The Nature of Externalism: A Survey Prompted by John Perry's "The Problem of the Essential Indexical and Other Essays"

This critical review of John Perry’s recent compilation of his work (Perry (1993) is mainly devoted to surveying the path leading towards a certain rapprochement between philosophers with Fregean inclinations and philosophers attracted by the picture of thought and meaning brought out by Direct Reference theorists like Donnellan, Kaplan, Kripke, Putnam, and, of course, Perry himself, by taking advantage of the suggestions in the postscripts to very well-known and deservedly influential articles.