The Perspective of the Subject, from Descartes to Wittgenstein

Abstract

In the late 1970’s, inspired by work by Castañeda, Perry and Lewis argued that first-personal «de se» thoughts (those we would naturally express by using the first-person) have special features that call for a distinctive account, and suggested rival explanations. The notion of «de se» thoughts is related to a distinction that Wittgenstein made between uses of «I» as object and uses of «I» as subject and a related phenomenon that Shoemaker introduced, immunity to error through misidentification. In this paper, I introduce this contemporary discussion, and show how it can illuminate traditional philosophical debates involving in particular Descartes and Hume on the nature of the self: while Descartes argued on the basis of epistemic considerations that it must be immaterial, Hume argued on related bases that it is not to be found.

Key words: self, first-personal reference, de se attitudes, immunity to misidentification, subjectivity, introspection.