all; I shall
refer to it as 'e', but the believer does not refer to it: he has it.
The belief expressed in (3), that I am a millionaire, is structurally
described as follows:

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21.

e-

F- [M ((ix)

201

P (x, i))]

the 't' indicates the single argument place of predicates which refer
to single-object sequences (here it is e); 'P(ab)' is, 'b is an experience
of the person a'; 'Ma' is, 'a is a millionaire'. Let me stress again
that neither the name 'e', nor the mental term [e], which, in use,
refer to e, occur in the mental sentence described in (21). What
occurs in it is e itself. The believer attributes Being a Millionaire
to the experiencer of a displayed experience; the proposition he
believes is a display proposition.
An indexical sentence, then, abbreviates a mental display sentence of its user's. A quasi-indicator, on the other hand, attributes
maintaining a display proposition to someone else. The proposition
expressed by (1), then, is describable as
22.

B(s,e-

F- [M(Qx,

t) (P (x, i]).

where 's' is 'the editor of Soul.' (I.e., the editor of Soul believes
the display proposition expressed by [I am a millionaire]). This,
then, is the definition of the first person, as used:
2 3.

e -

[ (? x) P (x,

t)].

Indexicals other that 'I' denote entities standing in other, more

or less determinate, relations to the experience e. 'You', e.g., denotes the person who stands in one such relation to e's experience;
'this' refers to entities which stand in a variety of other relations
to e's experience, when the appropriate relation is determined by
the context of usage. The same applies to 'she', 'we', 'they', 'there',
'here', 'my', 'far', etc. Thus, if 'Q' is a variable ranging over
relations to the experience, the general form of these indexicals
is
24.

H (? y) {Q (y,(i x) P (x, I)}

when e is characterized as in (21). Temporal indexicals, such as

'now', 'next', 'today', etc. are identified by temoral relations to
the time of e. Thus, they all have the form
25.

e -

(? x) [T(x,()].

with e characterized as above.

A greater simplicity and elegance in presentation is achieved
if e is taken to be identical with the belief to which it is epistemically
present, i.e., when that belief is epistemically present to itself. This
kind of self reference is quite common in ordinary language. Since
words may be displayed or referentially used, the same word may
be used in both ways at the same time. Thus we get a one-word

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sentence, including one referentially used and one displayed term.

Let us then use the symbol '|' after the name of the displayed term
and pointed at it, to show that the same term is both displayed
and referentially used (to denote itself). For example, we may display the word 'short' and have it refer to itself, thus:
26.

'

is short' -.

Since thoughts can also be displayed and referentially used, they,

too, are capable of self reference. One example is the thought that
it, itself, hurts, where there is no symbol referring to that very
thought, bit the thought itself is epistemically present to itself:
27.

[t hurts] -I.

This provides a new interpretation of Descartes' Cogito as the

thought that it, itself exists - when the 'it, itself' is not a symbol,
subject to error and misidentification, but the thought itself, epistemically present to itself. Hintikka has claimed that the cogito
is infallible because the thought that I exist is a performative. For
me, to exist is to think; therefore, thinking 'I exist' makes what
is thought, true. But this is not enough: how is one to know whether
the performative is (to use Austin's term) happy or not? How can
I know that I reallyam thinking that I exist? The traditional answer
is that if I doubt whether I think, then I think, because to doubt
is to think. But this answer is again question begging: how do I
know that I doubt? I do not have to doubt that I think, in order
for it to be false that I think. No; Descartes' solution is, rather,
that thinking is self-presenting: I just know that I think. How is
this possible? The answer seems to be that a thought which (as
displayed) constitutes a mental sentence with itself (as referentially
used), is epistemically present to itself. Descartes cogito can then
be expressed thus:
28.

[t exists] -H.

Since the subject of the belief is displayed right in it, it cannot be

false due to the inexistence of its subject, nor can it be believedto
be false due to the misidentification of its subject. It is therefore,
necessarily, known to be true.
Making use of self-referential display sentences, we can now
give the following analysis of the indexical sentence 'I am a millionaire':
29.

[t bears P to a millionaire] H.

or, in symbols (where, as before, 'Ma' is, 'a is a millionaire', and

'P(a, b)' is, 'a is the person one of whose experiences is b')

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30.

203

[M(1 x) P (x, t)] --

In this way we can express the general form of all indexicals, most
economically, thus:
31.

r(7

x)t 0

(x,

t]

-I.

REFERENCES
Adams, R.M. and Castaneda, H.N., "Knowledge and Self" (a correspondence), in Tomberlin, J.E. (ed.), Agent, Language, and the Structure of the World (Hackett 1983), pp.
293-309.
Armstrong, D.M., Belief, Truth and Knowledge, Cambridge Unversity Press, 1973.
Boer, S.E. and Lycan, W.G., "Who, Me?" The Philosophical Review 89: 427-466 (1980).
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NOTES
'Stalnaker (1981).
2Ibid., p. 130.
'Cf., e.g., Fodor (1975) and later writings.
4Castafieda (1977), pp. 327-335; Castafieda (1981).
"Boer and Lycan (1980).
Ibid., p. 461.
'Ibid., p. 460.
8Perry (1983).
"Reported in Stalnaker (1981), p. 149 (cf. also pp. 132-133) as a personal communication from Perry.
'0For other difficulties in the concept of truth at a perspective see Castafieda's reply
to Sosa in Tomberlin (ed.), Agent, Language and the Structureof the World, p. 391.
"I made the same suggestion a few years ago in Zemach (1977).
'2Stalnaker (1981), p. 142.
'Ibid., p. 145.
'4Cf. Castafieda (1966), Castafieda (1967), Castafieda (1968).
"A Castafiedaen position along these lines is presented by L. Rudder-Baker (1981).
'6Castanieda (1981 b), p. 311. Cf. also Castafieda (1977) and Adams and Castafieda
(1983).
'7Tomberlin (1983), p. 324-325.
'8Ibid., p. 325.
'Searle (1970), pp. 320-344. (Searle says 'present' rather than 'display'.)
2"For a detailed nominalistic version of this semantics where no set-theoretical entities
(such as sequences) appear, see Zemach (1982).
2'Some modern followers of Kant have used this argument incorrectly, I think, to
argue for what they call "The Unity of Consciousness"
and the existence of a transempirical, simple self. Cf. Chisholm (1981) and Madell (1981).
22Cf., e.g., Pitcher (1971), Armstrong (1973), Dennett (1969), Dennett (1978) and
Dennett (1982).
2"A Cartesian interpretation of Frege along similar lines is offered by Dummett (1982,
chapter 6) and Evans (1981).
241 wish to thank Ramon Lemes Leonard Carrier and William Lycan for helpful
comments on earlier versions of this paper.

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