Taylor, Jennifer Elizabeth Vaughan; (2001) First person reference. Masters thesis (M.Phil), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

I argue that to be able to think referring 'I'-thoughts I do not need a concept of myself, while to be able to think about and refer to an object which is independent of me I must have a concept of that object. My positive proposal is that to refer to myself I just need to intend to refer to myself; I do not need to know what kind of object I am, what that objects boundaries are, or how it can be distinguished from among other objects. In Chapter 1 I develop the notion of what it is to have a concept of an object, arguing that to be able to refer to an object I must be able to single the object out, and in cases of objects which are independent of me, this can only be achieved if I have the ability to come to know the criterion of identity of the object. In Chapter 2 I examine an argument from Evans (from the premise of the generality constraint) which is meant to prove that I must have a concept of myself. I show that this argument makes assumptions about how I must think about objects - either to be able to single the object out, or to be able to make judgements about the object - which are irrelevant to the way I must think about myself. In Chapter 3 I discuss and refute Anscombes contention that my account of first person reference must be circular. I conclude that the token-reflexive rule can explain genuine first-person reference, and suggest that it is the fact that we are subjects who normally need concepts to refer to objects and yet do not need a concept to self-refer which explains how we can refer self-consciously.

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