Thinking and talking about oneself

Johannes L. Brandl

pp. 177-187

in: Keith Lehrer, Johann C. Marek (eds), Austrian philosophy past and present, Deventer, Kluwer, 1997

Abstract

Current debates about self-knowledge often take as their starting point questions about the first-person pronoun.¹ What do I refer to by the pronoun "I", if I refer to anything by this term, and what propositions do I express by sentences of the form "I am such-and-such', if fliese sentences express propositions at all? These questions replace the more traditional questions about self-directed thinking: What is it that I think about when I think about myself, and what is the content of my thoughts when they concern myself?