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Token reflexivity and logic

  • Geoff Georgi EMAIL logo
From the journal Semiotica

Abstract

Token-reflexive theories of indexicals – words like ‘I,’ ‘here,’ and ‘today’ – are widely thought to face a problem in account for intuitively valid arguments involving indexicals. Yet all discussions of the problem with which I am familiar focus on particular examples or on particular rules of inference. In this paper, I first state the problem in its full generality, and then argue that two recent attempts to reject the problem fail. Finally, I consider the proposal by García-Carpintero that demonstratives – ‘this’ and ‘that’ – raise the same problem. I argue that while there are important similarities between the logic problem for token-reflexives and the role of demonstratives in logic, recent work on the logic of demonstratives can offer insights into logic that token-reflexive theories cannot.


Corresponding author: Geoff Georgi, Department of Philosophy, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, USA, E-mail:

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Received: 2021-01-20
Accepted: 2021-01-31
Published Online: 2021-03-15
Published in Print: 2021-05-26

© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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