Abstract

In this paper I want to examine a claim made about the kind of immunity through misidentification relative to the first person (IEM) that attaches to action self-ascriptions. In particular, I want to consider whether we have reason to think a stronger kind of immunity attaches to action self-ascriptions, than attaches to self-ascriptions of bodily movement. I assume we have an awareness of our actions – agent’s awareness – and that agent’s awareness is not a form of perceptual bodily awareness. The issue here is whether agents’ awareness grounds a kind of immunity to error that bodily awareness does not. However, perhaps more importantly, I want to argue that we only get a secure difference in immunity claims if have already decided whether a source of information is essentially first personal or not and made certain, not obviously warranted assumptions, about the transparency of content and about knowledge. If we hold that a subject’s knowledge of her actions is essentially first personal, in a way that a subject’s knowledge of her body through bodily awareness may not be, then we are better off arguing for that claim directly. Or so I will suggest.