There is an ongoing debate about whether any of us are “first-person authoritative” when ascribing mental states to ourselves, and, if so, whether this constitutes a genuine philosophical puzzle. This may come as a surprise, since philosophers have been trying to explain first-person authority for several decades. It would be surprising indeed if this explanatory project turned out to be entirely bankrupt. In this paper, after improving and elaborating on earlier specifications of the phenomenon, I argue (...) that first-person authority is real and worthy of the philosophical attention it has received. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue for a version of panpsychist idealism on first-person experiential grounds. As things always appear in my field of consciousness, there is prima facie empirical support for idealism. Furthermore, by assuming that all things correspond to a conscious perspective or perspectives (i.e., panpsychism), realism about the world is arguably safeguarded without the need to appeal to God (as per Berkeley’s idealism). Panpsychist idealism also has a phenomenological advantage over traditional panpsychist views as it does (...) not commit perceptual experience to massive error by denying that perceived colours are properties of things. Finally, I argue that the subject combination problem for panpsychism has been motivated by the problematic assumption that consciousness is in things. Thinking about subject combination from the first-person perspective is fruitful for reframing the subject combination problem and for seeing how subjects could potentially combine for the idealist. (shrink)

It is easy to imagine being someone else from the first-person point of view. Such imaginings give rise to a puzzle. In this paper I explain what the puzzle is and then consider several existing attempts of solving the puzzle. I argue that these attempts are unsuccessful. I propose a Lewisian account of first-person imagination and make the case that this account has the potential to solve the puzzle.

This paper aims to support my (2018) skeptical position on the possibility of a correct and philosophically significant specification of first-person authority. For this purpose, I critically examine the proposals presented by Doyle (2021) and Winokur (2022) in response to my position and argue that while these proposals contain some ingenious ideas, they ultimately fall short of providing correct and philosophically significant specifications. Ultimately, the search for an adequate specification of first-person authority remains unresolved.

In classical South Asia, most philosophers thought that the self (if it exists at all) is what the first-person pronoun ‘I’ stands for. It is something that persists through time, undergoes conscious thoughts and experiences, and exercises control over actions. The Buddhists accepted the ‘no self’ thesis: they denied that such a self is substantially real. This gave rise to a puzzle for these Buddhists. If there is nothing substantially real that ‘I’ stands for, what are we talking (...) about when we speak of ourselves? In this paper, I present one Buddhist answer to this question, an answer that emerges from the work of the Abhidharma thinker Vasubandhu (4th to 5th century CE). (shrink)

Kant stresses the presence, in all languages, of first-person formulas. In the Anthropology, § 1, he argues (i) that the use of ‘I’ (or any other linguistic form referring to the speaker) makes the human being “a person”, and (ii) that the use of the first-person pronoun enables the child to “think herself”. In the present paper, I claim that, in order to understand those assertions, first-person linguistic formulas should not be construed as (...) mere expressions of an infra-discursive self-awareness; for Kant after 1781, such formulas actually contribute to making self-awareness possible. (shrink)

The Expressive Self argues the nature of the self lies in the fact that only in one's own case are acts of expression actual episodes of one's self-consciousness. The author provides novel accounts of Moore's paradox, self-deception, and McKinsey's paradox and addresses challenges from self-reference and first-person authority.

It is often assumed that singular thought requires that an agent be epistemically acquainted with the object the thought is about. However, it can sometimes truthfully be said of someone that they have a belief about an object, despite not being interestingly epistemically acquainted with that object. In defense of an epistemic acquaintance constraint on singular thought, it is thus often claimed that belief ascriptions are context sensitive and do not always track the contents of an agent’s mental states. This (...) paper uses first-person attitude reports to argue that contextualism about belief ascriptions does not present an adequate defense of an acquaintance constraint on singular thought. (shrink)

It is sometimes claimed that each of us has a special ‘first-person perspective’ on our own mind. It is also sometimes claimed that each of us confronts questions about what to do from a distinctively ‘agent-centred’ standpoint. This essay argues that the analogies between these claims are not just superficial, but point to the importance, in both cases, of a representational structure that sets ‘first-person’ awareness apart from external or ‘third-person’ awareness. I describe this structure (...) and show its importance in clarifying some well-known claims about the importance of the agent’s standpoint in ethics. (shrink)

Naomi Eilan; IV*—The First Person Perspective, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 95, Issue 1, 1 June 1995, Pages 51–66, https://doi.org/10.1093/ar.

