Consciousness and self-reference

Erkenntnis 43 (2):151-80 (1995)
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Abstract

Reflection on the self's way of being "in" consciousness yields two arguments for a theory of self-reference not based in any way all all on self-cognition. First, I show that one theory of self-reference predicts an experience of the self because the theory inadequately analyzes the semantical facts about indexicality. I construct a dilemma for this cognitivism, which it cannot get out of, for it requires even solitary self-reference to be based on some original self-knowledge, which is not available. I describe my "kinetic model" of unspoken self-reference, and I show how it fits the facts of four forms of consciousness, all of which presuppose self-reference, rather than yield it. Second, a speaker uses the first person pronoun in sentences because she is aware of the unmediated role in agency of the beliefs she would express, and not because she is aware of herself in their content. The cognitive model, in contrast, succumbs to a vicious regress and is exposed as an obstacle to an understanding of consciousness

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Citations of this work

Sameness and the self: Philosophical and psychological considerations.Stan Klein - 2014 - Frontiers in Psychology -- Perception 5:1-15.

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References found in this work

A treatise of human nature.David Hume & D. G. C. Macnabb (eds.) - 1739 - Oxford,: Clarendon press.
The Logic of Decision.Richard C. Jeffrey - 1965 - New York, NY, USA: University of Chicago Press.
Themes From Kaplan.Joseph Almog, John Perry & Howard Wettstein (eds.) - 1989 - New York: Oxford University Press.

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