Though I wouldnt quite say that I is a syncategorematic expression, it does have something in common with such expressions. It is a representational device through which combination can be thought, as Kantians might put it. That is, it is device that serves to unite the multiple and diverse contents of our consciousness into, as it were, a single or unified field of consciousness. So I is a device through which a unity is made thinkable. Now heres the crucial thing, I think. What is it to be a self. it is really nothing but being a creature that is equipped with and successfully deploys such a device. Though I dont profess to fully understand him, I think that Kant thought something like this. If thats what he thought, he was basically right. At any rate, that is what I am trying to arguing in my creeping toward completion Selfhood as Self-representation. One thing about the analogy with syncategorematic expressions. We might be tempted to think that although such expressions have a function they may not have an independent reference --- though with the techniques of Montague grammar you can easily introduce a sort of reference. But I does have reference. It refers to the living human being that deploys that expression in his/her thought or talk. But in a way, the reference of I is far less interesting than the function of I. I am half tempted to say that for I function precedes reference -- though I am not entirely sure what that tempting utterance exactly means.
Posted on: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 16:55:37 +0000
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