A population can be ideologically or affectively polarized. Ideological polarization relates to people’s political beliefs, while affective polarization deals with people’s feelings toward the ingroup and the outgroup. Both types of mental states, beliefs and feelings, are typically measured through direct self-report surveys. One philosophical assumption underlying this way of measuring polarization is a concrete version of the first-person authority thesis: the speaker’s sincerity guarantees the truth of their mental self-ascriptions. Based on various empirical studies, the first (...) part of this paper argues that we are particularly bad at spotting our own mental states regarding political issues. This, in turn, raises doubts about the accuracy of direct self-report surveys in measuring polarization. In the second part, I introduce Michael Lynch’s notion of political meaning to argue that traditional surveys can still provide valuable information for detecting polarization. However, I suggest that this information pertains not to participants’ beliefs and feelings, but rather to their level of commitment to the core beliefs of the political groups they identify with, which is a relevant aspect of pernicious polarization. (shrink)

A population can be ideologically or affectively polarized. Ideological polarization relates to people’s political beliefs, while affective polarization deals with people’s feelings toward the ingroup and the outgroup. Both types of mental states, beliefs and feelings, are typically measured through direct self-report surveys. One philosophical assumption underlying this way of measuring polarization is a concrete version of the first-person authority thesis: the speaker’s sincerity guarantees the truth of their mental self-ascriptions. Based on various empirical studies, the first (...) part of this paper argues that we are particularly bad at spotting our own mental states regard­ing political issues. This, in turn, raises doubts about the accuracy of direct self-report surveys in measuring polarization. In the second part, I introduce Michael Lynch’s notion of political meaning to argue that traditional surveys can still provide valuable information for detecting polarization. However, I suggest that this information pertains not to participants’ beliefs and feelings, but rather to their level of commitment to the core beliefs of the political groups they identify with, which is a relevant aspect of pernicious polarization. (shrink)

As some authors have recently pointed out, the notion of first-person authority has an importantly social dimension: it concerns not only how one’s mental self-ascriptions can be usually (or always) true, but also how one’s interlocutor can presume such mental self-ascriptions to be true (Borgoni 2019, Winokur 2023). An adequate theory of first-person authority should account for both aspects of the phenomenon, but the traditional discussion has focused mainly on the former. In this paper, I will (...) reexamine Davidson’s account of first-person authority in this light and argue that it has interesting theoretical resources to address both aspects of first-person authority within a unified framework. In the literature, there is a consensus that (1) the key idea in Davidson’s account is to explain first-person authority in terms of a speaker’s authoritative knowledge of the meanings of her own words, and (2) Davidson explains the special status of a speaker’s semantic knowledge by invoking his non-communitarian view of meaning-determination. I will argue that, to see a fuller picture of Davidson’s view on first-person authority, these ideas need to be integrated with his discussion on triangulation, where he purports to show that meaning should be essentially social and interpretable. This will allow us to recognize how Davidson's theoretical system, as a whole, is indeed tailored to capturing the social dimension of first-person authority highlighted in the recent discussion. (shrink)

In the interest of articulating a materialist theory of self in which self and brain are ‘correlates’ in the broad sense that they form part of a meaningful, integrated whole, I take the case of phantom limb syndrome. When considered in a philosophical light, such phenomena might seem to imply the necessity of the first-person perspective, a key insight of the phenomenological tradition, in Husserl and Merleau-Ponty in particular. But it is possible to formulate a materialist response to (...) this first-person challenge. For this response to be effective, it will have to take integrate a notion of embodiment. However, in order to not to reinvest brain or body with the mysterious character that the materialist approach has stripped from the ‘first person’, the vision of the brain here must also be an embedded vision, as Andy Clark calls it, that is, locating brain not just in an embodied context but also in the social world, in the network of symbolic relations (what I call, following Lev Vygotsky, the “social brain”). A self which is the product of the brain, a brain which is intentional and embodied, and both as correlates of a materialist theory of self: this is what I attempt to sketch out, taking as a particular case, phantom limb syndrome. (shrink)

