Reference and the first person pronoun

Pergamon

Language & Communication, Wol. 16, No. 2, pp. 95 105, 1996 Copyright © 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd

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R E F E R E N C E A N D T H E F I R S T P E R S O N P R O N O U N

H A N S - J O H A N N GLOCK and P. M. S. HACKER

In an unpublished manuscript Wittgenstein wrote boldly 'It is correct, although paradox- ical, to say: " ' I ' does not refer to (bezeichnet) a person" ' (MS 116, p. 215). In his 'Notes for Lectures on "Private Experience" and "Sense-Data" ' he is even less guarded: 'The word "I" does not refer to a person' (1993, p. 228). Although nothing so emphatic and unqualified is asserted elsewhere in his published works, the thought that the first-person pronoun fulfils a distinctively different function from that of the other personal pronouns, afortiori from that of personal names and definite descriptions, is prominent in the elusive remarks on the first-person pronoun in the Philosophical Investigations. 1 Moreover, in a famous passage of the Blue Book Wittgenstein distinguishes 'the use of "I" as subject' in statements like 'I have toothache' from 'the use of "I" as object' in statements like 'I have broken my arm', and suggests that in the first case, unlike the second, there is no room for error and hence no question of recognizing a person (1953, ~j 398-411; 1958, pp. 66-67).

These remarks stimulated extensive debate in subsequent decades. Elizabeth Anscombe's important paper 'The First Person' fuelled the debate and gave rise to vigorous defences of a broadly Wittgensteinian concept ion--for example by Anthony Kenny (1979) and Norman Malcolm (1979)--and equally vigorous objections to the seemingly outrageous thought that 'I' is not a referring expression. This paper argues that neither position is fully adequate. Proponents of the non-referential account have tended to assume that if 'I' is immune to referential failure and misidentification, it cannot be a referring expression. This has led proponents of the referential account to argue that 'I' is subject to at least some of these mishaps. Gareth Evans, for example, acknowledged that 'I' is immune to misidentification, but insisted that it is liable to referential failure, and hence that I-thoughts refer (1982, pp. 179-191,249-255).

This paper rejects such claims, while at the same time investigating the underlying assumption that reference requires the possibility of referential failure. To decide whether the first person pronoun is a referring expression, we need not only clarity about the role of 'I', but also a more detailed account of the notion of reference. On the background of such an account we argue that 'I' is akin to referring expressions in some respects, but not in others. It is best seen as a degenerate or limiting case of a referring expression.

Section h Two routes to a non-referential account The point behind thinking that 'I' refers is clear. From a syntactical perspective 'I' is a noun-phrase, and it can be replaced salva veritate by expressions which refer to the speaker ('I am six feet tall' uttered by N.N. and 'N.N. is six feet tall' necessarily have the

Correspondence relating to this paper should be addressed to Dr H.-J. Glock, Department of Philosophy, University of Reading, Whiteknights, Reading RG6 2AA, U.K.

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96 HANS-JOHANN GLOCK and P. M. S. HACKER

same truth-value). Someone who nevertheless wants to argue that unlike other personal pronouns T is not a referring expression might explore two different routes. First, one might try to show that 'I am N.N.' is not an identity statement, and then build on that in order to demonstrate that T is not a referring expression at all. The second route is the converse of the first: one might try to show that 'I' is not a referring expression, and hence that 'I am N.N.', unlike 'That man ~ is N.N. ' or 'He ~ is N.N.', is not an identity statement.

The first route is suggested in a paper by Anselm Mi~ller (1970). The argument poses a supposedly fatal dilemma. If 'I am N.N.' is an identity statement, then it is either a necessary identity or a contingent identity statement. Each of the apparent alternatives must be examined. 'N.N. is N.N. ' is, to be sure, a trivial necessary identity statement. But, it is argued, 'I am N.N.' is not necessary, since that statement could be false without any change in the meaning of its constituents. For I might have been given another name. And had I been given another name, then that fact would not be a fact about the meaning of the name 'N.N.'. Therefore, if it is true that I am N.N., it is contingently true.

