To Anchor a Pure De Se

Abstract

A significant number of philosophers in the recent debate regarding the case of de se subscribe to two theses—an existence thesis and an ascription thesis, as I call them. Whether or not these philosophers are correct, I show that given these two theses, there is conceptual space for what I call in this paper “the case of pure de se,” i.e. de se attitudes and de se content ascribed with the use of sentences made up entirely of indexicals. The type of de se case that has been the focus of the on-going debate turns out to be a derivative case, more appropriately called “mixed de se.” For those who are committed to the existence thesis and the ascription thesis, the existence of pure de se poses an explanatory challenge. In this paper I develop an account of pure de se, centered on the notion of anchorage.

Key words： de se; pure de se; mixed de se; anchorage