The present paper argues that, despite appearance to the contrary, Kierkegaard’s writings offer promising argumentational resources for addressing the problem of evil. According to Kierkegaard, however, in order to make use of these resources at all, one must necessarily be willing to shift the battleground, so to speak: from a third- to a genuine first-person perspective, namely the perspective of what Climacus dubs Religiousness A. All (yet also only) those who seek deliberate self-annihilation before God—a God in relation (...) to whom they perceive themselves always in the wrong—shall discover the ideal that an unwavering and in fact unconditional thankfulness (namely, for being forgiven) is to be considered the only appropriate attitude towards God and as such both necessary and sufficient for coming to terms with evil and suffering, at least in the life of someone making that discovery. I will argue that Kierkegaard’s (non-)pseudonymous writings provide reasons, at times unwittingly, for adopting the perspective of Religiousness A; however, I will also and ultimately argue that the principle of infinite thankfulness as a corollary of that perspective flounders when it comes to making sense of (the eschatological implications of) the suffering of others. (shrink)

This study examines processes through which social personae are conveyed by male Japanese students at a public university in Yokohama. Focusing on the frame-setting function of first person pronominals in contexts where there is no intra/inter speaker variation in the choice of FPP, this paper analyzes how speakers manage identity-associated discursive alignments related to a shared Okinawa prefecture background. The common experience of being from Okinawa prefecture and attending university far from home is the primary reason that these (...) speakers are close friends. However, analysis reveals speakers’ continual and active contention and re-formulation of this shared ‘Okinawan-ness’ and the personae to which it is linked. In particular, FPPs are implicated in speakers’ discussion of heterogeneity and/or local differences with respect to their Okinawa prefecture background. Strategic use of FPPs thus emerges as a salient tactic for speakers’ active negotiation of conversation relevant personae categories even in interactional contexts without variation. (shrink)

It is widely agreed that first-person testimony is a good source of evidence, including testimony about the contents of mental states unobservable to others. Thus we generally think that an individual’s testimony is a good source of evidence about her wellbeing—after all, she experiences her quality of life and we don’t. However, some have argued that the first-person testimony of disabled individuals regarding their wellbeing is defeated: regardless of someone’s claim about how disability affects her overall (...) wellbeing, other evidence about disability undermines the force of her testimony with respect to our justified beliefs. In this paper, I argue that at least some cases of first-person testimony about disability is not defeated. Particularly, neither the existence of conflicting testimony nor evidence about disabilities’ associated harms or challenges successfully undermine either the content of the testimony or the reliability of the testifiers. While I do not claim that first-person testimony is the only evidence relevant to characterizing disability, I argue that it is not always blocked by other evidence about disability. At least some first-person testimony from disabled individuals is, therefore, undefeated evidence relevant to evaluating disability and overall wellbeing. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “The World of Screen Creatures” by Bin Liu. Abstract: I examine the premise that Liu’s screen creatures duplicate the images of a first-person shooter. I raise questions about the first-person perspective of screen creatures and their use of language.

This article argues that in Pindar's epinicians first-person statements may occasionally be made in the persona of the chorus and the athletic victor. The speaking persona behind Pindar's first-person statements varies quite widely: from generic, rhetorical poses—a laudator, an aoidos in the rhapsodic tradition (the “bardic first person”), an Everyman (the “first person indefinite”)—to strongly individualized figures: the Theban poet Pindar, the chorus, the victor. The arguable changes in the speaker's persona are (...) not explicitly signalled in the text. This can lead to significant ambiguities concerning the identity of the speaker (“blurred quotation,” “indeterminate speech boundaries”). The lack of a concern always to distinguish clearly the primary from the secondary narrators relates to a desire to confuse diegetic and mimetic forms; the practice of the fifth-century choral lyric poets in this regard is compared to that of other ancient Greek writers. The main challenge is to indicate how it is possible, in theory and in practice, for the athletic victor to be identified as the speaker when this is not explicitly signalled in the text; and, if this is possible, to suggest how it is possible for an audience to recognize when the speaking persona subsequently reverts to laudator or poet. An attempt is made to consider whether any formal, structural, or thematic tendencies can be observed in those passages in choral lyric where the chorus or the victor are tacitly introduced as speaking personae: such effects, it is argued, occur especially when links of ritual or genealogy enable the ode to “zoom” from the mythical past to the present occasion of the performance. The main passages discussed in the article are Pind. P.8.56–60, P.9.89–92, N.7.85, Pae. 2.73–79, and Bacch. 3.84–85. But the phenomena discussed are related broadly to other phenomena in Greek literature, in Latin poetry, and, especially, in Cicero's forensic oratory. (shrink)

I first argue that rigorous and systematic first-person research on lived experience is essential to understanding irreality as experience. Then, based on first-person research, I briefly show that….