But, the argument proceeds, it does not follow from the fact that I am N.N., and from the fact that it is contingently true that I am N.N. that the statement that I am N.N. is a contingent identity statement. 'I am N.N. ' is altogether unlike contingent identities such as 'Tully is Cicero'. For it is not verified in the same way, and I cannot be mistaken. But both of these claims stand in need of qualification. It is an important background feature of the role of proper names in our culture (indeed in any human culture) that people in general know who they are, do not forget their own names, and do not need to find out or verify such elementary facts about themselves. It is also true that were this n o t so, we would not use proper names as we do, and they would not fulfil the crucial role in thought, communication and our own conception of ourselves (our 'sense of identity') which they do. But for all that, it is a contingent fact that this is so, and it is only so in general and for the most part. I c a n be mistaken about who I am; for example, I might find out that despite my initial denial that I am N.N. (and my correct insistence that I am D,D.) I am in fact N.N.--having been thus named at birth, before abduction to another land and renaming, etc. So I might find out, to my amazement, that the will which leaves a fortune to N.N. actually leaves a fortune to m e . Similarly, ignorance of who I am is possible, as in amnesiac cases. Where mistake and ignorance do occur, then surely t h a t I am N.N. is verifiable in the same way as one might verify such statements as 'Harry Lime is the third man' or indeed 'This is Lewis Carroll'.

It is true and important that the use (or, at the very least, the primary or standard use) of 'I am N.N. ' is not to affirm an identity, but to introduce oneself. Similarly, the use of 'This is N.N. ' is generally to make an introduction. But if 'I am N.N. ' is not an identity statement, that fact cannot be established by reference to an asymmetry in respect of mistake, ignorance and verification relative to other identity statements, since that asymmetry does not hold in all cases. Hence this route to demonstrating that 'I' is not a referring expression is not totally compelling.

Moreover, it can be challenged by reference to two related but commonly overlooked features. First, so-called necessary identity statements are heterogeneous. They include such diverse kinds of statements as mathematical equations, identities such as '1 inch = 2.54 cm' or 'a = b', degenerate identity statements such as 'a = a' as well as explicative ones like 'my uncle's son is my cousin'. Secondly, contingent identity statements may be egually heterogeneous. They certainly include, for example, 'N.N. is the third man', but arguably also 'Hesperus is Phosphorus', and so-called 'theoretical identifications' like

REFERENCE AND THE FIRST PERSON PRONOUN 97

'Water is H 2 0 ' o r 'Lightning is electrical discharge'. 2 In any event, one cannot assume that there is one, uniform and sharply defined category of statements called 'necessary identity statements', and another single, clearly circumscribed category of statements called 'contingent identity statements'. Accordingly, the idea that 'I am N.N. ' is not an identity statement cannot be established by showing that it fails to fall into either of two clearly demarcated categories.

Section II: Anscombe and Strawson If these qualms are justified, it is more promising to pursue the second route in order to demonstrate that there is a fundamental difference between the first person pronoun and other personal pronouns (as well as personal names and definite descriptions applied to persons). This route argues that 'I am N.N.' is not an identity statement because T is not a referring expression rather than trying to demonstrate the latter by reference to the former. It was suggested by Wittgenstein and elaborated by Anscombe. Anscombe pointed out that if T is a referring expression it has the peculiarity that it is immune to reference-failure. This would set it apart from all other referring expressions--except for the reflexive pronouns 'here' and 'now'--because it fails to hold not just of names and definite descriptions, but also of demonstratives like 'this' or ' that ' . Even if someone just says 'This ~ ' , pointing to a particular point in space, he will have failed to refer unless he can answer the question 'this what?' through a sortal predicate (see also Tugendhat, 1982, chs 20-26).

By contrast, the use of T , indeed, as Anscombe remarks, just thinking 'I...', seemingly guarantees not only the existence but the presence of its putative referent. As Descartes insisted, merely thinking 'I...' guarantees my presence, and therefore guarantees my existence (for if thinking did not guarantee the presence of the referent of T , then its existence could be doubted). If T , as used by a person, has a 'guaranteed reference', then its user (assuming he has grasped its use) must intend to refer to something by using it, that object must exist, and the user of 'I ' cannot mistake something else for it (1975, pp. 56-57). In short, T is immune to both referential failure and to error through misidentification (a term coined by Shoemaker, 1968). Anscombe believes that if all this is to hold true, the only thing T could refer to would be a Cartesian ego.

Kant, and more recently Strawson, showed that there are and can be no criteria of identity for Cartesian egos. Kant pointed out that there is no way, within the framework of 'rational psychology', of securing the identity of referent from one 'I-thought' to another. There is no way of excluding the idea that this putative referent of T on each successive occasion of its employment (in thought - - i f one admits this questionable idea- -or speech) by the same person differs. 3 And Strawson (1974) added a synchronic version of the same conundrum: with the meagre resources of the Cartesian picture, there is no way to distinguish one referent for 'I' from a thousand different such refer- ents, each thinking the identical thought. Anscombe excludes the possibility that T refers to a Cartesian ego along parallel lines. She concludes:

Getting hold of the wrong object is excluded, and that makes us think that getting hold of the right object is guaranteed. But the reason is that there is no getting hold of an object at all. With names or denoting expressions.., there are two things to grasp: the kind of use, and what to apply them to from time to time. With T there is only the use.

