A New Understanding of the First-Person and Third-Person Perspectives

Philosophical Papers 47 (3):333-371 (2018)
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Abstract

Characterizing the first- and third-person perspectives is essential to the study of consciousness, yet we lack a rigorous definition of or criteria for these two perspectives. Our intuitive understanding of how personal pronouns help to specify the perspectives gives rise to mutually exclusive notions of the first-person perspective. This contradiction thwarts our progress in studying consciousness. We can resolve the current ambiguity of the first-person perspective by introducing a new distinction between the first-person and third-person perspectives, based on two modes of consciousness: reflective and non-reflective. The purpose of this paper is to explain this new proposal, to elucidate the grounds for it, and to briefly suggest benefits from its use.

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Alla Choifer
University of Gothenburg

References found in this work

What is it like to be a bat?Thomas Nagel - 1974 - Philosophical Review 83 (October):435-50.
On a confusion about a function of consciousness.Ned Block - 1995 - Brain and Behavioral Sciences 18 (2):227-–247.
Epiphenomenal qualia.Frank Jackson - 1982 - Philosophical Quarterly 32 (April):127-136.
Tractatus logico-philosophicus.Ludwig Wittgenstein - 1922 - Filosoficky Casopis 52:336-341.

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