Indexicality, meaning, use

The article presents two concepts of indexicality. The first, more standard and narrow, identifies indexicality with systematic (meaning controlled) context-sensitivity. The second, broader (derived from the work of Jerzy Pelc), conceives indexicality in terms of the potential variability of the general semiotic characteristics expressions (with respect to the context of use). The text introduces the concept of a pragmatic matrix that serves for a schematic representation of contextual variation. I also recapitulate briefly the views of Jerzy Pelc on the meaning (manner of use) and use of expressions, and briefly indicate its relationship approaches with contemporary debates around contextualism and status of non-sentential speech acts. Finally, the relationship between the broader notion of indexicality and the directival theory of meaning is analyzed. In the past several decades, philosophical inquiries into indexicality have come a long way: from an issue discussed primarily in the narrow context of problems of ostensive definition and the empirical foundations of knowledge, indexicality has become one of the main objects of interest in the philosophy of language. The historical reasons for the change are rather complex, but the impact of works by authors such as David Kaplan (1989) and Robert Stalnaker (1999), as well as the intensity of debates between contextualism and minimalism and contextualism and relativism, are among the most important. In this paper, I would like to briefly discuss a certain idea that appeared in Jerzy Pelc’s works at the turn of the sixties and seventies of the twentieth century which, I think, may be treated as one of the first versions (and perhaps even the first) of contextualism. The paper consists of four parts. In the first two I describe and analyze the idea in question. In the third part I take a closer look at the concept of meaning used in Pelc’s theory. In the last part I try to situate the concept against the background of current philosophical debates.