  Kaplan (1989a) claims that indexicals are devices of direct reference. By this he means that the content of an indexical, with respect to a context \(c\), is the object to which it refers in \(c\); its content is not a property or descriptive condition that determines the referent. For example, the content of ‘I’ in \(c\) is the agent of \(c\); its content in \(c\) is not the property or descriptive condition of being the agent of \(c\), or being the speaker of \(c\), or being the person uttering ‘I’, or any other sort of property or descriptive condition.