Husserl’s Theories of Indexicals

Abstract

In the second volume of his Logical Investigations, published in 1901, Husserl distinguishes between two sorts of expressions: objective expressions, which can be fully understood by simply attending to the meaning of the terms they contain, and subjective expressions, where one needs in addition to be aware of the actual speaker and his factual situation in order to see what his words are about. Thus, in order to understand an expression like “2+3=5”, it suffices to be familiar with the meanings of the terms involved. But no one can fully grasp what is meant by “I will give you this book next week” if he has to rely exclusively on his conceptual knowledge to the effect that “I” means that the person speaking, “you” the person addressed, “this” a thing in the immediate surroundings of the speaker, and so on. The meanings of the sentence uttered will vary considerably, according to whether it is Virgil who is using it (or a Latin equivalent) in his last talk with Augustus in 19 B.C. with the Aeneid in mind, or someone in our own day who is pointing to a copy of Mohanty’s Husserl and Frege. The same phrase, when used in different situations, will be about different things; in this sense, it will have a different meaning.