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Self to Self Author(s): J. David Velleman Reviewed work(s): Source: The Philosophical Review, Vol. 105, No. 1 (Jan., 1996), pp. 39-76 Published by: Duke University Press on behalf of Philosophical Review Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2185763 . Accessed: 29/02/2012 02:18
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ThePhilosophical Review, Vol. 105, No. 1 January1996)

Self to Self

J. DavidVelleman
Images of myself being Napoleon can scarcelymerelybe images of the physicalfigureof Napoleon.... They will ratherbe images of,for instance,the desolation at Austerlitz viewedby me vaguelyaware of as myshortstatureand mycockaded hat, myhand in my tunic.' At the end of "The Imagination and the Self," Bernard Williams uncovers a common confusion about the range of thoughts in which the metaphysics of personal identity is implicated. When I imagine being someone else, I can be described as imagining that I am the other person-which sounds as if I am imagining a relation of identity between that person and me, David Velleman. As Williams points out, however, this particular way of imagining that I am another person is not really about me or my identity with
anyone.2

Throughout my work on this paper, I have benefitedfromnumerous conversationswith David Hills. I was also helped by a seminar on metaphysicsthat I taught with Stephen Yablo, and by Steve's comments on several draftsof the paper. Others who provided comments and suggestions include Paul Boghossian, Linda Wimer Brakel,John Broome, Mark Neil Delaney,Cody Gilmore,SallyHaslanger,KristaLawlor,Eric Crimmins, Lormand, Thomas Nagel, Lucy O'Brien, Derek Parfit, Jim Pryor,Henry Richardson,AmhlieRorty, Gideon Rosen, Ian Rumfitt, SydneyShoemaker, and Paul Torek. This paper was presented at the 1994 Chapel Hill Colloquium, withMichaelis Michael servingas commentator; and to the Philosophy Departmentsof Princeton and GeorgetownUniversities. is dediIt cated to Claudia Kraus Piper. 'Bernard Williams,"The Imagination and the Self," in Problems the of Self(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 43. 2Some philosophers have debated whetherI can in fact imagine a relation of identity between Napoleon and David Velleman. Bruce Aune argues that I can, provided thatI disregard"illusion-shattering facts"about Napoleon and me, such as the factthat I am a twentieth-century philosopher and he a nineteenth-century general ("Speaking of Selves," Philo44 sophical Quarterly (1994): 290ff.).Zeno Vendler takes the opposite view: "In imagining,forinstance,being Ronald Reagan, I cannot be imagining the identity Z. V. with R. R., for it is patentlyimpossible for these two of men to be one and the same, and the patently impossiblecannot be imagined" (The MatterofMinds (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press,1984), 105). (For an answerto Vendler'sargument, seeJohn Mackie, "The Transcendental 'I'," in Philosophical Subjects: EssaysPresented P E to
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If myapproach to imaginingthat I am Napoleon, for example, Napoleon, then I simplyimagine a particular is to imagine being situationas experienced byNapoleon. I imagine the landscape at Austerlitz seen throughNapoleon's eyes,the sounds of battleas as heard through his ears, the nap of a tunic as felt by his hand. AlthoughNapoleon doesn't appear in the resultingmental image, he does appear in the content of my imagining,since I am imagining Austerlitzspecificallyas experienced by him. But I, David Velleman, am absent both from the image and fromthe content of the imagining: I'm not imagining anythingabout the person who I actuallyam. Since I'm not imagining anythingabout my actual self,in this betweenme not imagininga relationof identity case, I'm certainly and Napoleon. Hence thisway of thinkingthat I am or mightbe a given person doesn't establishthe conceivability-much less the possibility-of any identitiesbetween persons.
* * *

have metaphysicaldiscussions of personal identity Unfortunately, tended to embrace almost any thoughtsabout who one is or might be, including thoughtssimilar to the imagining analyzed by Williams. For example, when philosophers want to know whether a person would survivea surgical rearrangementof his brain, they tend to ask whether he would antecedentlybe in a position to
Press,Clarendon Strawson, Zak van Straaten(Oxford:OxfordUniversity ed. Press, 1980), 48-61.) there are manyways As Eric Lormand has pointed out to me, however, to imagine thatI am Napoleon, including not only the method described by Williamsbut also, for example, imaginingthat Napoleon has been represerved at incarnated as David Velleman, or that he was cryogenically nurses to an unbirth,thawed out in 1952, and handed by the maternity suspectingMrs. Velleman. The lattermethodswould indeed involveimagining the supposedlyproblematicrelation of identity. The question, then, is not whetherI can imagine a relation of identity doing betweenNapoleon and David Velleman but whetherI am necessarily a Williamsas offering so when I imagine that I am Napoleon. I interpret negative answer to this question, by describinga way of imaginingthat I am Napoleon withoutimagininganything about David Velleman at all. For a discussion congruent with mine, see Simon Blackburn, "Has Kant Refuted Parfit?"in ReadingParfit, Jonathan Dancy (Oxford: Blackwell, ed. forthcoming).
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about Napoleon, in the sense that it is framed from Nafirst-personal

The person's anticipationof wakanticipatewakingup afterwards. ing up after the operation could of course be described as the anticipation that he would survive,in the form of the wakening patient. But it might amount to no more than his picturingthe recoveryroom as seen throughthe eyes of the wakening patient; similarto and thisway of expecting to be that patient is strikingly Williams'smethod for imaginingthat one is Napoleon.3 If I can imagine that I am Napoleon withoutimagining a Nafor my actual self,then maybe I can anticipate poleonic identity that I will wake up in the futurewithoutanticipatinga futurefor my actual self,either.Of course, the anticipationthat I will wake thought.But so is imaginingthat up in the futureis a first-personal I am Napoleon; and in that instance, the thought's being firstImagpersonal doesn't guarantee that it is about me, the thinker. but is first-personal, it is, so to speak, ining that I am Napoleon poleon's point of view.Perhaps the anticipationthatI willwake up about a futuresubject first-personal in the futurecan be similarly who may or may not be identical with me. If so, then studentsof personal identityshould probably give up their fascinationwith anticipation. first-personal Then again, maybe they should give up their fascinationwith instead. The appeal of thistopic depends largely personal identity on its promise to address our concern about what we can look If forwardto, or what we can anticipate first-personally. the mode in of anticipation that arouses our concern is first-personal the sense of being framed from the perspectiveof a futureperson, the futureexistence of the anticipator, ratherthan in representing of then that concern should move us to studythe psychology perof ratherthan the metaphysics persons.4 spectives
3j believe that Williams himselfhas gone in for this mode of thinking See, for example, "The Self and the Future," in about personal identity. of Problems theSelf (Indianapand Identity Immortality 4Atthe end of A Dialogue on Personal olis: Hackett PublishingCompany,1978), John Perryhas one of the interlocutorsconclude, "Perhaps we were wrong,afterall, in focusingon idenis as tity the necessarycondition of anticipation" (49). This possibility explored by Raymond Martin in "Having the Experience: The Next Best 70 Studies (1993): 305-21. It also figThing to Being There," Philosophical IdenTo: to in ures prominently Paul Torek's Something LookForward Personal of and Ethics(Ph.D. diss., University Michigan, 1995). The Prudence, tity, presentpaper is an attemptto finda necessarycondition other than iden-

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* * *

My aim is to argue for this reinterpretation our self-regarding of concern about the future.What mattersmost, I shall suggest,is not whetherthe person I now regard as self will surviveinto the future;it's whetherthere will be a futureperson whom I can now regard as self.And whetherI can regard a futureperson as self,I shall argue, doesn't necessarilydepend on whetherhe will be the same person as me; it depends instead on my access to his point of view.5 My first step will be to reviewthe workof other philosopherson first-personal thoughtssuch as "I am David Velleman" (section 1). Drawing on thiswork,I shall analyze the clause "I am Napoleon" as it is used to characterizewhat I'm imagining in the case described byWilliams (section 2). My analysisof thiscase will lead to some furtherreflectionson the nature of first-personal thought (section 3); and the resultingaccount of the first-person then will be applied to memories of what I've experienced in the past (section 4) and to anticipationsof what I will experience in the future
tity the mode of anticipationthat arouses our future-directed for self-concern. 5In arguing thatidentity not what matters is I about our survival, am of course followingDerek Parfit(Reasonsand Persons(Oxford: Oxford University Press,Clarendon Press,1984)). Let me explain briefly how myviews are related to Parfit's. I agree with Parfitthat much of our concern about survivalis focused on our psychologicalcontinuity withfuturepersons ratherthan our metaphysicalidentity with them. But I disagree with Parfitabout the kind of psychologicalcontinuity that mattersto us in this regard. As Parfitconceives it, the relevantcontinuity comprisesnot only the psychologicalconnections forgedby memory, example, but also connections forgedby for the mere persistenceof a psychologicalstate or trait(205). I shall argue for a narrowerconception of the relevantcontinuity, comprisingonly as those psychologicalconnections that functionlike memory in givingus first-personal access to other points of view.At the end of the paper, I'll point out that my conception of psychologicalcontinuity yields different judgments from Parfit's about various cases in which it's questionable in whetherthe subject survives the sense that matters. I think that Parfithimselfhas reason to prefermy conception of psychological continuity his own. For as I shall argue, we reportour access to to other pointsofviewbyusing the first-person pronoun in waysthatwould naturally cause thiscontinuity be mistakenforan identity to between persons. My account thereforeenables me to explain whythatwhich matters in survivalmightseem to be identity even when it is not.
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SELF TO SELF (section 5). Our desire for a future to anticipate, I shall argue, is a desire for first-personal access to a future point of view. Why we might have this desire is a question that I'll postpone until the final section of the paper (section 6).