'I ' is neither a name nor any other kind of expression whose logical role is to make a reference, at all (pp. 59-60).


But there is a simple and compelling riposte to Anscombe, which is congenial for example to Strawson's idea that first-person utterances refer to persons rather than Cartesian egos or mere bodies. It concedes the obvious, viz. that T is not a proper name (any more than other indexicals are), and it avoids the pitfalls of Cartesianism while apparently explaining, without recourse to egos or bodiless selves, the guaranteed reference and immunity to misidentification which is enjoyed by the first-person pronoun in use. A first approximation is the simple proposal that T is an expression which each person uses to refer to himself. Would this rule not explain the peculiar features of the first-person pronoun? N o - - f o r in this form it fails to include in its specification of the use of T the fact that in an important sense T cannot be used without the speaker knowing of whom he is speaking. But, as Anscombe has shown, we cannot render the account adequate by simply adding a rider to this effect. The user of T may use the pronoun correctly without knowing that he is speaking of N.N. (given that he is N.N.) or of the Oer, since he may be suffering from amnesia. What he cannot fail to know is not that he is speaking (when he uses T ) of N.N., the ther, etc., but rather that he is speaking of himself. That is to say, in response to the question 'Who did you say was F?' he could, despite his amnesia, respond 'I was speaking of myself or 'I was talking about me'. But this specification of the rule for the (referential) use of T explains its use only in terms of 'me ' or 'myself' . To that extent it is patently circular.

This difficulty, however, can be side-stepped by an alternative formulation in the same spirit. The rule for the (referential) use of T is that T is an expression which, whenever used, refers to the person who uses it (Strawson 1994, p. 210), i.e. to the person from whose mouth it issues. This is not vulnerable to the objection that it does not specify that whenever T is used, the speaker cannot fail to know that he is speaking of himself. The reason is that by virtue of using the word the speaker knows that it issues from his mouth. For as long as a speaker uses the word T intentionally, he could not be ignorant of the fact that he is the source of the utterance. Moreover, by contrast to the initial proposal, no circularity is involved either in the actual specification of the rule or in this rider. For in response to the question 'which mouth? ' the T-user need not reply 'my mouth ' but can non-vacuously respond 'This ~v mouth ' (using a reflexive gesture), a

A defender of Anscombe might object that the rule for the use of T cannot be that T refers to the person from whose mouth it issues (i.e. to its 'speaker'), since there need be no speaker at all. For the pronoun ' I ' can occur in thought (as Descartes insisted) and similarly in talking to oneself in the imagination. One possible reaction is to challenge the supposition that one refers in thought, without the use of words. For thinking that 1 am F is not the same as saying to myself 'I am F' , and thinking about x is not the same as referring to x. The latter is an act, whereas thinking about x need not involve any act, overt or mental. 5

There is also a less radical and ambitious reply. One could argue that when T occurs in thought, the first-person pronoun refers to whomever would be referred to in the expression of the thought. That is to say, if A says of me 'You are sad' he refers to the referent of ' I ' in my expressing the thought 'I am sad'. Alternatively, one might argue that the use of T in thought refers to the person thinking that thought. But this does not actually differ from the previous rule, save for the fact that it is restricted to the case in which the person who expresses the thought is he who has it. For ' the person thinking' is simply the person who would give expression to the thought in the first-person idiom.


Section III: The notion of reference If, contrary to Anscombe's argument, we accept this rule for the use of the first-person pronoun, what are we committed to? Primarily to an analogy between the use of T and typical referring expressions. This demands a more thorough-going elucidation of, first, what counts as referring, and secondly, of typical referring expressions and the conditions of their use. Obviously, the question whether T is a referring expression depends at least in part on what one makes of the term 'referring'. But neither Wittgenstein, nor those who are sympathetic to his discussion of the first-person pronoun, have treated the notion of reference in the meticulous and often technical way which has evolved from Strawson's seminal work (1971, chs 1, 3-4). A clarification may illuminate both the affinities between the use of 'I ' and other undeniably referring expressions which inspire the treatment which the last section defended against Anscombe, and the distinctive differences which lie behind her, and Wittgenstein's, claim that T is not a referring expression.