While first-person methods are essential for a science of consciousness, it is controversial what form these methods should take and whether any such methods are reliable. I propose that first-person experiments are a reliable method for investigating conscious experience. I outline the history of these methods and describe their characteristics. In particular, a first-person experiment is an intervention on a subject's experience in which independent variables are manipulated, extraneous variables are held fixed, and in (...) which the subject makes a phenomenal judgement about the target experience of the investigation. I examine historical and contemporary examples of first-person experiments: Mariotte’s demonstration of the visual blind spot, Kanizsa’s subjective contours, the Tse Illusion, and investigations of the non-uniform resolution of the visual field. I discuss the role that phenomenal contrast plays in these methods, and how they overcome typical introspective errors. I argue that their intersubjective repeatability is an important factor in their scientific status, however, it is not the only factor. That they control for extraneous factors and confounds is another factor which sets them apart from pseudoscience (e.g., the perception of auras), and hence another reason for classifying them as genuine experiments. Furthermore, by systematically mapping out the structure of visual experience, these methods make scientific progress. Praises of such first-person experimental approaches may not always be sung by philosophers and psychologists, but they continue to flourish as respectable scientific methods nevertheless. (shrink)

First-person data have been both condemned and hailed because of their alleged privacy. Critics argue that science must be based on public evidence: since first-person data are private, they should be banned from science. Apologists reply that first-person data are necessary for understanding the mind: since first-person data are private, scientists must be allowed to use private evidence. I argue that both views rest on a false premise. In psychology and neuroscience, the (...) subjects issuing first-person reports and other sources of first-person data play the epistemic role of a (self-) measuring instrument. Data from measuring instruments are public and can be validated by public methods. Therefore, first-person data are as public as other scientific data: their use in science is legitimate, in accordance with standard scientific methodology. (shrink)

This chapter has two objectives. One is to explore possible social epistemological approaches to self-knowledge. These are outlined in the first section, which is primarily historical and exploratory yet critical. The second objective is to propose a view of first-person authority as an intrinsically social phenomenon. The second section argues that first-person authority is a different phenomenon than self-knowledge, although the two are linked in important ways. Thus, instead of arguing for a social epistemological approach (...) to self-knowledge, the chapter proposes that a promising way to understand its social aspects is to focus on a related but different phenomenon, namely first person authority. (shrink)

Sydney Shoemaker is one of the most influential philosophers currently writing on philosophy of mind and metaphysics. The essays in this collection deal with the way in which we know our own minds, and with the nature of those mental states of which we have our most direct conscious awareness. Professor Shoemaker opposes the 'inner sense' conception of introspective self-knowledge. He defends the view that perceptual and sensory states have non-representational features - 'qualia' - that determine what it is like (...) to have them. Amongst the other topics covered are the unity of consciousness, and the idea that the 'first-person perspective' gives a privileged route to philosophical understanding of the nature of mind. This major collection is sure to prove invaluable to all advanced students of the philosophy of mind and cognitive science. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to discuss a seemingly straightforward argument against physicalism which, despite being implicit in much of the philosophical debate about consciousness, has not received the attention it deserves (compared to other, better-known “epistemic”, “modal”, and “conceivability” arguments). This is the argument from the non-supervenience of the first-personal (and indexical) facts on the third-personal (and non-indexical) ones. This non-supervenience, together with the assumption that the physical facts (as conventionally understood) are third-personal, entails that some facts (...) – namely, first-personal, phenomenal ones – do not supervene on the physical facts. Unlike other arguments against physicalism, the first-personal argument, if successful, refutes not only physicalism but also other third-personal metaphysical pictures, including standard versions of dualism. (shrink)

