Abstract

I shall propose that the primary form of all references is that reference to ourselves that we normally express when we use the first-person pronoun. In the case of believing, this reference may be called 'direct attribution'. Our reference to all other things is by way of such reference to ourselves. I shall argue that; although we express ourselves in first-person sentences, the reference to ourselves that we thus express does not involve the acceptance of first-person proposition- for, I shall contend, there is no good reason to assume that there are such propositions. The primary form of believing is not a matter of accepting propositions; it is a matter of attributing properties to pneself I am the primary object of my own attributions and the properties are the content.