Temporal indexicals are essential

Abstract: Are non-indexical action rationalizations necessarily incomplete, because of a missing indexical component? Bermúdez (‘Yes, indexicals really are essential’, Analysis 2017) argues that they are. Two things make the argument unpersuasive. First, it assumes that all action rationalizations involve attitudes that are about the agent. Second, it assumes that the attitudes expressible using ‘I’ are themselves indexical. Each is an assumption that believers in complete but non-indexical action rationalizations can and do reject. Surprisingly though, a more effective argument can be obtained by switching focus from indexical attitudes about agents to indexical attitudes about times. The debate about the de se and the de nunc have much less in common than is standardly assumed. It is the de nunc not the de se which provides the knock-down case for essential indexicality.