What counts as referring? The primary use of ' to refer to' in semantics is connected with the notion of a subject of discourse to which attention is drawn by the use of an expression (with or without a deictic gesture). The following points emerge.

(i) Referring is something speakers do with words. (ii) Referring is to be explained by linking and contrasting it with predicating; very

roughly, in referring one indicates whom or what one speaks of (whom or what one is talking about), and in predicating one says something about the subject of one's discourse.

(iii) In referring, the speaker identifies that thing which is characterized in predicating a feature of it.

(iv) Making such an 'identifying reference' involves (in Strawson's idiom) singling out or picking out the thing which is characterized.

'Singling out ' consists in selecting one thing from a range of things ('things' here is a dummy which can be replaced by any expression signifying a substance, stuff, place, time, property or abstract item (such as a number), an event, state or process, a fact, etc.). It is important to note that the phrase 'letting someone know what one is talking about', which is sometimes used to explain what referring to something is, is much narrower in its application than either 'referring' or 'singling out'. It belongs paradigmatically to cases in which the question of what the speaker is talking about is or might be raised, not to typical cases of asserting.

The use of a referring expression (or the referential use of an expression which is not uniformly a referring expression) carries with it the danger of failing to refer. For there may be no determinate answer to the question 'What has been singled out?' (for example, 'The tall woman in the crowd shouted with the others', where there are numerous tall women in the crowd). Furthermore, there need not be a referent corresponding to the term employed (for example, 'Phlogiston', 'The golden mountain' , 'Eldorado').

It was reflection on the idea that referring is to be explained by linking it with and also contrasting it with predicating--i.e. (ii) above--which led Wittgenstein to the well-known position which he adopted in the Blue Book (although he never mentioned this view again). There he claimed that 'the use of ' T ' as subject' as in 'I am in pain', or 'I am angry' is not referential, in contrast with the use of T as object, as in 'I am six foot tall'. And it was probably reflection on the idea that referring involves identifying, singling out or picking out one thing from a range of things that subsequently led him to the more radical position in the Investigations, in which he implicitly denies that 'I' is a referring expression at all.


Focusing on the idea that referring is to be explained in apposition to predicating does indeed highlight what Wittgenstein called ,~'usserungen, expressive uses of first-person psychological sentences in the present tense, for example 'I have a pain', ' I 'm going to London tomorrow', 'I think it will rain', ' I 'm expecting you to come', ' I 'm sorry'. It is arguable that these sentences are used to express sensations, intentions or thoughts rather than to describe them. Certainly, in such cases, there is no question of the speaker finding out that the predicate applies to a subject, viz. the referent of 'I'. Rather, he gives expression to his pain, expresses his intention, opinion, expectation or regret. By contrast, that he is six foot tall or suntanned all over is something the speaker must find out. But the Blue Book position, which thus distinguishes 'I' as subject (where no error or misidentification is intelligible) from 'I' as object (where such possibilities can allegedly arise), is unsatisfactory (which may be why Wittgenstein does not subsequently invoke this distinction).

Firstly, it does not squarely address the question of whether 'I', in its 'use as object', is indeed used to refer. In particular, the suggestion that referential error is possible in the 'objective' case is questionable. For if I assert falsely that I am six foot tall (wrongly thinking that I am as tall as A, who is six foot tall), my error does not consist in mistaking myself for A or misidentifying myself. Wittgenstein is right that I might be mistaken in saying 'I have broken my arm' because I have mistaken my arm for your's, for example in a rugby scrum. But even in such cases I do not misidentify myself or mistake myself for you (see Evans, 1982, pp. 217-219; Hacker, 1990, p.485).

Secondly, this account, with its unhappy dichotomy of uses, forces a Cartesian analysis on such sentences as 'I am sitting here feeling miserable'. This will have to be analysed into 'I am sitting here', in which 'I' functions referentially, and 'I am feeling miserable', in which it does not. But it is wildly implausible to suppose that in 'I am sitting here feeling miserable' there is, as it were, a double occurrence of the first-person pronoun, each occurrence having a quite different use from the other, and equally implausible to suppose that the use of 'I' in 'I am sitting here' is quite different from its use in 'I am feeling miserable'.

Finally, even if one accepts Wittgenstein's controversial distinction between avowals and descriptions, it is incapable of establishing that 'I' is not a referring expression, since reference is not tied to description: 'God save the Queen!', 'Shut the door!' and 'Who killed Kennedy?' clearly refer to persons or objects. As with Wittgenstein's distinction between subjective and objective uses of 'I', it emerges that although the question of whether first-person statements are descriptive and the question of whether the first- person pronoun is a referring expression are related, they do not coincide.