1. Who I Am
The connection between identity and perspective has been explored suggestively by Thomas Nagel in his discussions of "the objective self."6 One of Nagel's concerns in these discussions is to locate the fact of who he is: [H]ow can a particularperson be me? Given a complete description of the worldfromno particularpoint of view,includingall the people in it, one of whom is Thomas Nagel, it seems on the one hand that somethinghas been leftout, somethingabsolutelyessential remains to be specified,namelywhich of them I am. But on the other hand there seems no room in the centerlessworld for such a further fact: the world as it is fromno point of view seems complete in a waythat excludes such additions;it isjust the world,and everything trueof TN is already in it. So ... how can it be true of a particularperson, a particularindividual,TN, who is just one of many persons in an objectivelycenterlessworld,that he is me?7 Nagel is puzzled here by the fact that he cannot incorporate the thought "I am TN" into an objective description of the world. In an objective description, this thought would have to appear without personal pronouns; but without personal pronouns, the thought would simply disappear. So long as Nagel speaks or thinks of TN in strictlyimpersonal terms, he cannot frame the thought that TN
is him.8

The impossibility of framing this thought impersonally leads Na6" Subjective and Objective," in Mortal Questions(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979); "The Limitsof Objectivity," The Tanner in Lectures Human Values, I, ed. S. McMurrin(Salt Lake City:University on vol. of Utah Press,1980); "The Objective Self," in Knowledge Mind,ed. Carl and Ginet and SydneyShoemaker (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983); The View From Nowhere (New York:Oxford University Press, 1986), chap. 4. 7The ViewFromNowhere, 54-55. Note that this is only one of Nagel's concerns in his discussionsof the "objective self." 8The classic discussionof thisphenomenon isJohn Perry'spaper "The Problem of the Essential Indexical," Nofts (1979): 3-21. 13 43

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gel to worrythat a descriptionof the world must remain incomplete so long as it remains impersonal.This worryis metaphysical, in that it envisions things for which "the world" might have In"room" even though they cannot be described impersonally. deed, Nagel's worrycannot be understood other than metaphysithatan objectivedescripcally.Nagel neverquestions the possibility tion of the world mightbe complete in the sense of containingall some subjectively and itsomitting of the objectively statabletruths; stated truthscould hardlycount against its claim to be a complete objective description.What Nagel envisions is that a description containing all of the objectivelystatable truthsmight still be incomplete in the sense of failingto describe all of the world,since the world mightinclude featuresthat cannot be described objectively.9
* * *

Nagel's reason for thinkingthat an objective descriptionmightbe incomplete in this sense is that it could never convey the information conveyed in the subjectivestatement"I am TN." Nagel's metaphysicalworrythereforerests on an observation about the And the informativeness statement. of informativeness an identity has by of identity statements been studied extensively philosophers of language since Frege, including some who have focused esstatements involvingthe first-person.10 peciallyon identity What the work of these philosophers suggests,however,is that
whoI am is 9The belief in a subjectivefeatureof the world constituting whennow is. The analogy like the belief in a tensed featureconstituting of by has been drawn explicitly D. H. Mellor in "I and Now," Proceedings Society (1988): 79-94. For an author who believes in such 89 the Aristotelian and the Idea Madell, "Personal Identity featuresof the world,see Geoffrey ed. David Cockburn (Cambridge: of a Human Being," in Human Beings, Press, 1991). Cambridge University 10 shall be drawingespeciallyon John Perry's"Problem of the Essential PerIssuesin Christian Indexical" and his "Self-Notions,"Logos:Philosophic 11 spective (1990): 17-31. (Both papers have been reprintedin TheProblem Press, Essays(New York:OxfordUniversity Essential Indexical and Other ofthe 1993).) See also Stephen E. Boer and William G. Lycan, KnowingWho (Cam(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1986), chap. 6; and Lycan, Consciousness statements bridge: MIT Press, 1987), 80. The general account of identity and on which I rely is similar to that offeredby P.F. Strawsonin Subject (London: Methuen, 1974), 51-56. Predicate Logicand Grammar in
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"I am TN" can be informative Nagel withoutdescribingany for objectivelyindescribable feature of the world, and hence that its informativeness shouldn't lead to any metaphysical worries.Let me summarizethisworkbriefly, withthe help of David Lewis's suggestion that self-locating thoughtslike "I am TN" resemble the cartographiclegend "This map is here."11
* * *

Suppose thatyou visitthe battlefieldat Austerlitz and find,at the formersite of Napoleon's headquarters,a map thatbears the legend "This map is here," followed by an arrow pointing to a rectangle in the map's lower left corner. This legend is certainlyinformative, what information but does it give you? The informativeness the legend depends on the fact that its of two indexical terms,"this" and "here," pick out theirreferents in two different ways.The word "here" is assigned a referent the by arrowthatconnects it to a rectangleon the map. The word doesn't referto the rectangle itself, course; if it did, the legend would of make the absurd assertionthatthe map occupies a small rectangle in its own lower leftcorner.The word "here" refersinstead to the region of the battlefieldthat's represented by the rectangle,that being where the map is actuallylocated. The map could referto this region as "here" withoutthe help of an arrow.For example, it mightalso bear the words "This map was placed here by the Austerlitz Tourist Board." In this inscription, the word "here" would referdirectlyto the general vicinity of the inscriptionitself, and so no arrowwould be needed to complete the reference.In "This map was placed here bythe Austerlitz Tourist Board," however,the word "here" would roughlymean "where you now see it, before your eyes." And the legend "This map is here" doesn't referto the relevantregion as "here" in the same sense. If the legend "This map is here" were displayedwith no arrow,and you had to interpret"here" as meaning "here be"Attitudes De Dictoand De Se," Philosophical Review (1979): 513-14, 88 528. The moral thatI draw fromthisanalogy is similarto one drawnfrom Kant's Paralogismsof Pure Reason, to the effectthat "in identifying 'myself I am identifying more no than a point of view upon the world, and not an entity withinit" (Roger Scruton, SexualDesire: MoralPhilosophy A of the Erotic(New York:Free Press, 1986), 114).
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fore your eyes," then the legend would give you no new information. You alreadyknow thatthe map is here beforeyoureyes;what you want to knowis where thatlocation lies in the representational scheme of the map. Hence the need for the arrow,which secures referenceto the map's actual location via the map's representation of it. Unlike the word "here," the phrase "this map" does pick out its referentas an object before your eyes. If "this map" referred to the map indirectly, its representationin the map, then the via legend would once again become uninformative. Imagine a second arrow,leading fromthe phrase "this map" to the same rectangle that's indicated by the arrow leading from "here." This second arrowwould reduce the map's legend to the trivial statementthat a map located in the region representedby the rectangleis indeed located in the region representedby the rectangle. The legend on the actual map is informative because it refers to the same location in two different ways-once as the location of "this map [before your eyes]" and once as the location that's "here [according to the map]." The legend tells you where the map that you are seeing can be found on the battlefieldas seen by the map.
* * *

The reason forreferring the same location twice,as seen byyou to and by the map, is to help you align the map withyour self-centered conception of yoursurroundings. For untilyou workout this alignment,you can't use the map to find your way around the battlefield. In touring the battlefield, you will have to be guided by your of senses,which give you a representation the fieldfromyourown this self-centered point of view. Unfortunately, representationof your surroundingsis incomplete,in thatit includes onlywhatyou can perceive or remember perceiving.You want to expand it to include regions that you haven't perceived, so that it represents what is over the hillock on your leftor behind the treesup ahead. These regions are representedin the map, of course, but not from the perspectiveof the perceptual representation whichyou must by navigate. You thereforeneed to transferinformationfrom the
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map's complete,centerlessrepresentation the battlefield your of to incomplete,self-centered representation. In order to transfer information between these representations, you have to know which parts of them are co-referential-which markson the map referto whichlandmarkswithin yourperceptual field. The legend "This map is here" enables you to coordinate these schemes of reference,by showing how both schemes pick out a single landmark,the map itself.'2
* * *

