Indexicality and Non-Conceptual Content

Abstract

We have reached the position that the meaning of ‘I’-tokens is constituted by an individual concept. The individual concept is formed from two elements: a fundamental (stable and intuitive) self-concept and a contextual sense: the de re sense. The former element constitutes what I have called a primary identification of oneself, that is, an indubitable identification that underlies all other identifications. Perhaps it is wrong to call this intuition an identification, since it does not involve a bringing together of different terms or concepts, but only the thinker’s or speaker’s insight that she* is a subject of experiences and sensations. The primary identification consists in an intuition of oneself that precedes identifications of oneself as somebody or something and that springs from apprehending oneself as the subject of experience.