Whisper words of wisdom: Asides and appositives in Kaplan's logic of demonstratives

Abstract

This paper is grounded on an exegetically creative reading of Kaplan's late approach to dthat‐terms. I do have a few exegetic pretensions. In particular, I simply assume what I take to be the central tenets of Kaplan's theory of demonstratives between 1977 and 1989, and I develop them according to ideas suggested by certain passages in Afterthoughts. But my developments are also unashamedly creative. I recognize that I may overemphasize a few carefully chosen snippets and that, in doing so, I may end up ignoring other important junctures. But I happily trade textual faithfulness for theoretical insight: if on the right track, my results hopefully cast a new light not only on Kaplan's take on ‘dthat’ but also on the fundamental ideas in his philosophical and semantic framework.