The informativeness "This map is here" is thus potentially of misleading. "This map is here" adds to your knowledge of the battlefield,but not bygivingyou knowledgeabout additional featuresof the battlefield-features that aren't described in the representations thatyou already have. All thatthe legend reportsis the map's location,whichis already reported twice in your existingrepresentations the battlefield, of once in the map itselfand again in your self-centered conception. Hence the legend doesn't informyou by revealingsome aspect of the battlefieldthat's leftout of these representations; rather, init formsyou by conveyinga rule of translationbetween these representations,thus enabling you to make better use of the information theyalready contain. And the legend conveysthis rule of translationby demonstrating not by statingit. It showsyou how it, to translate between these schemes of representation,by using both of them to specify the map's location. Many differentstatementscould provide this demonstration. What's conveyed by the legend "This map is here" could equally well be conveyedby a different such as "The hillockon statement, your leftis here" or "The trees up ahead are here" or-as maps often say-"You are here." All the legend needs to do is identify some location or otherwithinboth representational schemes,thus how to translatebetween them. demonstrating

'2GarethEvans took thispoint further, suggesting by thatnothingcould count as one's objective conception of the world unless one grasped the possibility correlating withone's self-centered of it conception (The Varieties ofReference (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982), 212). 47

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In showingyou how to translatebetween schemes of representation, the legend offerspractical guidance, which you must follow withinthe self-centered perspectivethat you occupy as an agent. That's whythe legend refersindexicallyto "this map" and literally points to a region withinit, picking out both itemsas theyappear in your visual field. A legend that spoke impersonallyabout how to transfer information between such-and-such map and so-anda so's visual fieldwould not be helpful-not, thatis, unless you could translate it into your personal terms, such as "this map" and "here." For if you are to follow the rule for translating between the perspectivesat hand, thatrule mustbe framedfromyourown perspective,as it is by the legend "This map is here." Nagel's thought "I am TN" is informative the same way: it in withinhis conception of the world as centered on demonstrates, "me," how to correlate that conception witha centerlessconception of the world, as containing someone named "TN."'13 "I am TN" is informative, then, because it shows how to transfer information between these two conceptions of the world, not because it describes some featureof the world that theyhave omitted.'4 2. Who I MightBe This account of Nagel's self-locating thought helps us to understand cases of projectiveimagination as well. My being Napoleon is not a feature of the world that's depicted in the mental image bywhich I imagine thatI am Napoleon; it's rathera rule fortranslating between that image and an objective descriptionof what it depicts. The image representsthat I am Napoleon in the sense
13Here I am considering,withNagel, whythis statement would constitute an informative addition to a complete objective descriptionof the world. Of course, if Nagel's objective conception of the world is incomplete, then "I am TN" may be informative other waysas well. in 14Nagel explains that "I am TN" is informative because it reports"the fact that this impersonal conception of the world, though it accords no special position to TN, is attached to and developed fromthe perspective of TN" (The View From Nowhere, For a critiqueof Nagel's explanation, 64). see ChristopherPeacocke, Senseand Content: Experience, and their Thought, Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press, 1983), 16869. A different explanation is offeredby Zeno Vendler in chapter 6 of The Matter Minds. of
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scheme of referencethat'scenthat it is framedin a self-centered tered on NB. When I speak of a scheme of referencethat's centered on NB, as I don't just mean, for example, an image of Austerlitz it looked such an image might froma place where NB stood.15 Entertaining as amount to no more than visualizingAusterlitz it looked to NB, which is not the same as imagining that I am NB seeing it. An account of imagined seeing must distinguishit fromthe less ambitious project of mere visualization.16 Both imaginativeprojects involve a mental image drawn fromNB's perspective.The differin ence is thatonlyimagined seeing involves, addition,the thought as occupied-and, indeed, as occupied byNB.17 of thatperspective A visual image has a perspectivebecause objects are represented in it by regions whose size and placement depend on the angles subtended by those objects at some common point in space. The scheme of the image is governed by lines of sight representational converging at a single vantage point, whose location the image suggestsbut doesn't depict. In ordinaryvision,thisvantage point is occupied by the eyes of the person experiencing the visual image, and the image is presented as the immediate product of this sensory encounter with scheme of refthe depicted scene.18Thus, the image has a centered erence because it representsobjects as theyare interceptedbylines of sight that converge at a single point; and it has a self-centered

I 15Forthe sake of simplicity, am going to confine my attentionto the visual image involvedin my imagining.Some aspects of visual imageryfor example, its perspectivalgeometry-are better understood than the olfactory, kinesthetic or correspondingaspects (if any) of tactual,auditory, %This problem is the one thatWilliamsconsidersin "Imagination and the Self" The solution I offerhere is largelyhis. 17Wollheim these modes of imaginationas "acentral" and distinguishes in Mind (Cam"central" ("Imagination and Identification," On Artand the Press, 1974), 54-83). Williams distinguished bridge: Harvard University them by calling the latter"participatory imagery." 18j am being deliberately vague in speaking of how an image is "presented." The "presentation" of the image may consist in a preceding or phenomeaccompanyingthoughtabout the image; or in some distinctive combined perhaps withbeliefsor cognitive nal qualities of the image itself, dispositionsof the subjectwithrespect to such qualities. I hope to remain neutral among these possibilities.
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imagery.

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scheme of referencebecause the point of convergence is thought of as occupied by the image's subject. Yet the imagination can frame a visual image without the thoughtthat its vantage point is occupied. The resultin that case is visualizationratherthan imagined seeing. The image represents objects as theywould appear to a viewer,if one were present,but it doesn't representthem as so appearing to anyone. Going beyond mere visualizationto imagined seeing entailsconjuring up, not just a visual image, but also the thoughtof such an image as being experienced by someone occupying its vantage the point and confronting objects it depicts. Imaginaryseeing thus as requires an imagined viewer,who is imagined simultaneously the mind containing the image, so to speak, and as an unseen object located where its lines of sightconverge.This vieweris posthought but he is not pictured:he is simply ited bythe imagination, of, as providingthe mental environsof the image and the sensorium at its spatial and causal point of origin.19 When I thinkof the image as havinga subject,it becomes a way as of thinkingabout that person reflexively, "self." And to think as of a person reflexively, "self," is also to thinkof him as "me." If I thinkof the image as having a particularsubject, such as Napoleon, the image becomes a way of thinkingabout Napoleon as "me," and so it becomes a way of thinkingthat I am Napoleon.
* * *

Let me elaborate for a moment on thisnotion of a visual image as about someone else as "me." Elaboration is needa wayof thinking ed because a visual image rarelycontains uses of the first-person pronoun: it isn't a way of thinkingabout the imagined vieweras "me" in so manywords,or in any words at all. In a case of imagined seeing, however,the image is framed to depict things as seen by someone, who is thus introduced in
19The relationbetween the subject's role as the bearer of consciousness and his role as owner of the operative sensorium is discussed by Sydney ed. of Shoemaker, "Embodiment and Behavior," in The Identities Persons, of Amelie Rorty(Berkeley:University CaliforniaPress, 1976), 109-37. It is also the implicittopic of Daniel Dennett's "Where Am I?" in Brainstorms; (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1981), Essayson Mind and Psychology Philosophical 310-23. Both papers point out that these roles can come apart.
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thoughtas the subject of the image. The image stilldoesn't present this viewer as one of the objects visible in it; but it does present the viewerinvisibly, insofaras it now depicts thingsas seen byhim; and it therebypresentshim reflexively, the subject, in the way as that a spoken first-person pronoun presentsits speaker.20 Although the reflexivity a mental image doesn't consist in a of use of the first-person pronoun, it would occasion a use of the pronoun in the correspondingverbal report.A reportof what I'm imagining would of course describe the objects depicted in the image-the field,the smoke of battle,and so on. Yet it would also have to make clear that these objects were being imagined, not merelyas theywould appear if someone saw them, but as being seen. How could a verbal report make clear that it was conveying the contentsof an imagined seeing? The obvious waywould be to "I include a prefatory see," in which "I" would referto the person who does the seeing; and the person who does the seeing, in this context,is the imagined viewer.The verbal expression of an imagined seeing thus confirmsthat its scheme of representationcasts the imagined viewerin the role of first person, as the referent of "me."
* * *

