The First Person and the Transcendental I

Besides the work of Husserl, also that especially of H.-N. Castañeda and Sydney Shoemaker inform this transcendental phenomenological study of “I.” The primacy of first-person experience and reference along with the impossibility of substituting other third-person or second-person forms for the first-person are argued for. There is an adumbration of the transcendental I in the I’s functioning as the responsible agent of manifestation (Robert Sokolowski). There is highlighted the non-ascriptive reference of self-awareness and the first-person indexical reference to oneself as oneself. The basic self-awareness is non-reflective and always pervaded by an at least anonymous I-ness. We address opponents such as Humeans, Buddhists and even Castañeda. Inseparable from this discussion is the analysis of what a “perspective” is, what “first-person perspective” means, and the relation of reflection to first-person perspective.