Mind: A Brief Introduction (John R. Searle) / quote 128 of 138
Indexical definitions are still in the mind
What are we to make of these arguments? I admire the philosophical acumen of their authors, but I think both arguments are fallacious. The basic idea of internalism is that the mind—and by “mind” here we mean what is inside the head—sets conditions that an object must meet in order to be referred to by an expression or other form of thought content. In a classic example, the expression “the Morning Star” sets a condition such that if an object satisfies that condition, the expression can be used literally to refer to the object. Nothing in Putnam’s account challenges this conception. For the traditional idea that a checklist of features is associated with each word—for example, with the word “water” are associated such features as clear, colorless liquid, etc.—Putnam substitutes an indexical definition: “Water is anything identical in structure with what we are now seeing.” On our account of the causal self-referentiality of perceptual intentionality, that amounts to saying that water is whatever is identical in structure with the substance causing this very visual experience. But that definition sets a condition that is entirely represented in the contents of the mind.