But who would be speaking here? Whose image is being put into words? I have thus farneglected to distinguish between the image that's in the mind of the imaginerand the one that'sin the mind of the
20Throughoutthe paper I assume that "first-personal" thoughtis not necessarilypersonal, in that it need not involve the concept of a person. Creatureswho lack the concept of a person can nevertheless manifest behavior that is to be explained by their having egocentricrepresentations of theirsurroundings-representations whose contentcannot be expressed withoutthe help of first-person pronouns. We cannot explain the stalking behavior of a cat, for example, except in termsof perceptionsexpressible as "There's a mouse in frontof me," "I'mclose enough to pounce on it," and so on. Yet the attribution such first-personal of thoughtsto the cat does not implythatit thinksof itself, of anything or else, as a person. Here I am in pointed disagreementwithJohn Campbell, who thinksthat even proprioceptionssuch as "I am about to fall over" are essentially about a person ("The Reductionist View of the Self," in Reduction, and Explanation, ed. Realism, David Charles and Kathleen Lennon (Oxford: OxfordUniversityPress,Clarendon Press, 1992), 392ff.).
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AusWhen I imagine thatI am Napoleon viewing imagined viewer. in my I terlitz, don't imagine, of the faintand incomplete image own mind, that this veryimage belongs to a visual experience in the mind of NB.21 Rather,my image is a medium for imagining NB's visual experience. The sense in which I imagine NB's visual experience is not that I conjure up an image in which NB's experience is one of the objects depicted.22It's ratherthat I conjure up an image thatpurports to be a secondary version of NB's-a duplicate of his visual for or impression, a prototype it.And the image regarded as having or NB for its subject would seem to be the primary originalimage of it in mine. The quesin NB's mind, not the secondary version tion thereforearises whether my image still qualifies as a way of thinkingabout NB as "me." By and large, secondaryversionsof an image share itsreferential an is scheme. A reproductionof a pictureof Austerlitz itself image is an of Austerlitz; artist'sdesign fora mural of Austerlitz an image too. Both are copies-one modeled afterthe primary of Austerlitz, image, the other serving as a model for it-and both share the scheme of the picture to which theystand as copies.23 referential the Similarly, image in mymind, regarded as a copy of NB's visual impression,is an image of whateverNB is supposed to be seeing. reference?In the refBut what about reflexiveor first-personal NB erentialscheme of NB's visual impression, occupies first-person position, since he is the subject. Yet the copy occurs in mymind, where I am the subject. So shouldn't I, DV, be the person who is presented in this image? reflexively

John Mackie's suggestionthatthe imagined sub21Here I disagree with ject is imagined to be "the subjectof mypresentexperiences" ("The Transcendental 'I'," 56). 221f image depictingNapoleon's visual experience were an imagined an seeing rather than a mere visualization,it would be a way of imagining, not that I am Napoleon, but that I am someone who can peer into Napoleon's mind. 231nspeaking of mental images as "copies," I do not mean to imply to anythingabout their degree of resolution, detail, or faithfulness the original. I am also attemptingto remain neutral on the direction of fit between these copies and theiroriginals.
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There isn't a simple answer to this question. A mental copy of a visual impressioncan have two subjects. The person entertaining the a secondaryimage is certainly subjectof thatimage. But insofar as the image is regarded as a copy of a primaryimpression,it resemblesthatimpressionnot merelyin depictingthe objects seen Albut also in depicting those objects as seen by theprimaryviewer. is essential to the representational lusion to the primaryviewer scheme of the secondary image, and he is alluded to specifically as as the subject,since objects are representedspecifically seen by him. Considerations such as these have led some philosophers to speak of secondary images as having an "internal" subject in adI dition to any "external" subject theymighthave.24 findthe terms however,and so I will "internal" and "external" uninformative, speak instead of the notional and actual subjects. The notional subject of a secondaryimage is the person thoughtof as occupying the image's vantage point and undergoing the visual impressionof which the image is a copy. In the representationalscheme of such an image, the notional subject tends to crowd out the actual subject as the targetof reflexivereference.The notional subjecthas to get into the act somehow, or the image won't amount to a representationof thingsas seen by him. And he can't get into the act, in his capacityas the he just bygettinginto the image; foras the viewer, occupies viewer, viewed. He thereforegets a role over and above that of anything into the act by being thoughtof as the subject, as the person represented by the image, and hence as the targetof selfflexively referencewithinthe visual scheme of representation.
* * *

Consider again how the referentialscheme of my mental image

24The term "internal subject" was coined, I believe, by Richard Wollheim. Wollheim'sclearestdiscussionof the issue is in lecture 3 of Painting Press,1987). In the case of paintas an Art(Princeton:PrincetonUniversity ings, of course, there is no external subject,since the secondaryimage is on canvas ratherthan in a person's mind. See also Wollheim's "ImaginaFor a recentdiscussionof the issue in application tion and Identification." to perceptual experience, see Bill Brewer,"Self-Location and Agency," Mind 101 (1992): 17-34.
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J DAVID VELLEMAN would be expressed in words. To ask whom the image presents in the position of subject or self is to ask how the image's self-centered scheme of reference is oriented in the objective world.25 And as we have seen, an image's orientation can be demonstrated within its scheme of reference by an identity statement of the form "I am so-and-so." If such a statement were framed within my image's scheme of reference, it would be framed from the point of view embodied in the image, which is that of the imagined viewer. And a statement framed from the viewer's point of view would be a statement made by the viewer-who has to be Napoleon if my image is to represent things as seen by him. The identity statement that would demonstrate the referential orientation of my image is therefore the statement that would be made by NB: "I am Napoleon." In his capacity as the viewer, of course, NB is merely imaginary, and his statement would be imaginary, too. But it would be easy enough to imagine. In fact, I may already be putting imaginary words into the mouth of NB, if my imagining includes what Williams calls a "narration":26 It is going to be of the general form: Consider now the narration.... 'I have conquered; the ideals of the Revolutionin myhands are sweeping away the old world. Poor Maria Walewska,I wonder where she is now' and so on and so on, according to whateverknowledge or illusions I possess about Napoleon. When I imagine saying "I have conquered," I conjure up an image of this utterance from the speaker's point of view, and I superimpose this point of view on that embodied in the imagined visual impression, in such a way that both are centered on NB as the notional subject of speech and vision together. If I replaced "I have conquered" with "I am Napoleon" (or perhaps "I, Napoleon, have conquered"), I would thereby give myself a demonstration, within the referential scheme of my imagining, of how that scheme is coordinated with an objective description of the world. To imagine saying "I am Napoleon" would therefore be a way 25The objective world involvedhere is the imaginaryworld,objectively described. Afterall, I can imagine that I am Napoleon at the battle of Narnia ratherthan Austerlitz. 26"Imaginationand the Self," 43.
54

SELF TO SELF for me to spell out for myself that I'm imagining everything as seen (and said) by NB.27 I could even use this statement to spell out for others what I'm imagining, provided that I enclosed it in quotation marks to indicate that it was couched in the terms of the imagining. For I could say this: I am imagining, "I am Napoleon."

My report of imagining thatI am Napoleon simply transposes this quoted identity statement into indirect discourse. In doing so, it replaces the pronoun "I" with what Castafieda called a quasi-indicator.28

A quasi-indicator is an indexical used in oratio obliqua to mark the position that would be occupied in oratio recta by a reflexive term such as "me." John Perry has analyzed the workings of quasiindicators as follows:29 I thinkthatwhen we use quasi-indicators combine a remarkabout we what [someone] believes with a remark,or a hint, about howhe beis lieves it. In the case of "he," the second bit of information roughly thathe believes what he believes in virtue accepting a sentencewith of "I" in it. That is, "Smith believes that he is o" tells us that Smith believes Smithto be (x in virtueof accepting "I am (x." More precisely, it tells us that he [believes] it in virtue of being in a certain belief adults typically results in the utterstate, which in English-speaking of ance, in appropriatecircumstances, "I am (x." Suppose that Smith overhears a conversation in which some unnamed person is confidently said to be a. Smith may come to beis itself not whatgivesmyimaginingthe con27The imagined statement tentthatI am Napoleon. For I can imagine saying"I am Napoleon" without imaginingthat I am Napoleon-for example, in the course of imagining thatI am someone withNapoleonic delusions. To imagine thatI am Napoleon is to imagine that which this imagined statementwould exscheme press-namely, Napoleon's occupyingthe centerof a self-centered of reference. Philosophical Quarterly 28See "Indicators and Quasi-Indicators,"American 4 (1967): 203-10. A discussion of the literatureon this subject can be of found in John Perry's "Castafieda on He and I," in The Problem the Esssential Indexical. 60. 29"Belief and Acceptance," in The Problem theEssentialIndexical, of fromCastafieda's. Note that Perry'saccount is different
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lieve, of that unnamed person, that he is a. Now suppose thatthe person under discussion is in fact Smith. Smith has then come to to believe Smith be a. But Smithmay or maynot be aware of being the person in question, and so in believingSmithto be a, he may believe it in one of two ways,which Perryanalyzes as follows.He may believe it either by accepting a sentence of the form "He is a" or by accepting the sentence "I am a," depending on which be sentence would typically uttered by an English speaker in his state of mind. When we say "Smith believes that he is a," we normallymean way:our refirst-personal that Smith holds his belief in the latter, port would be misleadingif Smithwere unaware of being the person in question. According to Perry,then, we mean not only that Smith believes Smith to be a but also that he believes it in virtue of accepting the sentence "I am a"-that is, in virtueof occupying a state that typically results in an utterance of this first-personal markingthe pressentence. We thus use "he" as a quasi-indicator, pronoun in the sentence whose utterance ence of a first-person would typically express Smith's belief. As it stands, Perry's analysis applies only to beliefs: it cannot give cover cases of imagining,because imaginingsdon't typically rise to utterances.But the materialsfor extending the analysisare alreadyat hand. For when Smithimagines thathe is Napoleon, we have found, he may do so by conjuring up secondary images with NB as their notional subject, therebyenteringa state of imaginationwhose referential orientationwould be spelled out bya further image, of the utterance"I am Napoleon." Justas thereis an actual express what he utterance by which the believer would typically believes, so there is an utterance-imageby which the imaginer would typically express what he imagines. So Perry's analysiscan frombeliefsto imaginingsifthe utterancesexpressive be extended exof beliefs are replaced in the analysisby the utterance-images
pressive of imaginings.

