In this talk, I focus on the problem of de se reports, i.e., the sentences of the form (1) ‘Olga expects to travel to Prague’. The interpretation of such sentences assumes that Olga not only has some attitude about herself but also is aware that this attitude is about herself, and she may express it using the sentence (2) ‘I expect to travel to Prague’. Usually, the explanation of this interpretation involves the fact that (1) has a silent anaphoric element PRO indicating de se reading: ‘Olga expects PRO to travel to Prague’ (Chierchia, 1966; Higginbotham, 2009). Usually, de se reports contrast with de re reports, i.e., the sentences of the form (3) ‘Olga expects that she will travel to Prague’. In this case, one cannot be sure that Olga will agree to use sentence (2) since she may not be aware of the identity between herself and the object (res) she has an attitude about. Unlike sentences of the form (1), sentence (3) exhibits de re / de se ambiguity because nothing in its structure can help us to determine whether Olga is aware of the identity. A number of well-known examples in the literature are intended to demonstrate how lack of awareness is possible and to argue for the necessary distinction between de re and de se reports (Castañeda, 1966; Lewis, 1979; Perry, 1979).
Although the problem of de se reports is primarily a linguistic problem, it is connected with philosophy of mind too. The main reason for arguing for the interconnection between the two fields lies in a so-called ‘Reflection Assumption’, i.e., an assumption that specific features of de se reports reflect some facts about the nature of first-person thought. My aim here is to question the ‘Reflection Assumption’ and to propose an alternative explanation of the difference between de se and de re reports.
First, I briefly overview the discussion on the problem. Since my main focus is on de se reading of the control complements with the PRO element, I talk more about Higginbotham’s reflexive account and its limitations, such as neglecting the difference between explicit and implicit de se thoughts (Recanati, 2007).
Second, I critically discuss an attempt to modify Higginbotham’s account by connecting the experiencer theta-role with the concept of ‘minimal self’ (Fiorin & Delfitto, 2014). This attempt, in my view, is one of the most vivid examples of accounts implicitly based on the ‘Reflection Assumption’. I find it problematic because Fiorin & Delfitto conceive the minimal self as a mental entity accessible to an individual only by introspection. Mapping the semantics of natural language to such private entities brings us back to Frege’s difficulty with private thoughts (Frege, 1956) and jeopardizes the possibility of communication.
Finally, I sketch my account of de se reports based on the notion of communicative aim, i.e., a specific aim of communication each participant of a communicative situation has in mind. In that case, de se reports differ from de re reports because of different communicative aims speakers try to achieve in communication. If the speaker feels the need to communicate that an individual she is talking about is willing to use a sentence of the form (2), then the speaker will use a disambiguated sentence like (1). However, if this information is irrelevant to communication, the speaker may use sentences like (3). So, I try to demonstrate that de se / de re ambiguity has nothing to do with metaphysics of first-person thought and can be fully reduced to the questions of theory of communication.
References:
Castañeda, H.-N. (1966). "“He”: A Study in the Logic of Self-consciousness". In: Ratio 7.2, pp. 130–157.
Chierchia, G. (1966). "Anaphora and Attitudes de se". In: R. Bartsch, J. Van Benthem, P. Van Emde Boas (eds.) Semantics and Contextual Expressions. Foris, Dordrecht 1989, pp. 1–31.
Fiorin, G., Delfitto, D. (2014). "Control, Attitudes de se and Immunity to Error Through Misidentification". In: Rivista internazionale di filosofia e psicologia 5.2, pp. 184–206.
Frege, G. (1956). " The Thought: A Logical Inquiry". In: Mind 65. 259, pp. 289–311.
Higginbotham, J. (2009). "Remembering, Imagining, and the First Person". In: J. Higginbotham Tense, Aspect, and Indexicality. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 212–245.
Lewis D. (1979). "Attitudes De Dicto and De Se". In: The Philosophical Review 88. 4, pp. 513–543.
Perry, J. (1979). "The Problem of Essential Indexicals". In: Noûs 13.1, pp. 3–21.
Recanati, F. (2007). Perspectival Thought. A Plea for Moderate Relativism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
