Kafa, Antroula; (2021) The First Person and Self-Concern. Masters thesis (M.Phil.Stud), UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

This is a thesis about the practical, affective, and normative significance of first person thought. I urge that theories of first person thought must pay closer attention to these dimensions of the phenomenon, and I seek to enrich our appreciation of these dimensions by proposing that first person thought is associated with a distinctive concern for self. My aim is to determine what account of first person thought would best explain its distinctive association with self-concern. Chapter 1 introduces and motivates the project. Chapter 2 proposes a diagnostic category of ‘Reductionist Views’, according to which first person thought is adequately characterised by its fundamental reference rule. I argue that Reductionist Views do not contain the resources to vindicate the practical, affective, and normative significance of first person thought, and that they are independently implausible. In Chapter 3, I consider ‘Perceptual Views’ of first person thought. I argue that, although such views face important problems, they nevertheless provide some resources for explaining the cognitive significance of first person thought. Taking cue from Perceptual Views, in Chapter 4, I articulate the ‘Immediate Access View’, according to which first person thought is grounded in immediate self-knowledge and a nonlinguistic and nonconceptual form of self-awareness. I conclude by discussing some of the ways in which self-concern could be explicated along the lines of the Immediate Access View, and by identifying the general form of an account on which self-concern can be vindicated.

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