the This extension of Perry'sanalysiscruciallyaffects role of the In "Smith believes thathe is Napoleon," the quasiquasi-indicator. pronoun in "I indicator "he" marks the place of the first-person am Napoleon" as it might actually be said by Smith. The quasito indicator thus stands in for a pronoun referring Smith. But in "Smith imagines that he is Napoleon," the quasi-indicatormarks the place of the first-person pronoun in "I am Napoleon" as it
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might be imagined Smith but as said in this imagining by Naby poleon. And in "I am Napoleon" as said by NB, "I" would refer to NB. Thus, the "he" in "Smith imagines thathe is Napoleon" echoes an imagined use of "I" that would referto Napoleon and not to Smith. So it does not pick out Smith as the object of Smith's imaginings;it merelyintroducesthe self-concept, "I," under which or Smith imagines Napoleon, as he would express by going on to imagine saying,"I am Napoleon." The same goes for the second occurrence of "I" in "I'm imagining that I am Napoleon." This "I" isn't a reference to me, David Velleman. It simplymarks the place of the first-person pronoun in the utterance-image"I am Napoleon," which would demonstratethe orientationof myimagining fromwithin. Here at last we see whyWilliams's method for imaginingthat I am Napoleon does not involveimagininganything about myactual self,DV. It simplyinvolvesentertaining imaginarythoughtsin the Napoleonic first-person, to speak, an egocentricscheme of refso erence whose center-and hence whose ego-is NB. 3. What "I" Is But how can I thinkabout Napoleon in the first-person? firstThe person is a reflexivemode of thought,and I am in no position to thinkabout NB reflexively, since reflexive thoughtsare about their own thinker, and I, the thinker, not NB. am I am happy to grant that my thoughtsin this case are not reflexivein the objective sense of referring the person who is in to factthinkingthem. But as Perry'sanalysisillustrates, philosophers have recognized a distinction betweena thought'sbeing objectively reflexivein this sense and its being subjectively reflexive, preby sentingthe thinkerin the distinctively first-personal under the way, guise of self.30 Although mythoughtsabout NB aren't about their own thinker, theydo presentNB in first-personal guise.
30Thisrecognitioncan perhaps be traced to Elizabeth Anscombe's paper "The FirstPerson," in whichAnscombe inventeda mode of reference that was objectively but not subjectively reflexive.The paper is reprinted in Anscombe's Metaphysics thePhilosophy Mind; Collected and of Papers (Oxford:Blackwell,1981), 21-36. 57

f DAVID VELLEMAN
* * *

I now seem to be suggestingthat some modes of thoughtmay be presentingfirst-personally reflexive, but subjectively not objectively is not the person thinkingthem. This suggestion someone who would be problematic,to say the least. between Even those philosophers who recognize the distinction reassume that a subjectively subjective and objective reflexivity subperhaps,byits flexivemode of thought-though individuated, be jective character-must nevertheless guaranteed to referto the thinkerin fact.31 Otherwise, I could think about someone firstpersonallyand yet be uncertain of his relation to the thinkerof this thought.I would then be in a position to doubt whether"I" exist,since the doubt itselfwould guarantee only the existence of the doubter, who might not be the person whose existence was being doubted, howeverfirst-personally. I Fortunately, needn't go so faras to suggesta gap between subMy jective and objective reflexivity. point all along has been that secondary mental images have two subjects, one actual and one of notional. The possibility thoughtswithnotional as well as actual subjects requires us to enlarge our understandingof what it is for a thoughtto be reflexive. between actual and notional subjectsalreadyfigThe distinction ures in the subjectivecharacterof secondary images. Even to the imaginer himself,the image presentsan imaginingsubject and a viewingsubject,both in waysthatare recognizablysubject-presentSo ing, and hence first-personal. even withinthe categoryof subbetween actual and notional we jective reflexivity, mustdistinguish between the waysin whichsomemarkthe difference to reflexivity, one can be presented as the subject of thought. in We can then say that my mental image of Austerlitz, its subthoughtabout Napoleon: is jective character, a notionallyreflexive And the noI am thinkingabout NB in the notional first-person. needn't referto the actual subject of thought. tional first-person
311 thinkthat this assumptionis operative,forexample, in John Campin and Self-Knowledge," Past,Space,and bell's discussionof "Self-Reference Self(Cambridge: MIT Press, 1994), chap. 4; and in Lucy F. O'Brien, "An54 Rule," Analysis (1994): 277-81. scombe and the Self-Reference 58

SELF TO SELF
* * *

To claim that I can think of Napoleon in the notional first-person is still to claim too much, however. The notional reflexivityof my thoughts about Napoleon is less than genuine. In order to imagine that I am Napoleon, I frame an image of Austerlitz as seen by someone who might thereby be moved to say
"I see ...
," and then I stipulate

that the image and the associated

utterance are oriented in such a way that "I" refers to NB. Without this referential stipulation, my mental image would not be a way of thinking about Napoleon as "me," and so it wouldn't be a way of imagining that I am Napoleon. Yet stipulations of this sort are foreign to reflexive usage. I don't usually specify to whom my uses of "me" refer-not even uses of the notional "me." Suppose, for example, that I have a visual memory of a desolate field just like the one surveyed by Napoleon at Austerlitz. This memory includes a visual image that's presented as reprising an earlier visual experience, whose subject stood at the image's vantage point in front of the remembered scene. The memory image is thus presented as a duplicate, representing the field as seen by an original subject on some date in the past. It therefore has a notional subject, who would be the referent of the first-personpronoun in an accompanying image of the utterance "I see ...." if such an utterance were remembered from the same point of view. If the image is indeed a copy of a visual impression, as it purports to be, then there is already a fact of the matter as to the identity of its notional subject: he is the person from whose experience the image was copied.32 The image's notional reflexivitywith respect to that person is not the product of any semantic stipulation on my part. I do not center the memory image on someone in the past so as to make him the notional subject. The image is just presented to me as having been copied from a visual impression, and it consequently represents things as seen by the subject of the
321 do not mean to implythatthe originalvieweris the notional subject of the image solelybecause of its psychologicaloriginsin his experience. If the image wasn'tpresentedin thoughtas the copy of a visualimpression, then it mightnot present anyone as the notional subject,even if it was in fact copied fromsomeone's experience. Because the image is presented as a copy,however, has a notional subject,whose identity then deterit is mined by his being the subject of the original. See also note 45, below. 59

J DAVID VELLEMAN impression from which it was, in fact, copied. Who he was is then determined by the image's causal history.
* * *

The reflexivityof my memory is therefore genuine in a way that of the reflexivity imaginings is not. In memory I really think of the notional subject as "me"; in imagination, I only pretend to. What makes a thought subjectively reflexive, after all, is that it is indexical in a special way: it has a peculiar way of pointing. A reflexive thought picks out a person at its center by mentally pointing to him in a distinctively inward-directed fashion. My experiential memories pick out past subjects by pointing to them in this way, but my imaginings cannot really do the same with Napoleon. Before I can frame an image that points to Napoleon at its center-even its notional center-I must firstframe another thought that picks him out, so that I can center the image on him. When I subsequently use that image to think of him at its center, I can only pretend to be using a mode of thought that's sufficient to pick him out. In fact, I couldn't have picked out NB as "me" without firstpicking him out as "Napoleon," in order to stipulate that he was the notional subject of thought. Hence the thought of NB as "me" is less than genuinely reflexive. Genuinely reflexive thoughts don't rely on an antecedent specification of their target: theyjust point to the subject, at the center of thought. They are-to put it somewhat paradoxically-unselfconscious about their reference, in that they require no other thought about whom they refer to. I can think of NB as notionally "me" only by deliberately placing him where he will intercept this inward-directed pointer, thus rendering its reference to him selfconscious. So I can only pretend to think of him in the notional first-person.33 33Notethatthe same considerationsmayapply to cases in whichI imagine that I am David Velleman. For example, if I re-centermy image of in Austerlitz as to imagine that I, David Velleman, am fighting Naposo simply leon's place, my thoughtsdo not become genuinelyfirst-personal who because theyare now about DV ratherthan NB. I am stillstipulating is the notional "me," and hence only pretendingto pick him out just by
pointing.