This is an open access book that addresses how we treat others and, in particular, infants and children, with first-person authority. We respond to people’s first-person authority when we give our interlocutor’s communication of their mental states more significance in establishing their thoughts, desires, and feelings than if another person were to report those mental states for them. But what happens when our interlocutors are infants and children? Increasingly, practices of responsive childrearing ascribe first- (...) class='Hi'>person authority to very young children. Despite this tendency, philosophy seems to be one step behind. The accepted view is one in which first-person authority has its locus in linguistic expressions of one’s self-knowledge. This is an over-intellectualized conception, however, that consequently tends to exclude children. By combining philosophical resources with empirical findings about the onset of human communication, play, and our nature as social beings, this text advances a non-intellectualized, anti-individualist, and non-adult-centered view of first-person authority. This is a view that both accommodates our daily experiences and provides material for advancing the philosophical debate around the phenomenon in an enriched and more inclusive way. (shrink)

In this paper I investigate which of the main conditions proposed in the moral responsibility literature are the ones that spell trouble for the idea that Artificial Intelligence Systems could ever be full-fledged responsible agents. After arguing that the standard construals of the control and epistemic conditions don’t impose any in-principle barrier to AISs being responsible agents, I identify the requirement that responsible agents must be aware of their own actions as the main locus of resistance to attribute that kind (...) of agency to AISs. This is because this type of awareness is thought to involve first-person or de se representations, which, in turn, are usually assumed to involve some form of consciousness. I clarify what this widespread assumption involves and conclude that the possibility of AISs’ moral responsibility hinges on what the correct theory of de se representations ultimately turns out to be. (shrink)

Donald Davidson famously offered an explanation of “first-person authority”. However, he described first-person authority differently across different works—sometimes referring to the presumptive truth of agents’ self-ascriptions of their current mental states, and sometimes referring to the direct self-knowledge that agents often have of said states. First, I show that a standard Davidsonian explanation of first-person authority can at best, and with some modification, explain the presumptive truth of agents’ self-ascriptions. I then develop two (...) Davidsonian accounts of direct self-knowledge—one accounting for its function and another accounting for its source—pushing back in the process against deflationary and quietist rejoinders to these projects. Finally, I relate my Davidsonian accounts of direct self-knowledge back to the modified Davidsonian account of the presumptive truth of agents’ self-ascriptions. (shrink)

Suppose I say, “I am a woman.” Many people agree that in almost all cases, it is wrong in some way to challenge this claim because I have some kind of first-person authority over my own gender. Being able to recognize this first-person authority is a key desideratum for accounts of how gender claims function in trans-inclusive contexts. However, there is disagreement about exactly what kind of first-person authority needs to be recognized. Talia Mae (...) Bettcher argues that we should recognize ethical rather than epistemic first-person authority over gender. Critics argue that ethical first-person authority, as generally understood, is not enough. I argue that Bettcher’s influential account of gender claims as acts of existential self-identification has the resources to recognize nonabsolute metaphysical, ethical, and epistemic first-person authority over gender. Moreover, I argue, this kind of nonabsolute metaphysical, ethical, and epistemic first-person authority is exactly what we should want an account of gender practices to recognize. It gives plausible results about tricky cases and enables us to clearly identify the ways in which someone is wronged when their gender claim is wrongfully challenged. I identify the features of Bettcher’s account that enable it to recognize this first-person authority and Graham use Bex-Priestley’s account as a model to show that we can identify these features in other promising accounts of gender. I finish by discussing the implications of Bettcher’s recent monograph, in which her earlier arguments are situated within an account of interpersonal spatiality. (shrink)

What explains the presumption that a speaker is right when he sincerely attributes a belief, desire, or intention to his present self, while there is no such presumption when others make similar attributions to him? It is argued that 'solutions' to the problem of knowledge of other minds which merely restate the asymmetry leave the open field to the skeptic. A new explanation of first person authority is offered which traces the source of the authority to a necessary (...) feature of the interpretation of speech. (shrink)

I argue for the view that some we-thoughts are immune to error through misidentification (IEM) relative to the first-person plural pronoun. To prepare the ground for this argument I defend an account of the semantics of ‘we’ and note the variety of different uses of that term. I go on to defend the IEM of a certain range of we-thoughts against a number of objections.

