They are talking about propositions, and the point is that the sentence “Stealing is wrong” expresses different propositions when uttered by different people, just like “I’m sleepy” does. That’s what indexicality is!
That’s what I meant by “talking about sentences”. Any sentence can express different propositions when uttered by different people. Just have people speaking different languages. So clearly “means different things when said by different people” isn’t half specific enough to have any dire metaethical implications.
We are speaking the same language. Yet we express different propositions when we say “I’m sitting at a table.” This is not trivial; for example, various other sentences do not have this property. So the SEP quote, once interpreted correctly, is non-trivial, too, because it is quite clear that the writer did not intend your “speaking different languages” interpretation.
Also, you can divorce a technical notion of a sentence from that of a string of sounds; sentencehood might be a two-place predicate of a string and a language.
But I could easily claim that the way strings like “me” and “here” change their meanings depending on context just shows that we do not always speak the same language. I could think of a language as just being a mapping from symbols to propositions, in which case any variation in propositions expressed means that it is not the same language.
You could argue that there is some kind of mapping to an intermediate state we have in common: symbol -> intermediate -> proposition where symbol -> intermediate is your “language”. But then I would ask why anyone should care about that particular intermediate state, and whether that intermediate state can be compellingly or uniquely defined with respect to words like “wrong”.
But I could easily claim that the way strings like “me” and “here” change their meanings depending on context just shows that we do not always speak the same language.
Then you are employing the word “language” in an idiosyncratic, confusing, and, in my opinion, not very useful way. Note that we also switch languages depending on where we are (“here”) and, in fact, continuously all the time (“now”). Good luck building a theory on that.
You might want to look up the notion of a Kaplanian character, which is precisely the intermediate level that you’re suggesting. A character is a function from contexts of utterance to propositions, and the (language-relative) meaning of a sentence is such a character, so, as you say, you could think of a language as a relation between strings and characters (not a function, because of ambiguity). In that picture, an expression is called “indexical” when its character is not a constant function.
Why we should care about that? Because it’s useful in explaining why we understand each other despite the fact that we don’t express the same propositions with one and the same sentence all the time, I suppose.
So the claim that “wrong” is indexical is certainly meaningful and non-trivial. Whether it’s correct is another matter. (I think it isn’t.)
I could think of a language as just being a mapping from symbols to propositions, in which case any variation in propositions expressed means that it is not the same language.
If that’s what counts as a language, I think we should deny the existence of languages:
“Rather than take for granite that Ace talks straight, a listener must be on guard for an occasional entre nous and me...or a long face no see. In a roustabout way, he will maneuver until he selects the ideal phrase for the situation, hitting the nail right on the thumb. The careful conversationalist might try to mix it up with him in a baffle of wits. In quest of this pinochle of success, I have often wrecked my brain for a clowning achievement, but Ace’s chickens always come home to roast. From time to time, Ace will, in a jersksome way, monotonise the conversation with witticisms too humorous to mention. It’s high noon someone beat him at his own game, but I have never done it; cross my eyes and hope to die, he always wins thumbs down.” From A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs
Yet we express different propositions when we say “I’m sitting at a table.”
Well, if that’s the way to read the SEP quote, then it does look trivially true. At least as trivial as this claim:
It is possible that when John says “It is raining today”, he is saying something true, while when Jenny says “The dog is brown” she is saying something false.
The non-trivial reading would have to be that John and Jenny are asserting the same proposition, but that Jenny’s assertion is true while John’s is false.
They are talking about propositions, and the point is that the sentence “Stealing is wrong” expresses different propositions when uttered by different people, just like “I’m sleepy” does. That’s what indexicality is!
That’s what I meant by “talking about sentences”. Any sentence can express different propositions when uttered by different people. Just have people speaking different languages. So clearly “means different things when said by different people” isn’t half specific enough to have any dire metaethical implications.
We are speaking the same language. Yet we express different propositions when we say “I’m sitting at a table.” This is not trivial; for example, various other sentences do not have this property. So the SEP quote, once interpreted correctly, is non-trivial, too, because it is quite clear that the writer did not intend your “speaking different languages” interpretation.
Also, you can divorce a technical notion of a sentence from that of a string of sounds; sentencehood might be a two-place predicate of a string and a language.
But I could easily claim that the way strings like “me” and “here” change their meanings depending on context just shows that we do not always speak the same language. I could think of a language as just being a mapping from symbols to propositions, in which case any variation in propositions expressed means that it is not the same language.
You could argue that there is some kind of mapping to an intermediate state we have in common:
symbol -> intermediate -> propositionwheresymbol -> intermediateis your “language”. But then I would ask why anyone should care about that particular intermediate state, and whether that intermediate state can be compellingly or uniquely defined with respect to words like “wrong”.Then you are employing the word “language” in an idiosyncratic, confusing, and, in my opinion, not very useful way. Note that we also switch languages depending on where we are (“here”) and, in fact, continuously all the time (“now”). Good luck building a theory on that.
You might want to look up the notion of a Kaplanian character, which is precisely the intermediate level that you’re suggesting. A character is a function from contexts of utterance to propositions, and the (language-relative) meaning of a sentence is such a character, so, as you say, you could think of a language as a relation between strings and characters (not a function, because of ambiguity). In that picture, an expression is called “indexical” when its character is not a constant function.
Why we should care about that? Because it’s useful in explaining why we understand each other despite the fact that we don’t express the same propositions with one and the same sentence all the time, I suppose.
So the claim that “wrong” is indexical is certainly meaningful and non-trivial. Whether it’s correct is another matter. (I think it isn’t.)
If that’s what counts as a language, I think we should deny the existence of languages:
“Rather than take for granite that Ace talks straight, a listener must be on guard for an occasional entre nous and me...or a long face no see. In a roustabout way, he will maneuver until he selects the ideal phrase for the situation, hitting the nail right on the thumb. The careful conversationalist might try to mix it up with him in a baffle of wits. In quest of this pinochle of success, I have often wrecked my brain for a clowning achievement, but Ace’s chickens always come home to roast. From time to time, Ace will, in a jersksome way, monotonise the conversation with witticisms too humorous to mention. It’s high noon someone beat him at his own game, but I have never done it; cross my eyes and hope to die, he always wins thumbs down.” From A Nice Derangement of Epitaphs
Well, if that’s the way to read the SEP quote, then it does look trivially true. At least as trivial as this claim:
The non-trivial reading would have to be that John and Jenny are asserting the same proposition, but that Jenny’s assertion is true while John’s is false.