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4. Who I Was But what if I believe that my memory is a vestige of Napoleon's experiences at the battle of Austerlitzrather than of any experiences of myown?34 that case, I will believe it to be an image of In Austerlitzas seen by Napoleon, on whom the image is centered naturally, without any stipulation on my part. And I will believe that it has a content thatwould be expressed by an accompanying memory of the utterance "I see Austerlitz,"as spoken-and spoken truly-by a real person seeing Austerlitz. maythen transpose I thisutteranceinto indirectdiscoursebyclaimingto rememberthat I saw the battle of Austerlitz.35 This report would be odd because the verb "to remember" is
34GarethEvans argued that one could not question whetherapparent memories derived fromone's own experiences (Varieties Reference, of 23548). According to Evans, one cannot even have a self-concept unless orne is disposed to assimilatethe information memories and perceptionsin in waysthat already constitutetakingoneself as theirsource. A subject who didn't already treat himself as the source of memories, Evans argued, couldn't go on to doubt whetherhe was the source, since he would lack a concept needed forframing this doubt. Note, however,that Evans's argumentyields no conclusions about apparent memories taken singly.What the argument shows, if anything, is thatI could not question whetherI was the source of myrecoveredimages in general. If I treat recovered images in general as derived from own experiences, however,then even by Evans's lightsI will have the self-concept withwhich to doubt, about any particularimage, whetherI was its source. Hence Evans's argumentdoes not preclude the possibility my of thinkingthat I have particularimages recovered fromNapoleon's experiences rather than my own. (Other potential obstacles to my taking this view are discussed in the following note.) 350f course, I will also think that the image's content would be expressed by an accompanyingmemoryof the utterance "I, Napoleon, see Austerlitz."Will I consequentlyclaim to remember that I, Napoleon, saw Austerlitz? Compare Andy Hamilton's remarkson the difficulty reportingan of apparent memory derived from Derek Parfit'sexperience of arrivingat Bournemouth station:
One could try'I remember arrivingat Bournemouth station-only the "I" then was Parfit!'. (It was the same 'I', only the person had changed his identity.)Or 'I remember arrivingat Bournemouth, only it was not mybody that arrived'. But these are desperate expedients. ("A New Look at Personal IdenThePhilosophical tity," 45: Quarterly (1995), 342)

These are indeed desperate expedients,but only because theyrelyon an

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factive:the claim to remembersomethingimplies thatit's true. If I speak the truthin claiming to remember that I saw Austerlitz, then what I claim to remember must be true as well; and what I The claim to remember would seem to be that I saw Austerlitz. merelybizarre belief that I have inherited one of NB's visual images seems to yield the trulyabsurd conclusion that I underwent one of his visual experiences.
* * *

One way to avoid such absurditieswould be to qualifythe description of my mental image. If I called it something other than a I memory-say, an apparent memoryor a quasi-memory36-then wouldn't implythat it was veridical. wouldn't lead to Yet myclaim to rememberthat I saw Austerlitz absurd conclusions if it were properlyunderstood. In saying "I remember that I saw Austerlitz,"I am indeed claiming to occupy to a mental state whose content is true. But I am not attributing that state the content thatwould be conveyedby mysaying"I saw Austerlitz"in oratiorecta,where "I" would referto the speaker,DV. to Rather,I'm attributing it the content that would be conveyed by an accompanying image of the utterance "I see Austerlitz," where "I" would referto the originalviewer.So I'm not reporting I'm merelyreporting that I, DV, witnessedthe battle of Austerlitz; in which a witness of it is the notional memories of Austerlitz "me."37
exchange of bodies or identities,which is quite unnecessary.What the subject of this transplantedmemoryshould say is "I rememberthatI was at Derek Parfitarriving Bournemouth." This claim saysnothingabout an subject,because-as I shall and the remembering exchange betweenParfit argue in the text-the second "I" is, not a referenceto the rememberer, conception under which but a quasi-indicatorechoing the first-personal my Parfit'sarrivalat Bournemouth is being remembered.Similarly, belief should lead me in having inheritedNapoleon's visual image of Austerlitz to say,"I rememberthatI was Napoleon viewingthe battle of Austerlitz." 36Forthe term "quasi-memory,"see SydneyShoemaker, "Persons and the 7 Quarterly (1970): 269-85. Actually, Philosophical Their Pasts," American mental states I am discussingwould be called quasi,-memoriesby Shoe-and hence appromaker,because theyare, as I put it, "recovered from" caused by-the original experiences. priately the 37Thus,in "I rememberthatI sawAusterlitz," second "I" is a quasithus:"I remember withan asterisk, which Castafiedawould write indicator, that I* saw Austerlitz."So formulated,this statementbegins to look like
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My mental image is indeed notionallyreflexivewith respect to such a person, if (as I believe) it was inheritedfromNapoleon. For in thatcase, the referential scheme of the image is not dependent on any prior specificationof NB as the notional subject. Napoleon is the notional subject of my image because it is presented to me as derived from the visual experience of an original viewer,and that viewerwas (so I believe) NB. His being the notional subject of the image is thus a matterof historicalfact rather than stipulation; and so the image picks him out as "me" unselfconsciously, just by pointing to him in the center of its referential scheme. Thus, if mymental image was inheritedfromNapoleon, then it representsAusterlitz seen by a notional "me." I claim no more as in saying"I rememberthatI saw Austerlitz."So whyshould I qualifymy claim?
* * *

Some would answer that if I take myself have an image of Austo terlitzas it looked to Napoleon, then I shouldn't call it a memory, because a memory of how Austerlitzlooked would have to be a memoryof how it looked to me. In the viewof these philosophers, experientialmemorynecessarilyrepresentsthingsas having been experienced by oneself, and it is "immune to error throughmison identification" this score.38
in the formulations Carol Rovane's "Branching Self-Consciousness"(The Philosophical Review (1990): 368ff.).According to Rovane, my image of 99 Austerlitz would have to be reported as a quasi-memoryof what "I*" ratherthan "I"-saw. The resulting similarity misbetweenmyviewand Rovane's is potentially leading, however. Rovane introduces "1*" as a "new pronoun" that is needed, she believes,because a reportof what "I" experienced would pick out the subject of thatexperience as someone identicalwithme, the subject of memory.Since these subjects are not identical in thiscase, Rovane would have me replace the ordinary"I" witha different pronoun. In my view,however,the ordinarypronoun used in memoryreportsis the one that should be written "I*," and it should be written as thiswayprecisely because it's a quasi-indicatorthat doesn't pick out the original subject as identicalwithme. I therefore deny that a new pronoun is needed: "1*" is just philosophicalnotationforthe first-person pronoun as it is alreadyused in memoryreports. (For the same reasons, I shall also deny that there is any need for the notion of quasi-memory.) 38For these claims, see Shoemaker, "Persons and their Pasts," and Evans, Varieties Reference, of 235-48. More recent discussionsinclude John Campbell, "The ReductionistView of the Self," and Andy Hamilton, "A New Look at Personal Identity."
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In myview,however,the nature of experientialmemorycan be fully explained by the factthat it representsthingsas experienced as by a notional subject,whom it casts in the notional first-person, a "me." My memoryof seeing somethingis necessarily memoryof my seeing it for the same reason that myimage of being someone is necessarilyan image of my being him-that is, simplybecause it is a first-personal of thinkingabout the subject in question.39 way the To be sure, such a memory cannot misidentify viewer in him as me. But it cannot thereby the misidentify viewrepresenting him at all. A visual identify er, I say,onlybecause it doesn't thereby memoryrepresentsthe vieweras me only in the sense that it repposition who occupies first-person resentsthe viewer as the viewer, in the visual scheme of reference.The original viewerwas "me" in this sense no matterwho he was, just by virtue of being the notional subject of the image; and his having been "me" in this sense does not entail his having been DV. Memory can thus succeed in making someone "me" to me even if he was Napoleonnot, of course, by making him the same person as me, but rather by presentinghim to me in the notional first-person.
* * *

The assertionthatexperientialmemorycan make Napoleon "me" to me sounds like Locke's assertionthat memorymakes a person "self to himself" across time. It thereforesuggestsa way of reina by Locke's theoryof personal identity, suggesting perterpreting spectivalsense in which one can be "self to oneself."40
ust 39AsP. F. Strawsonput it: " J] as nothingcounts as an experience of a present state of consciousnesswhich doesn't count as an experience of in being, oneself; that state of consciousness,so nothingscounts ... as an apparent memoryof a past state of consciousnesswhich doesn't count as in an apparent memory of being,oneself; that state of consciousness. ... What we have here is an enriched versionof Kant's repeated point about the 'I think' merelybeing the formof consciousness in general" ("Kant's der and the 'Outside Observer'," in Theorie Paralogisms:Self-Consciousness Suhrkamp,1987), 203Subjectivitdt, Konrad Cramer et al. (Frankfurt: ed. 19, 216-17). ed. 40AnEssay Concerning Human Understanding, Peter H. Nidditch (Oxford:Oxford University Press,1975), bk. 2, chap. 27. See also the following thoughtrepassage, in which Kant criticizesthe notion that first-personal mental substance: veals the existence of a persisting
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distinctstrands The word "self" has two related but ultimately and and reflexivity, eitherof of meaning. It connotes both identity these connotations might dominate when the word serves as a noun. On the one hand, a past selfof mine mightbe one and the same person as me, identifiedat some time in the past. On the other hand, a past self mightbe someone in the past whom I can In sense, selfhood in thinkof reflexively, the first-person. the first is a metaphysicalrelation that holds between persons at times,if theyare the same person. In the second sense, selfhood is a psychological relation that holds between subjects who are on firstpersonal terms.
* * *

