Abstract

First person or _de se_ content features in the nonconceptual content of perception, memory and action-awareness. This _de se_ component is individuated by the rule that it refers, _de jure_, to the subject of any mental event or state in which it occurs. Possession of _de se_ content involves the possession of a subject’s mental file on itself, and an integrating apparatus that operates to generate representations in the subject’s file on itself. The subject’s file on itself has a distinctive updating mechanism as time passes. Three degrees of self-representation are distinguished: subjects who do not self-represent at all; those that employ only the nonconceptual _de se_; and those that employ the first person concept.