Victor Verdejo’s paper ‘On Having the Same First Person Thoughts’ introduces an interesting and fruitful framework for applying the type-token distinction to first person thoughts. He draws a three-way distinction between types, instantiable types, and instantiated types, and uses that distinction to open up a conceptual space for the possibility of shareable first person thoughts. This note distinguishes two types of interpersonal shareability and argues that Verdejo’s suggestions about instantiable types can only secure shareability (...) of the first kind, but not the second. The author then shows how his own account of what he terms the token-sense of “I” succeeds in making possible this second type of interpersonal shareability, despite the criticisms in Verdejo’s paper. (shrink)

Ordinarily when someone tells us something about her beliefs, desires or intentions, we presume she is right. According to standard views, this deferential trust is justified on the basis of certain epistemic properties of her assertion. In this paper, I offer a non-epistemic account of deference. I first motivate the account by noting two asymmetries between the kind of deference we show psychological self-ascriptions and the kind we grant to epistemic experts more generally. I then propose a novel agency-based (...) account of deference. Drawing on recent work on self-knowledge, I argue that a person normally has a distinctive type of cognitive agency; specifically she is able to constitute her psychological attitudes by making judgments about what they ought to be. I then argue that a speaker expresses this agentive authority when she self-ascribes a psychological attitude and this is what justifies deferentially trusting what she says. Because the notion of expression plays a central role in this account, I contrast it with recent neo-expressivist theories. (shrink)

In this paper, I present one possible way of arguing for the theory of minimal self-consciousness, namely, by an argument by elimination. Central to the argument are the following two claims: a) If a theory of consciousness cannot explain first-person self-reference, then the theory is false, and b) An anonymity theory cannot explain first-person self-reference. Consequently, the anonymity theory is false.

This paper explores the relationship between the failure to defer to first-person authority and the concept of epistemic injustice. Specifically, it argues that this failure cannot be classified as either hermeneutical or testimonial injustice, as it results in a general harm to the subject as an autonomous agent rather than exclusively to their epistemic capacity. The paper achieves two main goals. First, it identifies important limits in the notion of epistemic injustice. Not all communicative interpersonal interactions that (...) involve intertwined epistemic and ethical failures can be categorized as epistemic injustice. Second, the paper shows that the norms of deference to first-person authority are unique to this phenomenon, as are the corresponding failures to adhere to such norms. (shrink)

A first-person proposition is a proposition that only a single subject can assert or believe. When I assert ‘I am on fire’ I assert a first-person proposition that only I have access to, in the sense that no one else can assert or believe this proposition. This is in contrast to third-person propositions, which can be asserted or believed by anyone.

Why should people presume that you are correct when you ascribe beliefs, desires, or other attitudes to yourself? Put differently, why should people regard your ‘attitude avowals’ as ‘first-person authoritative’? One answer from the literature goes like this. First, you frequently bear agentive authority toward your attitudes insofar as only you can determine them by considering the reasons that bear on them. Second, in avowing your attitudes, you express your agentive authority to your hearers, thus making it (...) clear that you alone have the cognitive power to conform your attitudes to your avowals. Your hearers, recognizing what you have expressed, now possess a uniquely strong justification for believing what you say. I argue, however, that expressions of agentive authority fall short of explaining first-person authority. What is needed is a supplemental explanation of the epistemic ground that hearers have for believing that an avower's agentive authority, when exercised and expressed, has also been successfully exercised. The positive task of this paper is to construe this reason as an epistemic entitlement. My efforts thus lead me to a hybridized explanation of first-person authority for attitude avowals where both expression and entitlement play epistemic roles. (shrink)

I argue that we can understand the de se by employing the subjective mode of presentation or, if one’s ontology permits it, by defending an abundant ontology of perspectival personal properties or facts. I do this in the context of a discussion of Cappelen and Dever’s recent criticisms of the de se. Then, I discuss the distinctive role of the first personal perspective in discussions about empathy, rational deference, and self-understanding, and develop a way to frame the problem of (...) lacking prospective access to your future self as a problem with your capacity to imaginatively empathize with your future selves. (shrink)