If one wants to answer the second question negatively, one cannot rely on the idea of avowals, but should focus on (iv) above. In making an identifying reference, one singles out or picks out the thing which is characterized by the predication. Concentrating on this point broadens the scope of the objections to treating the first-person pronoun as a referring expression on the same level as other referring expressions such as the third person pronoun, indexicals like 'this', or personal names.

First, the possibility of reference failure and of misidentification characterize the use of typical referring expressions. But if I say either 'I am six foot tall' or 'I am in pain' (i.e. both in the case of 'the use of "I" as object' and in the case of 'the use of "I" as subject') it is not possible that I do not exist (hence there can be no reference failure) nor is it possible that I mistake myself for someone else (so no misidentification can occur).


Secondly, the phrases 'singling out ' or 'picking out ' which are standardly invoked to characterize the use of referring expressions belong naturally with such identifying expressions as 'the third pupil on the right is dressed sloppily'. It also fits certain uses of pronouns, for example 'he' or 'she' when used with a deictic gesture and personal names, viz. those uses in which what is predicated is clear enough, but the subject of whom it is predicated is in question, unclear, or needs to be picked out. One might also say that a proper name in a subject/predicate statement, for example 'Monk wrote a good biography' , singles out a subject. But the use of the phrase 'singles out ' is less natural here, since the statement indicates no group from which the subject is singled out, even though the conversational context might. There are yet other cases in which we may be said to refer to something even though the notion of singling out (i.e. selecting one thing from a like group of things) is quite inappropriate, for example 'This painting is by Matisse' , where only one painting is in sight. Furthermore, while personal pronouns can be used to single out a person, the second-person pronoun 'You ' is typically employed to address a person. Personal names, of course, are variously used to refer to, introduce or address a person. It is important to bear this diversity of function in mind, and not to assume a general uniformity in the role of what go by the name of 'referring expressions'.

Section IV: Degenerate reference Against this elucidatory background, we may now turn to the issue at hand. Is the first- person pronoun T used to single out or pick out the thing which is characterized by the predicate phrase? Different cases should be considered:

(a) When I groan 'I am in pain ' or exclaim 'I am tired' or snarl ' I 'm furious' I am not selecting or picking out one person among others. Rather, what I say enables my hearers to identify who is in pain, tired, or angry.

(b) In such cases as 'I think N.N. did it' or 'I believe N.N. went home ' (and other so-called parenthetical verbs) the person singled out is not me but N.N., and the pronoun T serves no such referential role. (One might compare this to pointing at N.N.: I do the pointing but what I point at is not me!)

(c) In the case of reports such as 'I am six foot tall ' or ' I 've had lumbago all week', I am, of course, talking about myself, but not typically singling myself out from among others (although that is possible too in some, fairly atypical, contexts).

(d) What then are characteristic cases of singling oneself out from among others? Surely such speech-acts as confessing, volunteering, admitting that I, rather than the others, have done or will do such-and-such. Here I am distinguishing between myself (qua, for example guilty) and others (qua innocent). But it is striking and noteworthy that it is precisely in such cases that one would not say that one was referring to, or speaking about oneself.

Though referring is indeed something one does with words, it is not a speech-act, though one might say that it is a 'technical speech-act ' or 'a speech-act in a technical sense', in as much as it is done with a component of a sentence. (The use of names in one-word sentences, for example 'You! ' , ' M u m m y ' , 'David ' , is typically not to refer to people but to address them, call them or call for them, or to exclaim. This does not hold, for example, in the case in which someone replies 'Susan' to the question 'Who did it', but this can be seen as elliptical for 'Susan did it'.) I f the grammatical subject of the sentence is used to refer to a thing, this does indeed imply that the sentence as a whole is used to speak about that subject. However, the cases where it is natural to say that one


has singled oneself out are precisely those cases, for example volunteering, confessing, admitting, where the speech-act which is performed is such as to exclude the characteriz- ation of the utterance as speaking about oneself. Thus contrast ' I did it' or 'I ' l l do it' with 'Maggie did it' or 'I suppose Maggie will do it'. This suggests not only that singling out does not extend over the whole range of referring, but also that referring does not extend over the whole range of singling out. Those uses of ' I ' which are cases of singling o u t - - ( d ) - - a r e not cases of referring in one sense: in uttering them I do not specify myself as the person I am talking about. Accordingly, there remains a case for denying that T is a referring expression.

