The ‘I’ in the Monad: Leibniz and the Essential Indexical

Some modern and contemporary philosophers argue that the first-person indexical plays an essential role in the explanation of individual actions. As such it cannot be explained away or replaced by a co-referring term without destroying the cognitive force that its use conveys. There are important aspects of Leibniz’s work that anticipate the view of the essential indexical. The activity in the monad, such as the petites perceptions and appetitions, plays the cognitive role of grounding indexical reference and uses of the first-person pronoun to explain an agent’s perspective and behaviour.

Putting I-Thoughts to Work

A traditional view holds that the self-concept is essentially indexical. In a highly influential article, Ruth Millikan famously held that the self-concept should be understood as a Millian name with a sui generis functional role. This article presents a novel explanatory argument against the Millian view and in favor of the indexical view. The argument starts from a characterization of the self-concept as a device of information integration. It then shows that the indexical view yields a better explanation of the integration function than the Millian view. The resulting account can rebut Millikan’s objections and it has broader implications for the debate on the essential indexical.

Putting I-Thoughts to Work

A traditional view holds that the self-concept is essentially indexical. In a highly influential article, Ruth Millikan famously held that the self-concept should be understood as a Millian name with a sui generis functional role. This article presents a novel explanatory argument against the Millian view and in favor of the indexical view. The argument starts from a characterization of the self-concept as a device of information integration. It then shows that the indexical view yields a better explanation of the integration function than the Millian view. The resulting account can rebut Millikan’s objections and it has broader implications for the debate on the essential indexical.

The essential indexical research program

The ways of thinking of things associated with a few indexical expressions—e.g. ‘I’, ‘now’, ‘that’—have a special role in the causation of action. They have a role not had by, for example, the guise associated with the ‘Superman’, or the guise associated with any other proper name. So, at least, an orthodox view about action—often associated with the phrase ‘essential indexical’—has it. Recently, this view has come under scrutiny. An increasing number of philosophers think it is a myth. In this paper, I do two things. First, I argue that the orthodox view really is an insight, not a myth. Second, I offer an explanation of why it is that the insight holds.

De Se Assertion

De se attitudes, that is, attitudes that we have about ourselves in a first-personal way, have long been recognized as interestingly different from other attitudes. However, speech acts and, in particular, assertions that we make about ourselves have barely begun to draw philosophers’ attention. This chapter discusses some recent proposals that aim to bridge the gap between the significance of the de se phenomena in thought and the way that we express those attitudes in language. Section 1 provides some background on the de se and the essential indexical. Section 2 surveys proposals that make use of centered contents in modeling assertion and communication. Section 3 discusses the main motivations for the idea that centered contents are not only the contents of de se attitudes but also of the corresponding assertions.