Abstract
The traditional account (TA) of first-person thought draws conclusions about this type of thinking from claims made about the first-person pronoun. In this paper I raise a worry for the traditional account. Certain uses of ‘I’ conflict with its conception of the linguistic data. I argue that once the data is analysed correctly, the traditional approach to first-person thought cannot be maintained.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Anscombe G.E.M. (1975) The first person. In: Guttenplan S. (eds). Mind and language: Wolfson College lectures 1974. OUP, Oxford, pp. 45—64
Bermúdez J.L. (1998) The paradox of self-consciousness. MIT Press, Massachusetts
Corazza E., Fish W., Gorvett J. (2002) Who is I?. Philosophical Studies 107: 1–21
Evans G. (1982) The varieties of reference. OUP, Oxford
Kaplan D. (1977) Demonstratives. In: Almog J., Perry J., Wettstein H. (eds). Themes from Kaplan. OUP, Oxford, pp. 481–563
Perry J. (2000) Myself and I. In: Perry J. (eds). The problem of the essential indexical and other essays. CSLI Publications, California, pp. 325–339
Predelli S. (1998) I am not here now. Analysis 58: 107–112
Predelli S. (2002) Intentions, indexicals, and communication. Analysis 62: 310–316
Romdenh-Romluc K. (2002) Now the French are invading England!. Analysis 62: 34–41
Romdenh-Romluc K. (2006) ‘I’. Philosophical Studies 128: 257–283
Shoemaker S. (1968) Self-reference and self-awareness. The Journal of Philosophy 65: 555–567
Sidelle A. (1991) The answering-machine paradox. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 21: 525–539
Weatherson B. (2002) Misleading indexicals. Analysis 62: 308–310
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Romdenh-Romluc, K. First-person thought and the use of ‘I’. Synthese 163, 145–156 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-007-9194-5
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-007-9194-5