However, a simple denial is ruled out by the initial objection, which trades on the logical relations between first-person propositions and third-person propositions. 6 ' I ' in 'I did it' must be a referring expression, since 'I did it' said by me is true if and only if 'He did it' said of me is true, and 'He ' in 'He did it' is definitely a referring expression. On the other hand, this objection does not rule out a more cautious Wittgensteinian claim. 'I did it' and 'He did it' are equivalent in the sense that they entail each other. But that does not mean that they are equivalent in all respects, for example concerning the possibility of error, doubt or verification (similarly, my utterances of 'I am in pain' and ' I t hurts ' are equivalent, but differ in other important respects).

By a similar token, ' I ' is akin to a referring expression in some respects, but not in others. ' I ' not only helps to determine the sense of propositions in which it occurs, it does so by determining whom or what the proposit ion is about. I f ' I ' is replaced by an expression that refers to someone other than the speaker, the resulting proposit ion will say something different (in the case of a declarative utterance it will have different truth- conditions) because the proposit ion will be about someone or something different. At the same time there remain crucial differences between ' I ' and standard referring expressions. With personal-names, definite descriptions, personal pronouns, and demonstratives, it makes sense to ask who or what is or was referred to, and the speaker 's inability to answer the question indicates, ceteris paribus, that he failed to refer. 7 Not so in the case of the use of ' I ' , 'here' , and 'now' employed in face to face conversation. For in this case, the question itself indicates that the hearer failed to understand what was said. (In this respect, matters differ somewhat in cases of written messages and texts, or telephone conversations and recordings.) A similar contrast between ' I ' ( 'here' and 'now') and other referring expressions or referential uses of expressions holds with respect to reference failure, misidentification and indeterminacy of reference.

Of course, ' I ' can be correctly used, yet the hearer may licitly query 'Who are you?'. But this invites the speaker to identify or introduce himself, not to say to whom he is referring! By contrast, when 'he ' is used, the question 'Who?' may mean 'To whom are you referring?' or 'Which one?'. The same holds for the first person case. An amnesiac may wonder who he is. But he can still think, for example, 'Whoever I am, I am feeling terrible' (Strawson, 1994, p. 210). On the other hand, he cannot intelligibly wonder whether his question 'Who am I?' refers to anybody, and if so, to whom it refers. This point is ignored by Evans' at tempt to make room for referential failure in the first person case (1982, pp. 249-252). He invokes cases like total sensory deprivation or being a brain in a vat in which the subject lacks 'self-knowledge' or an 'adequate idea of himself' and argues that in such cases the subject's thoughts might lack an object. But t f these cases are intelligible to begin with (which being a brain in a vat is not), that is, if the question 'Who am I?' is posed by anybody, it is unintelligible to fault that question on grounds of


referential failure, and equally unintelligible to raise a question like 'Which is the one that I want to know more about?'.

'I ', unlike 'here' and 'now', can be used to talk about a spatio-temporal continuant (as when I relate my autobiography). This explains some of the pressures inclining us to think of 'I' as a referring expression, since spatio-temporal continuants are paradigmatic objects of reference which we pick out or single out by means of words and for which questions of identification and re-identification can arise. However, like 'here' and 'now', no question of identification or re-identification for the speaker can arise in the case of 'I'.

It seems therefore that the suggested rule of reference for 'I', viz. that 'I' refers to the person from whose mouth it issues, does not only pay heed to the similarities between 'I' and genuine referring expressions, it also caters for some of the peculiarities of ' I' as delineated above. In particular, it clarifies in a wholly non-mysterious, non-Cartesian fashion, the impossibility of the various forms of reference-failure, misidentification, mis- recognition and indeterminacy of reference. However, it obscures important differences between 'I' and typical referring expressions. In particular:

(1) the fact that 'I ' is not typically used to single out a person, and when it is so used, it is not employed to talk about that person (the speaker);

(2) that when one is using 'I' to talk about oneself, one is not singling oneself out, and hence one is not identifying oneself;

(3) that the suggested rule for the use of 'I ' has the peculiarity that unlike the rules for paradigmatic referring expressions, it is not possible for a person to know the rule, i.e. to know the use or meaning of 'I', and yet to misapply it;

(4) unlike other pronouns, 'I' has no anaphoric use, i.e. it does not take up a prior reference (see Harr6 and Mtihlhausler, 1992).

The assumption which has been shared by both referential and non-referential accounts, namely that 'I' is either subject to the vagaries of standard cases of referring or not a referring expression, contains a kernel of truth. Because there is no such thing as misidentifying oneself through the use of 'I', there is no such thing as identifying oneself either. But this line of reasoning does not carry over to the notion of reference. From the fact that there is no such thing as failing to refer through the use of 'I', it does not follow that there is no such thing as referring through the use of 'I'. The reason is that unlike the notion of identification, the notion of reference includes features which clearly apply to first-person utterances.

