Context-Independence

Abstract

The linguistic rule expressed by MT says that ‘I’ refers to the speaker. In the last section, it was established that to make use of MT in speech, one must have the intention to express oneself as a speaker. Indexical self-awareness constitutes a precondition for doing so. But which are the conditions for being a speaker? A brain in a vat, for instance, would only be a competent user of ‘I’ if it, first, could have the locating beliefs characteristic of indexical self-awareness and, moreover, could link this awareness to its belief about itself being the speaker. Competence regarding ‘I’, furthermore, requires that one can use ‘I’ in a range of situations in the same way, that is, as being about oneself, oneself being the speaker as presented in a certain context.