The Communication of First Person Thoughts

Abstract

In his article ‘The Thought’, Frege writes:

Every one is presented to himself in a particular and primitive way, in which he is presented to no one else. So, when Dr. Lauben thinks that he has been wounded, he will probably take as a basis this primitive way in which he is presented to himself. And only Dr. Lauben himself can grasp thoughts determined in this way. But now he may want to communicate with others. He cannot communicate a thought which he alone can grasp. Therefore, if he now says ‘I have been wounded’, he must use the ‘I’ in a sense which can be grasped by others, perhaps in the sense of ‘he who is speaking to you at this moment’… (Frege 1918-19, pp. 25-6)

From this passage, two important ideas can be extracted. The first one is commonly accepted nowadays: (a) First person thoughts concerning a person A can be grasped or en- tertained only by A. Another person, B, can entertain thoughts about A, but not first person thoughts about A: only A can think of himself in the first person. To be sure, B can also entertain first person thoughts; but these thoughts will be about B, not about A. (Even if B falsely believes that he is A, that would not make his first person thoughts thoughts about A.) Once we accept (a), a problem arises, which I call ‘the paradox of the first person’. First person thoughts are private, hence incommunicable; yet we do communicate them, by uttering first person sentences.