An acquaintance constraint and a cognitive significance constraint on singular thought
An acquaintance constraint and a cognitive significance constraint on singular thought

Summary/Abstract: Among Singularists, it has been widely accepted that one can have singular thought by acquaintance, and that acquaintance encompasses the perceptual acquiring, memorizing and communicating of singular thoughts. I defend the possibility of having a singular thought via extending acquaintance to intermediaries other than just through written and spoken words. On my account, singular thought includes two types of representations, namely indexical-iconic representation and indexical-discursive representation. Also, it is determined by two constraints: (i) the acquaintance constraint: singular thought includes a causalhistorical relation to the object; and (ii) the cognitive significance constraint: we have a cognitive capacity to deliberately encode an indexical-iconic representation into an indexical-discursive representation, which enables us to have a singular thought.

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