Impure ‘de se’ Thoughts and Pragmatics (and How This Is Relevant to Pragmatics and IEM)

I shall start with some generic considerations on the pragmatics of ‘de se’ thoughts and I will then move on to the distinction between pure and impure ‘de se’ thoughts, which clearly involve some pragmatic discriminatory ability. Since impure ‘de se’ thoughts need not be IEM, it must be clear that IEM is not a semantic characteristic of psychological predicates but is available only after intervention of some pragmatic considerations. Anyway, the issue of IEM is to be considered as only tangential to the issue of ‘de se’ and thus, I will only reserve a final section for the definitive demonstration that IEM applies to certain psychological predicates only in the background of contextual considerations. IEM, in other words, is only pragmatic in nature. Although this is an important conclusion, it is deduced merely as a consequence of the analysis of ‘de se’ thoughts. The D-tour we are making is considerable, but not improper and without consequences.