Abstract
In this paper I discuss two approaches to certain context-sensitive cognitive episodes, focusing on temporal indexicals and tense. The first approach is David Kaplan's (1979, 1989). The second is the reflexive-referential approach used by Korta and Perry in Critical Pragmatics (2011). I argue for the second approach.
I take utterances and beliefs to be cognitive episodes: Things or events that occur in space and time, that have cognitive contents, and have causes and effects (Perry, 2019, 2020, de Ponte, Korta and Perry, 2023). I consider what seems to be an issue of detail. On Kaplan's approach, contexts are sets, quadruples of a speaker, time, location and world, and episodes (utterances) do not appear in the theory, but are modeled by pairs of expressions and contexts. An expression has a character (meaning); an expression-in-context has a content (proposition or component thereof.) On the reflexive-referential theory, episodes appear in the theory; they are what the theory is about. Speaker-of, time-of, and location-of are roles, that is, functions from an episode to the object that stands in the appropriate relation.
I argue that this difference is more significant than it might seem. The reflexive-referential theory inherits a key insight of Kaplan's theory, and of John Perry's earlier view: the distinction between different ways in which information can be discovered, believed and asserted. But the inclusion of episodes has several advantages. First, it has advantages for understanding the relation between the content of cognitive episodes, their causal roles and their cognitive significance. Second, it accounts for -and makes use of- the fact that episodes have many other properties in addition to having speakers, locations, and times, that can be relevant to understanding their cognitive significance.
Reflexive-referential theory has its roots on Frege (and Russell), but it supposes a clear departure from his views (its starting point is Perry's (1979) rejection of the doctrine of propositions, defended by Frege and Russell). I believe, however, that it is actually more amiable to Frege's program than the interpretation given by the so-called neo-Fregeans (most notably, Evans, 1981). In particular, I argue that the issue of cognitive dynamics can be dealt with in the reflexive- referential account.
