The Second-Person Perspective
Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 55 (1):33 - 49 (2012)
Abstract
Abstract The rise of social neuroscience has brought the second-person perspective back into the focus of philosophy. Although this is not a new topic, it is certainly less well understood than the first-person and third-person perspectives, and it is even unclear whether it can be reduced to one of these perspectives. The present paper argues that no such reduction is possible because the second-person perspective provides a unique kind of access to certain facts, namely other persons' mental states, particularly, but not only, in social contexts. The paper starts with the idea that perspectives are ways of epistemic access that determine an epistemic subject's recognition of a certain object. While the first-person perspective is subjective because it is based on, and directed at, the epistemic subject's experiences, the third-person perspective, which is based on objective evidence and gives access to all kinds of entities, is objective. The second-person perspective, by contrast, is intersubjective because it is a relation between an epistemic subject and another sentient being's mental states. It involves the epistemic subject's replication of those states, a basic self/other distinction and a basic awareness of the relevant situational differences between the epistemic subject and the other being. This is why the second-person perspective is a perspective on a perspective, which involves a basic awareness of perspectivalness, even if second-person perspective taking may be subpersonal to a large extentAuthor's Profile
My notes
Similar books and articles
Privileges of First-Person Reference and of Third-Person Reference.Guido Melchior - 2011 - Acta Analytica 26 (1):37-52.
Naturalism and the first-person perspective.Lynne Rudder Baker - 2007 - In Georg Gasser (ed.), How Successful is Naturalism? Publications of the Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society. Ontos Verlag. pp. 203-226.
“Tätigsein und die Erste-Person-Perspektive” (Agency and the first-person perspective).Lynne Rudder Baker - 2008 - In Bruno Niederbacher & Edmund Runggaldier (eds.), Was Sind Menschliche Personen? Onto Verlag.
Subjectivity and the limits of narrative.Joseph Neisser - 2008 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 15 (2):51-66.
Consciousness and the "causal paradox".Max Velmans - 1996 - Behavioral and Brain Sciences 19 (3):538-542.
Phenomenology: Neither auto- nor hetero- be.John J. Drummond - 2007 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 6 (1-2):57-74.
Crossing the bridge: the first-person and time.Patrick Stokes - 2014 - Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences 13 (2):295-312.
The subjectivity of subjective experience: A representationalist analysis of the first-person perspective.Thomas Metzinger - 2004 - Networks:285--306.
Consciousness and intentionality.John Barresi - 2007 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 14 (1-2):77-93.
Analytics
Added to PP
2012-01-19
Downloads
154 (#83,213)
6 months
4 (#182,797)
2012-01-19
Downloads
154 (#83,213)
6 months
4 (#182,797)
Historical graph of downloads
Author's Profile
Citations of this work
Second-Person Engagement, Self-Alienation, and Group-Identification.Dan Zahavi - 2019 - Topoi 38 (1):251-260.
Illuminating the dark matter of social neuroscience: Considering the problem of social interaction from philosophical, psychological, and neuroscientific perspectives.Marisa Przyrembel, Jonathan Smallwood, Michael Pauen & Tania Singer - 2012 - Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 6.
Fenomenología de la cognición social y neurociencia de segunda persona.Ivana Anton Mlinar - 2021 - Investigaciones Fenomenológicas 17:19.
(New) Realist Social Cognition.Nicolás Araneda Hinrichs - 2020 - Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 14.
La Dimensión Noética de la Salud en la Logoterapia de Viktor Frankl.Raquel Ferrández Formoso - 2019 - Thémata: Revista de Filosofía 2019 (60):27-40.
References found in this work
The Blue and Brown Books: Preliminary Studies for the 'Philosophical Investigations'.Ludwig Wittgenstein - 1958 - Oxford, England: Harper & Row.
Beliefs about beliefs: Representation and constraining function of wrong beliefs in young children's understanding of deception.H. Wimmer - 1983 - Cognition 13 (1):103-128.