[lit-ideas] Re: "The Day After Yesterday"

J.L. wrote:

"I'm not sure what McCartney meant by 'Yesterday'. Literally, of course, we
_know_."

'We' may know but it isn't at all clear to me.  Perhaps my problem is that I
am not at all clear what the word 'yesterday' _literally_ means.  I know how
to use it in a variety of contexts but which one is the 'literal' one?  This
word, 'literally', strikes me as being a particularly tricky word and often
used inappropriately.  Coincidentally, just as I received J.L.'s post, I
came across the following in some reading I am doing:

"We ought always to keep before our eyes a complete proposition.  Only in a
proposition have the words really a meaning.  It may be that mental pictures
float before us all the while, but these need not correspond to the logical
elements in the judgement.  It is enough if the proposition taken as a whole
has a sense; it is this that confers on the parts also their content."
(_The Foundations of Arithmetic_, Frege)

When does a word not mean what it literally means?

But getting back to the word 'yesterday', isn't this an indexical?  And, if
I understand correctly, aren't indexicals notoriously difficult things to
account for _analytically_?


Sincerely,

Phil Enns
Toronto, ON

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