Abstract
In this contribution, we address the issues concerning the semantic value of Wittgenstein’s subject “I”, as in (i) “I have a toothache”, resulting from the use of predicates that involve first-person knowledge of the mental states to which they refer. As is well-known, these contexts give rise to the phenomenon of ‘immunity to error through misidentification’ (IEM): the utterer of (i) cannot be mistaken as to whether he is the person having a toothache. We provide a series of arguments in favor of a principled distinction between a de facto IEM, grounded in perceptual and proprioceptive judgments, and a de iure IEM, grounded in experience reports whereby the experience wears the experiencer on its sleeve. From this perspective, the no-referent account of subject “I” advocated by Wittgenstein/Anscombe is correct. In fact, we show how this analysis can be made compatible with a Kaplanian account of first-person indexicals, by identifying the speaker in the context of utterance with the person who has access to the reported private experience.
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Delfitto, D., Reboul, A., Fiorin, G. (2019). Immunity to Error through Misidentification and (Direct and Indirect) Experience Reports. In: Capone, A., García-Carpintero, M., Falzone, A. (eds) Indirect Reports and Pragmatics in the World Languages. Perspectives in Pragmatics, Philosophy & Psychology, vol 19. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78771-8_3
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