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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
    See Original
    Inverse View

    It is not the case that The indirect reflexive pronoun 'himself' cannot be used to explain the word 'I', because 'himself' derives its distinctive sense from 'I'

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.The sentence 'The word I is a word each of us uses in speaking of himself' uses 'himself' in a non-ordinary reflexive sense
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    • 2.This non-ordinary sense of 'himself' gets its distinctive meaning from the word 'I'
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    • 3.An expression cannot be used to explain another expression when the first expression's meaning depends on the second
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Frege's distinction between sense and reference shows that co-referential terms can differ in cognitive significance, so 'himself' and 'I' cannot be intersubstitutable without loss.
      ?

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    • 2.The immunity to error through misidentification that Shoemaker attributes to 'I' is absent in third-person reflexive constructions like 'himself', revealing a structural asymmetry.
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    • 3.If 'himself' could explain 'I' without circularity, a speaker could understand 'himself' without first grasping the first-person perspective, but no account of reflexive pronouns succeeds without presupposing a subject of use.
      ?

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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Wittgenstein's distinction in the Blue Book between the use of 'I' as subject versus object shows 'I' has a logically primitive grammatical role that cannot be derived from third-person reflexives.
      ?

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    • 2.Third-person reflexives like 'himself' are anaphoric expressions that acquire their reference by depending on an antecedent noun phrase, whereas 'I' requires no antecedent and is semantically self-standing.
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    • 3.Any attempt to define a semantically self-standing expression by means of an anaphoric one reverses the correct order of semantic explanation and is therefore circular.
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