What is important is not adamant insistence that 'I' is or is not a referring expression, but recognition of similarities and differences (including the differences between a paradigmatic identity statement, like 'Tully is Cicero', and 'I am Cicero' which introduces and identifies the speaker, but is very unlike an identity statement). Hence one may, in a generous Wittgensteinian spirit, concede that 'I' is a referring expression, albeit a degenerate one (Hacker 1990, pp. 490493) . Wittgenstein (1978, p. 167) labelled tautologies like ' - ( p . ~p)' degenerate propositions: they are limiting cases of genuine propositions, since one of the possibilities which characterizes ordinary propositions, namely that of being false, does not apply. Similarly, 'I' is a limiting case of reference, in which the possibility of referential failure and misidentification do not apply. This is not just a possible verdict, it is the most adequate one, since it does justice both to Wittgenstein's insights and those facts about 'I' emphasized by the referential camp.

Even if this verdict is correct, it does not by itself clarify why the first person pronoun has this special status. Wittgenstein explained the impossibility of referential failure and the absence of any singling out by reference to the fact that 'I don' t choose the mouth


wh ich says " I h a v e t o o t h a c h e " ' (1993, p. 274). Bu t o u r v o c a l e q u i p m e n t , t h a t is, t h a t we

h a v e o n l y o n e m o u t h wi th wh ich we speak , is n o t the h e a r t o f the ma t t e r . F o r ' I ' c o u l d

h a v e exac t ly the s a m e log ica l ro le it has n o w , i f h u m a n be ings h a d t w o m o u t h s to c h o o s e

f rom. I n d e e d , we a l r e a d y h a v e a choice , s ince we can u t t e r ' I ' , wr i t e it d o w n o r express it

in s i gn - l anguage . E v e n less o f a d i f fe rence w o u l d be m a d e i f h u m a n be ings h a d severa l

b ra ins , s ince ne i t he r ' I ' n o r a n y o t h e r p e r s o n a l p r o n o u n can be said to re fer to a b r a i n (pace Pears , 1988, pp. 41-42) .

W i t t g e n s t e i n ' s c l a i m t h a t I d o n o t c h o o s e the m o u t h wh ich says ' I h a v e t o o t h a c h e ' is

c lar i f ied by a n o t h e r scenar io , o n e w h i c h he d i scussed in his Yellow Book: if when people spoke, the sound always came from a loudspeaker and the voices were alike, the word T would have no use at all: it would be absurd to say 'I have toothache'. The speakers would not be recognized by it (1982, p. 24).

W h a t unde r l i e s the p e c u l a r f ea tu res o f T is n o t o u r voca l e q u i p m e n t . I t is the fac t tha t ,

fo r the m o s t pa r t , the sources o f w o r d s , w h e t h e r wr i t t en o r spoken , a re pe r sons , r a t i o n a l

c r ea tu re s w i t h a body . E v e n a p e r s o n wi th severa l m o u t h s does n o t c h o o s e the body t ha t

speaks o r wr i tes w h e n the p e r s o n c o m m u n i c a t e s . Bu t this is n o t yet the w h o l e s tory. In

The Blue Book (1958, p. 62), W i t t g e n s t e i n m e n t i o n s a n o t h e r f i c t iona l s cena r io wh ich

w o u l d m a k e a d i f fe rence to the use o f ' I ' ( a l t h o u g h he uses the f ic t ion to m a k e a d i f ferent

po in t ) . I m a g i n e a w o r l d in w h i c h t w o d i s t inc t sets o f c h a r a c t e r - t r a i t s a n d m e m o r i e s are

a s s o c i a t e d w i t h e a c h i n d i v i d u a l body . I f such a S t e v e n s o n i a n c r e a t u r e were to a n s w e r

' I d id it ' , in r e sponse to the q u e s t i o n ' W h o ki l led this w o m a n ? ' one c o u l d w o n d e r n o t j u s t

' A n d w h o a re you? ' , bu t a l so ' W h i c h o n e is it?' , t ha t is, w h e t h e r the c r e a t u r e refers , fo r

e x a m p l e , to D r Jeky l l o r to M r H y d e . T h e s e c u r s o r y re f lec t ions sugges t t ha t the pecu l i a r

f ea tu res o f ' I ' a re due to t w o f ac to r s which , in q u a s i - K a n t i a n j a r g o n , o n e m i g h t cal l

r e spec t ive ly the embodiment of the speaker a n d the psychological unity of the speaker)

N O T E S

1See Hacker (1990), Exegesis ,~ 398411.

