{"id":11789,"date":"2010-03-02T18:46:47","date_gmt":"2010-03-02T18:46:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2010\/03\/02\/pure-indexicals-versus-demonstratives\/"},"modified":"2010-03-02T18:46:47","modified_gmt":"2010-03-02T18:46:47","slug":"pure-indexicals-versus-demonstratives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2010\/03\/02\/pure-indexicals-versus-demonstratives\/","title":{"rendered":"Pure Indexicals Versus Demonstratives"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"justify\" class=\"firstinpost\"><font face=\"Georgia\">Suppose you like Italian cold cuts and cheeses, but you are not <em>en rapport<\/em> with the names: prosciutto, mortadella, capicola, salami, provolone, ricotta. So you are reduced to pointing when you belly up to the deli counter: &#39;I would like a pound of <em>this<\/em>, finely sliced.&#39;<\/font><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><font face=\"Georgia\">Your use of &#39;this&#39; must be accompanied by a gesture, a demonstration; your use of &#39;I,&#39; however, need not be. There is no need to point to oneself when one utters the first-person singular pronoun. One <em>can<\/em>, of course, but I don&#39;t advise it. (And if you point, point to your chest, not to your groin &#8212; though it stands to reason that if the chest or the shirt on one&#39;s chest can go proxy for the self, why not the groin or the codpiece?) &#39;This&#39; and &#39;that&#39; are demonstratives; &#39;I,&#39; &#39;here,&#39; and &#39;now&#39; are pure indexicals. They are pure in that there is no need for demonstration or ostension.&#0160; This much I learned from David Kaplan.<\/font><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify\"><font face=\"Georgia\">But now I notice a difference between the pure indexicals &#39;I&#39; and &#39;now.&#39; One can point to oneself &#8212; or at least to one&#39;s body &#8212; when uttering &#39;I&#39; but one cannot point to a time or an occupant of a time (an event) when one utters &#39;now.&#39; Something pointable, ostensible, can go proxy for a self, but nothing pointable can go proxy for a time. Time, you are an elusive bitch; would that I could seize you and stop you. (<em>Verweile doch, du bist so sch\u00f6n<\/em>.) &#39;Here&#39; appears midway between &#39;I&#39; and &#39;now&#39;: one can point to a place by pointing to its occupant. &#39;I am here&#39; he said, with his right index finger pointing to his chest and his left index finger pointing to his feet.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Suppose you like Italian cold cuts and cheeses, but you are not en rapport with the names: prosciutto, mortadella, capicola, salami, provolone, ricotta. So you are reduced to pointing when you belly up to the deli counter: &#39;I would like a pound of this, finely sliced.&#39; Your use of &#39;this&#39; must be accompanied by a &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2010\/03\/02\/pure-indexicals-versus-demonstratives\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Pure Indexicals Versus Demonstratives&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[408],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11789","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-language-philosophy-of"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11789","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11789"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11789\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11789"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11789"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11789"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}