Memory reallydoes make a person "self to himself" in the latter sense. When I entertain experiential memories, I have thoughts that present a past individual to me in the notional first-person. recruitspast selvesforme, byputtingthemwithin Memorythereby reflexivethought. reach of subjectively Locke's memorytheoryis thus a correctaccount of perspectival selfhood. Of course, Locke clearly intended the theory to be a of metaphysics persons. But what if he confused the two?41Maybe Locke got perspectivalselfhood rightbut then mistookit for personal identity.42
of Despite the logical identity the 'I', such a change may have occurred in it and yetwe may ascribe to it as does not allow of the retentionof its identity, state, even in one involving the same-sounding 'I', which in every different change of the [thinking]subject,mightstillretain the thoughtof the preceding subject and so hand it over to the subsequent subject. (CritiqueofPure Reason,trans.Norman Kemp Smith (New York:St. Martin'sPress, 1965), 342) This passage is related to Locke's argument purporting to show "that two thinking Substances may make but one Person" at different times (Essay, 338). As Kant's version of the argument makes clear, however, what the argument really shows is that different thinking substances could be accessible to one another's first-personal thought-which, as I am about to suggest, makes them one and the same self 41This interpretation of Locke was suggested by Elizabeth Anscombe in "The First Person," 25-26. The present paper can in fact be read as an attempt to salvage something of interest from the confusion that Anscombe identified in Locke. For a different theory of selfhood as based on reflexivity rather than identity, see Robert Nozick, Philosophical Explanations (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981), 71-114. 42Here I do not mean to imply that Locke's metaphysics of persons is 65

J DAVID VELLEMAN

In order to minimize confusion, let me divide the available meanings between the terms selfhoodd" and "personal identity." From now on, I'll use selfhoodd" to denote the relation borne to me by those whom I can think of first-personally-my grammatical person-mates, so to speak, whom I shall call "selves." I'll use "personal identity" for the relation among those who are one and the same person, and I'll describe them as the same person rather than as selves.
* * *

If Locke had been clearer-headed, he might have offered a theory of selfhood and left it at that. This theory would have had nothing to say about whether Napoleon and I are the same person; but it would have had plenty to say about whether Napoleon was among my past selves. Napoleon was a past self of mine, the theory would have said, if I have memories derived from his experiences and just by pointing to can therefore think of him in the first-person, him unselfconsciously as "me." Of course, Napoleon wasn't really a past self of mine. My memory of surveying a desolate field may make me think that he was, by making me think that he is the referent of the first-personin its referential scheme. But the referent of "me" in my memory image is the subject from whom the image has been inherited, and that person wasn't really NB. In reality,let's suppose, my memory is derived from a visual experience received on Breed's Hill in 1976, during a Fourth of July celebration reenacting a Revolutionary battle. The battlefield represented in my memory image must therefore be Breed's Hill rather than Austerlitz, and the referent of "me" in the image is the wrong. Indeed, one mightargue that Locke ended up getting necessarily the metaphysicsof persons rightby thinkingin perspectivalterms.For under some conceptions of what persons are, their persistencethrough time mightreasonablybe thoughtto depend on relations of first-person between temporallydisparate points of view,and hence on accessibility perspectivalselfhood. Yet to say that persons are entitieswhose identity philosophical depends on perspectivalselfhood is to make a substantive and claim,which mustnot be obscured by a conflationof the metaphysical perspectivalnotions. (In fact, however,I do not think that a theory of without selfhoodcan serve as a theoryof metaphysical identity perspectival for some modification, reasons that are explained in note 53, below.) 66

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person who stood at its vantage point, undergoing the visual experience fromwhich it is derived-DV, as it happens, ratherthan NB.43 Since NB is not the person whose encounter withthe depicted scene produced this image, he is not the notional subject of the image, and the image doesn't recruit him as one of my former selves. He can of course be an imaginaryself of mine, since I can thoughtsabout him. But these pretend to have notionallyreflexive withrespect to NB, bethoughtswould not be genuinelyreflexive centered on him because theywould have to be self-consciously fore theycould point to him, at their center,as "me." Because I termswithNapoleon, he is not really am not reallyon first-personal one of myformerselves.
* * *

A clearer-headedLocke mighthave offeredthistheoryof selfhood, what but would we have had any use for it? Isn't personal identity we reallycare about? If so, the Lockean theoryof selfhood would have been true but pointless. I now want to argue thatthistheorywould not have been pointInless, because selfhood is of independent philosophical interest. deed, I thinkthatsome of the deepest concerns expressed in terms of personal identityare actually perspectivalconcerns about the self. Locke would have In order to address these concerns, however, concerns, For had to extend his theoryslightly. theyare primarily but not about whose past we are remembering, ratherabout whose future,if any,we are in a position to anticipate. And addressing these concerns would have required Locke to extend his theory from the past selves who are recruited by memory to the future selves who are recruitedby anticipation.

5. WhoI WirBe
What we most want to know about our survival,I believe, is how much of the futurewe are in a position to anticipateexperiencing.
of 430n this point, see Hide Ishiguro, "Imagination II," Proceedings the Aristotelian Society, supp. vol. 41 (1967): 43, 52. 67

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We peer up the streamof consciousness,so to speak, and wonder how farup there is stilla streamto see. To wonder how much of the futureI can anticipateexperiencing is just to wonder how farinto the futurethere will be experiences that I am now in a position to prefigurefirst-personally. this If question trulyexpresses what I want to know about my survival, then what I want to know is a matterof perspectiverather than metaphysics. question is not how long therewill be an individMy ual identical with my present self, DV. My question is how long there will be someone to occupy the position that is the center of my self-centered projections-someone to serve as the referent of "me" as it occurs in my prospectivethoughts.The future"me" whose existence mattershere is picked out preciselyby his owning a point of view into which I am attemptingto project my representationsof the future, just as a past "me" can be picked out by his having owned the point of view fromwhich I have recovered representations the past. of
* * *

One complication is that in the context of anticipation,the reference of "me" may not be determined as it is in the context of memory."I" refersto the notional subject in either case, but the notional subject may not be determined in quite the same way. Suppose that while preparing for this year's Fourth ofJulycelebration,I anticipatemyrole in the annual reenactmentof a Revolutionary battle. I conjure up a mental image of the climactic moment-the field, the tunic, and so on. In its intrinsic features, this mental image is no different from that in a memory or an imagining.What differentiates from these images must be how it it is presented.44 Whereas the image in a memoryis presented as the vestigeof a past experience, for example, the image in anticipation must be presented-or intentionally framed-as prefiguring a futureexperience. In the case of memory, noted, the presentationof an image we does not fully determineitsreferences.Even when I thinkthatI'm recalling Napoleon's experiences at Austerlitz, memoryis not my 440n thequestion howan imageis "presented," note 18,above. of see 68

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an image of Austerlitzif it is actually derived from a glimpse of Breed's Hill.45But the reverseappears to be true of images framed in anticipation.My anticipatory image is of the forthcoming militarymaneuvers preciselybecause I think of it as prefiguring my experience of those maneuvers. The presentation of this image may even consist in an intention on my part, which places the image's referencesunder myvoluntary control. For I may conjure up the image withthe express intentionof thereby the prefiguring experience of playing my role in the reenacted battle-in which case the image is of playingmy role, as I intend.46 In this respect, anticipation appears to resemble imagination, whose referencesare similarly determinedby an accompanyingintention or stipulation. Unfortunately, this resemblance seems to preventanticipationfromprovidinga contextin which I can think about futureindividualsunselfconsciously "me." In framinga as mental image with the intention of prefiguring futureexperia ence, I have to specifythe experience to be prefigured.And in order to specify the experience, don't I have to specify subject? its If so, I will end up deliberately centeringmyimage on someone, and then it won't be a genuinelyfirst-personal thoughtabout him, since I won't have picked him out simplyby pointingto him at its center.He willbe at mostan imaginary selfof mine. Perhaps,then, myfutureselves are all imaginary.
* * *