Science and its philosophical companion, Naturalism, represent reality in wholly nonpersonal terms. How, if at all, can a nonpersonal scheme accommodate the first-person perspective that we all enjoy? In this volume, Lynne Rudder Baker explores that question by considering both reductive and eliminative approaches to the first-person perspective. After finding both approaches wanting, she mounts an original constructive argument to show that a non-Cartesian first-person perspective belongs in the basic inventory of what exists. That (...) is, the world that contains us persons is irreducibly personal.After arguing for the irreducibilty and ineliminability of the first-person perspective, Baker develops a theory of this perspective. The first-person perspective has two stages, rudimentary and robust. Human infants and nonhuman animals with consciousness and intentionality have rudimentary first-person perspectives. In learning a language, a person acquires a robust first-person perspective: the capacity to conceive of oneself as oneself, in the first person. By developing an account of personal identity, Baker argues that her theory is coherent, and she shows various ways in which first-person perspectives contribute to reality. (shrink)

There are different ways in which imaginings can involve the first-person. I can imagine skiing down a mountain, looking down the slope, the wind whipping me in the face. I can also imagine myself skiing down a mountain from the outside, adopting the point of view of a spectator watching myself fly down the mountain. I can also imagine that I am someone else entirely, say Angela Merkel, skiing down a mountain. In this paper I develop and defend (...) a new account of the content of first-person imaginings. I first look at two existing accounts, one proposed by Francois Recanati (2007a, 2007b) and the other proposed by Dilip Ninan (2008), and I argue that they lack the resources to model the rich and distinct types of first-person imaginings that we can have. I then present and defend a new account that reconstrues the imagining from the inside vs. imagining from the outside distinction and can accommodate the various ways in which imaginings involve the first-person. (shrink)

First-person reports are central to the study of subjective well-being in contemporary psychology, but there is much disagreement about exactly what sort of first-person reports should be used. This paper examines an influential proposal to replace all first-person reports of life satisfaction with introspective reports of affect. I argue against the reasoning behind this proposal, and propose instead a new strategy for deciding what measure is appropriate.

Context: The use of first-person micro-phenomenological interviews and their productive interaction with third-person physiological data is a challenging and pressing issue in order to offer an effective and fruitful application of Varela’s neurophenomenological hypothesis. Problem: We aim at offering a generative method of analysis of first-person micro-phenomenological interviews using third-person physiological data. Our challenge is to describe this generative first-person analysis with the third-person physiological framework rather than put Varela’s hypothesis into (...) practice in a generative way (as we did in another paper. Method: The present contribution is a first pioneering study as far as the exposition of such an interactive generative methodology is concerned. It is also a new issue insofar as it deals with a case study, surprise in depression, that has not been thoroughly dealt with so far, either in philosophy or in psychopathology. Results: We show that the analysis of first-person data is an intrinsic generative one, insofar as new refined categories and multifarious circular micro- and macro-processes were discovered in the very process of analyzing. They provide the initial structural generic third-person description of surprise inherited both from philosophical phenomenological a priori categories and from the experimental startle setting with a refined micro-segmentation of the dynamic of the experience. Implications: Our article could be of interest to neurophenomenologists looking for an effective application and to researchers in quest of a method of analysis of first-person data. The present limitations are due to the still preliminary data-results we need to complete. Constructivist content: The article is directly linked to Varela’s neurophenomenological program and aims at extending and reforming it with a cardio-phenomenological approach. Keywords: First-person micro-phenomenological interviews, surprise, generative analysis of first-person data, depression, cardio-phenomenology, generative categories. (shrink)

Digital phenotyping will potentially enable earlier detection and prediction of mental illness by monitoring human interaction with and through digital devices. Notwithstanding its promises, it is certain that a person’s digital phenotype will at times be at odds with their first-person testimony of their psychological states. In this paper, we argue that there are features of digital phenotyping in the context of psychiatry which have the potential to exacerbate the tendency to dismiss patients’ testimony and treatment preferences, (...) which can be instances of epistemic injustice. We first explain what epistemic injustice is, and why it is argued to be an extensive problem in health and disability settings. We then explain why epistemic injustice is more likely to apply with even greater force in psychiatric contexts, and especially where digital phenotyping may be involved. Finally, we offer some tentative suggestions of how epistemic injustice can be minimised in digital psychiatry. (shrink)