2According to Kripke (1980) the latter are a posteriori but nevertheless necessary. Against this one might protest that there is neither a metaphysical nor a logical necessity concerning the fact that one and the same planet has been labelled both 'Hesperus' and 'Phosphorus', or that the liquid which makes up rivers etc. turns out to have a certain molecular structure.

3Indeed, Kant anticipated the idea that 'I ' is not a referring expression. He argued that in 'I think that p' it does not refer to an object, since that statement does not ascribe the thouht that p to anything or anybody on the basis of criteria. The T here merely indicates transcendental unity of apperception, the purely formal fact that any experiential judgement 'p' can be prefixed by 'I think that...' (Critique of Pure Reason A 348-356), which is what Wittgenstein would call a 'grammatical proposition'. In this respect Kant held a reduncancy the- ory of the self. 'I think that p' does not refer to an entity which has been left unmentioned in my uttering 'p'.

4In a similar vein, Lyons (1977), pp. 645-664, considers the possibility of paraphrasing T as 'the one who is now speaking', but adds that this works only if one adds a self-reflexive deixis like 'the person who is uttering this very utterance'. Lucy O'Brien (1994) points out that speakers know that they themselves use a term, but she ignores the need to restrict this claim to intentional uses, and that Anscombe's challenge can be met only because of the availability of a reflexive gesture.

5The controversial observations on thinking on which this reaction is based are defended in Hacker (1990), eh. 2.

6The argument is a corollary of a standard objection to Wittgenstein's treatment of avowals which is discussed in Glock (1996).

7This is compatible with Donnellan's insistence (1966) that the genuinely referential use of definite descriptions does not require that one and only one thing should satisfy the description. For although in such cases the speaker may misapply the definite description, he or she must be capable of specifying by other means who or what was meant.


8This paper arose out of a session of the St John's College Discussion Group, in which Sir Anthony Kenny presented Anscombe's paper 'The First Person'. We are grateful to all participants, but especially to Anthony Kenny and to John Hyman. This paper emerged from subsequent discussions between the authors and John Hyman.

R E F E R E N C E S

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GLOCK, H. J. 1996 Abusing use. Dialectiea 50, forthcoming.

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MALCOLM, N. 1979 Whether T is a referring expression. In Diamond, C. and Teichmann, J. (Eds), Intention and Intentionality, pp. 15 24. Harvester, Sussex.

MI3LLER, A. 1970 Reply to T. In Khanbhai, B. Y., Katz, R. S. and Pineau, R. S. (Eds), Jowett Papers 1968-1969, pp. 11-22. Blackwell, Oxford.

O'BRIEN, L. F. 1994 Anscombe and the self-reference rule. Analysis 54, 277 281.

PEARS, D. F. 1988 The False Prison, Vol. I. O. U. P., Oxford.

SHOEMAKER, S. 1968 Self-reference and self-awareness. Journal of Philosophy 65, 555-567. Reprinted in Cassam, Q. (Ed.) 1994 Self-Knowledge, pp. 80-93. O.U.P., Oxford.

STRAWSON, P. F. 1971 Logico-Linguistic Papers. Methuen, London.

STRAWSON, P. F. 1974 Self, mind and body. Freedom and Resentment, pp. 169 177. Methuen, London.

STRAWSON, P. F. 1994 The first person--and others. In Cassam, Q. (Ed.), SelJ:Knowledge, pp. 21(~215. O.U.P. Oxford.

TUGENDHAT, E. 1982 Traditional and Analytic Philosophy. C.U.P., Cambridge.

WlTTGENSTEIN, L. 1953 Philosophical Investigations. Blackwell, Oxford.

WlTTGENSTEIN, L. 1958 The Blue and Brown Books. Blackwell, Oxford.

WITTGENSTEIN, L. 1993 Notes for lectures on private experience and 'sense data'. In Wittgenstein: Philosophical Occasions, pp. 200-288. Hackett, Indianapolis. [This is more complete than the originally published version in Philosophical Review 7% 275-320, 1968.]

WITTGENSTEIN, L. 1978 The Foundations of Mathematics, 3rd edn. Blackwell, Oxford.

W|TTGENSTEIN, L. 1982 Wittgenstein ~ Lectures Cambridge 1932-1935. Blackwell, Oxford.

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Reference and the first person pronoun