Table Of ContentWolfgang Carl
The First-Person Point of View
Wolfgang Carl
The First-Person
Point of View
ISBN 978-3-11-035917-6
e-ISBN 978-3-11-036285-5
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Preface
This book originated in lectures and seminars given at the universities of Göttin-
gen, Florence and Halle. Its various topics were also presented at different talks
in the philosophy departments of the universities of Buenos Aires and Campi-
nas (Brazil) as well as at Columbia University and the University of Heidelberg.
The many objections and challenges raised by my colleagues and students have
helped me clarify my thoughts and focus on what is essential to my project. I want
to thank in particular Sergio Bernini for his enduring interest and the patience he
showed through discussions of the various issues over caffè latte. I do appreciate
the perseverance and understanding of Klaus Nickau who read a final German
version of the entire book. I am especially grateful for substantial comments and
constructive support from Andor Carius who translated a very German text into
an understandable English equivalent. Christopher Evans reviewed the whole
translation and improved it in various respects. My debts to my wife Helga remain
primary. She gave love, inspiration, and encouragement.
The topic of the book can be designated briefly and simply, but it is not so
easy to describe the project. It transcends the narrow limits of established philo-
sophical disciplines, because it plays an important role in various fields of philo-
sophy. The topic it concerns is not only addressed by philosophers. My aim was to
account for this thematic complexity by identifying its core issues and by discuss-
ing their manifestations in different philosophical disciplines. I am sure that this
can be achieved in many other ways as well. I wanted to show that such a nucleus
exists at all.
Contents
Introduction | 1
A Primate Research | 2
B Neuroscientific Accounts | 6
C Evolutionary Biology | 22
1 The Use of ‘I’ Sentences | 27
2 Frege on I Thoughts | 55
3 Direct Reference | 82
4 Epistemic Asymmetry and First-Person Authority | 101
5 Authoritative Self-Knowledge | 121
6 My Future | 151
7 Afterword | 180
Bibliography | 185
Index | 190
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Introduction
The topic ‘I’ provokes amazement as well as irritation among philosophers. Kant
believed that “the I is the strongest thought a human being may comprehend”¹ and
Wittgenstein claimed: “The I, the I is what is deeply mysterious.”² How is one to
explain this fascination? Clearly, what is distinctive about the first-person singular
pronoun is that it is used and can only be used to refer to oneself; but what exactly
are we referring to in this way? Sometimes, the answer is provided by appealing
to the notion of self, which plays an important role in explicating the concept of
person. It may be that the philosophers’ fascination concerns these issues; but
there is another way of approaching the topic. Instead of starting with considera-
tions concerning the self or having a self, I will address the very activity of refer-
ring to oneself by using the first-person singular pronoun and discuss it within the
broader context of the ability to adopt a first-person point of view. Such a point of
view will, in turn, be explained through the use of different kinds of ‘I’ sentences.
Discussion of the topic ‘I’ has a long and rich tradition in the history of philos-
ophy. Descartes and Locke, Hume and Kant, as well as Wittgenstein and Heidegger
have all grappled with it. In contemporary philosophy, there are also many dis-
cussions of this subject; as one can see from the research into indexical reference
or the debates regarding personal identity and consciousness. The issue is not,
however, only taken up by philosophers. Concern with the notion of ‘I’, in terms
of different “egos”, has been present in psychoanalysis consistently since Freud,
and this approach has been extensively discussed by philosophers. However, one
can also find various approaches and research programs in evolutionary biology
and the neurosciences which concern ‘I’, ‘the self’ or ‘consciousness’. Research in
these disciplines has only recently attracted the attention of philosophers.
Contemporary discussions in the philosophy of language and the philoso-
phy of mind deal with highly specialized issues in their respective highly spe-
cialized fields, and do not normally consider the philosophical tradition or the
pertinent scientific research. In turn, the sciences have shown little interest in
the contributions made from within contemporary philosophy. Given the variety
of approaches to the topic ‘I’, it is all the more surprising that the most obvious
initial question has so seldom been asked: How can we know that all these differ-
ent approaches are all really talking about the same topic? Without some shared
understanding, one may suspect that the thematic unity is merely due to termino-
logical convergence and that in discussions of ‘I’, everybody is referring to some-
1 Kant (1997), p. 860
2 Wittgenstein (1961), p. 80
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2 Introduction
thing different. We can avoid this predicament only by identifying a number of
core issues that are relevant to the topic ‘I’.
Since both philosophy and the sciences are concerned with the topic ‘I’, it is
not evident that philosophy has any privileged or special competence in this field
of research. Therefore, I will not rely on the history of philosophy or current phil-
osophical debates; but I will start instead by reviewing some significant contri-
butions from the sciences. I take evolutionary biology and neuroscience as exam-
ples to show that there are some central problems and issues which need to be
dealt with in any discussion on the topic ‘I’. They are the focus of my philosoph-
ical analysis of the first-person point of view. In the course of my work, I also try
to clarify some philosophical ideas and assumptions that are taken for granted by
different scientific approaches and are often treated in a vague and loose manner.
In my multiple analyses of the first-person point of view, I deal with the central
issues of ‘I’ and also assess the progress of scientific knowledge in this area.
A Primate Research
The use of the first-person singular pronoun is connected with the idea that human
speakers have certain cognitive faculties that allow us to assess and evaluate our
own behavior and thinking. We do not have to mention these abilities verbally;
but if we do, we must use the first-person singular pronoun in one way or another.
The opinion that only humans possess such superior capabilities and are distin-
guished by the language skills that enable us to use this word is widespread. Kant
typifies this view: “That man can possess the I in his mind raises him infinitely
above all other living beings on earth.”³ In his Anthropology Lectures, Kant made a
more modest claim: “This idea of an I and the ability to grasp the thought [of an I]
is the essential difference between man all other animals.”⁴ Is this really a signif-
icant difference? Does it exist at all? In his paper Self-Recognition in Primates, the
evolutionary psychologist Gordon Gallup reports his observations of the behavior
of chimpanzees when faced with mirrors and claims: “To the extent that self-rec-
ognition implies a rudimentary concept of self, these data show that contrary to
popular opinion and preconceived ideas, man may not have a monopoly on the
self-concept. Man may not be evolution’s only experiment in self-awareness.”⁵ Do
we therefore have to reject Kant’s idea regarding such a unique human ability?
3 Kant 1968, p. 127
4 Kant 1997, p. 473
5 Gallup 1977, p. 333a
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