This is a study of an under-developed topic in philosophy of language, namely first-person plural pronouns (‘we’, ‘us’, etc.) Richard Vallée has made very important progress by identifying crucial desiderata and putting forward an ingenious proposal about ‘we’ which addresses them. We contend that, despite this impressive progress, he makes some missteps, both omissions and errors; furthermore, his proposal appears implausible as a personal-level psychological story. We thus sketch an alternative approach to the semantics of the first- (...) class='Hi'>person plural indexical which, though it builds on Vallée’s important work, departs substantially from it. (shrink)

In the United States, individuals who authorize organ donation through various mechanisms make a legally binding decision that only they may revoke. When a person who has given first-person authorization for organ donation becomes eligible to donate organs, according to laws across the United States, their next-of-kin should be informed, not asked, about the impending organ procurement. Despite this, sometimes families are asked for permission to proceed with donation, or they express unsolicited objections to donation. Some scholars (...) and activists argue for the importance of honoring first-person authorization and not accepting what are sometimes called “family overrides” or “family vetoes” of donation. We consider two arguments for this view, the respect-for-wishes and the prevent-harm arguments and defend a more nuanced approach to family objections to organ donation in the presence of first-person authorization. We also examine the role of families or legally authorized representatives in making decisions regarding premortem interventions for potential donors who are not yet deceased. We argue that such decisions are about living patients and should be treated like all other clinical decisions that legally authorized representatives make for incapacitated living patients. (shrink)

As I see it, the science of consciousness is all about relating _third-person data_ - about brain processes, behavior, environmental interaction, and the like - to _first-person data_ about conscious experience. I take it for granted that there are first-person data. It's a manifest fact about our minds that there is something it is like to be us - that we have subjective experiences - and that these subjective experiences are quite different at different times. Our (...) direct knowledge of subjective experiences stems from our first-person access to them. And subjective experiences are arguably the central data that we want a science of consciousness to explain. (shrink)

A theory of the first-person plural occupies a unique place in philosophical investigations into intersubjectivity and social cognition. In order for the referent of the first-person plural—“the We”—to come into existence, it seems there must be a shared ground of communicative possibility, but this requires a non-circular explanation of how this ground could be shared in the absence of a pre-existing context of communicative conventions. Margaret Gilbert’s and John Searle’s theories of collective intentionality capture important aspects (...) of the We, but fail to fully account for this shared ground of communicative possibility. This paper argues that Merleau-Ponty’s concept of intercorporeity helps reconcile the positive aspects of these accounts while also explaining how the genesis of the social world is continuous with perceptual life in general. This enables an account of the first-person plural as dependent on reciprocal communicative interaction without the need to posit a primitive or primordial “we-mode” of consciousness. “Intercorporeity” designates a bodily openness to others that is not fundamentally different in kind from the general style of bodily comportment found in Merleau-Ponty’s rich analyses of perceptual life. (shrink)

Davidson holds that the evidence available to a radical interpreter exhausts the semantic facts. Lepore and Ludwig, like others, object that (1) Davidson’s position is in tension with first-person authority, and (2) it gives rise to a problematic indeterminacy. The chapter argues that their version of objection (1) fails to sufficiently distinguish two claims: (i) that the evidence available to a radical interpreter suffices for her recovering all the semantic facts, and (ii) that for someone to ascribe with (...) warrant an attitude or meaning to a speaker or the speaker’s words, he/she must do so on the basis of such evidence. Lepore and Ludwig, to close their case, must provide reason to think that an accurate first-person ascription could conflict with a radical interpreter’s third-person ascription. Their objection (2) provides such grounds, but then we have no independent objection from first-person authority. After discussing whether an appeal to first-person authority plays any essential role in the indeterminacy objection, the conclusion briefly suggests that there are other sources of information concerning the semantic facts, available neither to the radical interpreter nor first-personally to the subject, that do provide a challenge to Davidson’s claim: namely, non-readily observable, non-first-person-accessible evidence of the sort sometimes drawn upon, for example, in psycholinguistics and the cognitive neuroscience of language. (shrink)

James Cargile ABSTRACT: Many languages have a first person singular subject pronoun. Fewer also have a first person singular object pronoun. The term ‘I’ is commonly used to refer to the person using the term. It has a variety of other uses. A normal person is able to refer...