I think that there are indeed modes of anticipation in which I project myself into the perspectiveof the futureDV in a manner
450f course, what places the referencesof an image under the control of itscausal history maybe itspresentation a recoveredexperience.After as all, an image thatwas actuallyderivedfroma glimpseof Breed's Hill could subsequentlybe incorporated into an imagining of Austerlitz-in which case its causal historywould not prevent the imaginer's intentionfrom making it referto Austerlitz instead of Breed's Hill. But when an image is presentedas reprising past experience,itsreferences thereby a are hitched to its originsin experience, despite concomitantmisjudgments to what as those originsmightbe. (Here I am indebted to Michaelis Michael forhis objections to a purelycausal analysisof a memory'sreferences.) 461 may therefore enjoy infallibility withrespectto the references my of anticipation. See Wittgenstein's remarkson this subject in The Blue and Brown Books(Oxford: Blackwell,1972), 39.
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no different from that in which I can project myself into just anyone's point of view. In these cases, anticipating my future amounts to no more than imagining the future life of DV. But there are other modes of anticipation, I think, that are quite unselfconscious about the future perspectives they prefigure, and that consequently place me on genuinely first-personal terms with future subjects. I shall argue that these modes of anticipation ground a distinction between real and imaginary future selves. One such mode of anticipation is that in which I frame an intention to do something in the future. Framing an intention entails projecting myself into a future perspective because it entails representing the intended action from the point of view of the agent who is to perform it. Of course, the agent who is to perform any action that I intend must be me, since I can't intend the actions of others. But intentions of doing something are always intentions of my doing it, I would argue, in the same sense as memories of seeing something are always memories of my seeing it-namely, in the sense that these attitudes always have a notional subject, whom they present as ''me.'' Intentions always have a notional subject because their function is to be acted on, and they can be acted on only if they are drawn from the agent's point of view. Intentions are consequently framed in a referential scheme centered on their potential executor, who is thereby thought of as "me," no matter who he will be.47
* * *

Intention resembles memory, furthermore, in that I do not have to stipulate who its notional subject shall be. For if my intention is going to be executed, its executor will have to be the person who In a oversimplifies verycomplicated story. manycases, 47Thisstatement because his intentionscannot be framedfromthe executor's perspective, perspectivecannot yet be fullyenvisioned. For example, I may intend to go northin the futurebecause I cannot yetenvisionwhethergoing north, backwards will entail going leftor right, at the relevantpoint in mytravels, or straight ahead. But if I intend to go north,myintentionis incomplete, termsbepreciselybecause it will have to be translatedinto self-centered fore I can act on it. 70

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findshimselfin possession of the intentionwhen the time for executing it arrives. An intention must be framed on the assumption that it or its mental traceswill persistuntil theycan serve as a basis foraction.48 In framingan intention,then, I project my thoughtsinto the future in twodistinct senses. On the one hand, I project mythoughts into the futurein the sense thatI representthe worldfroma specifiedfuturepoint of view.On the otherhand, I projectmythoughts into the futurein the sense that I send them into the future,by And the point of depositing them in memoryfor futureretrieval. viewinto which I mean to project mythoughtsin the first sense is simplythatpoint of viewinto which I shall have projected them in the second. That is, I mean to representan action fromthat perspectiveat which this representation will,at the relevantmoment, be available as a basis on which to act.49 Thus, I don't have to specify person fromwhose point of view a I am tryingto frame my intention,because that point of view is fixed by the futurecausal historyof the intentionitself.I attempt to framethe intention,ifyou will,fromthe intention'sown future perspective,the perspectivein which the intentionitselfwill turn up to be executed.Justas a memorypurportsto representthe past from the perspectiveat which it originated in experience, so an intentionpurportsto representthe futurefromthe perspectiveat which it will arrive to guide action. In either case, the relevant perspectiveis picked out by the natural historyof the representation itself;and the referent "me" in the contextis simply of whoever fillsthe role of subject withinthat perspective. As it happens, of course, the perspectiveat which any intention
48This assumption need not be distinctfromthe intention,since part of what is intended may be preciselythat thisveryintentionpersistuntil it can be put into action. See, for example, Gilbert Harman's view that intentionsreferto themselves causes of the intended actions (Changein as View: Principles Reasoning of (Cambridge: MIT Press,BradfordBooks, 1986), 85ff.). itselfwill be 49T6 speak of the perspectiveat which the representation available is, of course, to presuppose a theoryof diachronic identity for mental representations-which may be too much of a presuppositionin this context. But my referencesto the storage and retrievalof a single, can be replaced withreferencesto a momentary persisting representation representationand its causal descendants at later times.The language of is persisting representations just an expositoryconvenience. 71

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of mine will turnup to be executed, and fromwhich I have therefore tried to frame it, will belong to the futureDavid Velleman. This older DV will turn out to occupy the position of notional subject in my intention,and so he will turn out to be the person of whom I was thinkingfirst-personally the context. Being acin cessible to unselfconsciousfirst-personal thought on my part, he qualifies as myreal futureself.

The double projectionthatcharacterizes intentions not confined is to practical thought,however.Even when I am just picturingthe withoutplanning to do anything it, I usually regard my future, in mental image as enteringinto a futureperspectiveboth representationally and causally.I don't just anticipate experiencing the future; I anticipate experiencingit as the payoff thisanticipation, of as the cadence resolving the present, anticipatory phrase of thought.Now, a musical phrase is resolved by its final notes only fora listenerwho is stillmindfulof how it began. So when I anticipate experiencing the futureas resolvingthis anticipation,I picture it as experienced froma perspectivein which this picture is recalled. This mode of projectivethoughthas a look and feel all its own. Within the frame of my anticipatoryimage, I glimpse a state of mind that will include a memory of its having been glimpsed throughthisframe-as if the image were a windowthroughwhich to climb into the prefiguredexperience.50 Anticipating the future in thismanner,I once again look to futureselvesunselfconsciously. I don't specifythe notional subject of my anticipatory image. He is simplythe person who will confrontthe envisioned futurewith this image at his back, glimpsed in memoryas the image through whichhis statewas glimpsedin anticipation.And he is a real future selfof mine because, as the one who will experience the imagined futurefrom the other side of this image, he is picked out by the natural history the image, as the person whom it presentsin the of notional first-person. 50This "window" unfortunately a WYSIWYG is not environment: What You See looking it through Is notnecessarily What You Getupon climbing through.
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Finally, allusions to futuresubjectscan be unselfconscious my without necessarilyinvolvingthe thoughtthat theythemselveswill be remembered. My prior image of an event may produce various other thoughts,emotions,or inclinationswhose remnantswill color a futureexperience of the eventeven ifno memoryof the image itselfremains. I can then picture the event as experienced in the psychologicalwake of this picture,whether or not a memory of itselfwill be among the items that the picture leaves in itswake. If the wake of an experiential image is expected to wash over the prefiguredexperience, the image may then be constrainedin what it can justifiably I'm hardlyentitled to anticipate an portray. event as being experienced with shock and disbelieffrom a perspective thatwill have been influenced even indirectly this anby ticipation,since the event is unlikelyto incite either shock or disbelief in a mind bearing the traces of its having been herebyanticipated. Conversely, there may be events that I'm entitledto anticipate as being met with equanimity only from a future perspectivethatwill retain traces of this anticipation. What will transpirein perspectivesthat intercommunicate with mine in this fashion mattersmore to me than what will transpire in other perspectives.Indeed, my epistemic relation to these perspectivesmay partlyconstitutetheir matteringto me. To imagine a futurepain, for example, as it will feel in the psychologicalwake of my herebyimaginingit is to do more thanjust imagine it. It's to imagine the pain as befalling a mind that has somehow been prepared by this veryprospect of its occurrence. And to imagine a pain as experienced by a mind hereby so prepared for it is already to brace for the pain, to shrinkfromit, or to be otherwise caught up in it in some way.Anticipationthat's cognizant of its effecton the prefiguredexperiences is thus a formof mental engagementwiththem that,to some degree, alreadyconstitutes their mattering. This engagement with futureexperiences coincides, of course, with an abilityto regard their subjects unselfconsciously "me." as When I framean image prefiguring experience thatwillfollow an in the image's wake, causallyspeaking,I needn't specify whom for the experience will follow:in the context of the image, the experience is simply"to follow"-to followthe image itself, thatis. The 73

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image thus prefigures the experience simplyas forthcoming, and so it provides a context for thinkingabout the subject of that experience unselfconsciously "me." as 6. Why"Me"? In sum, anticipationthat engages its object tends to be genuinely first-personal, vice versa. This association may help to explain and whyI care about myfutureselves: theyare the persons whose experiences I cannot prefigurewithoutalready being caught up in them,as lyingin the wake of this anticipation. But the association between selfhood and engaged anticipation is merelyan association,which can sometimesfail,ifnot in reality, then at least in imaginarycircumstances.The question therefore arises whetherI care about my selves only in virtueof my psychological engagement with them. Or do I care about my selves as such? The best way to approach this question will be to entertainan imaginarycase in which selfhood and psychologicalengagement come apart. I will thereforeconclude with a briefdiscussion of a familiarphilosophical fiction.
* * *

Imagine that mybrain will be divided and each half transplanted into a different body,with the resultthat two people will wake up tomorrowrememberingmypast and carrying myanticipations on and intentionsfor the future.5'If I know what is in store for me, I can frame anticipationstoday thatwill have effects on, and perhaps be remembered in, two differentperspectives tomorrow. Hence I can activelyanticipate the futureas experienced by two different people. Even so, I cannot make eitherperson the notional subject of my anticipationsunselfconsciously. Suppose that I tryto thinkahead into some futuremoment at which I shall have two psychological
51See David Wiggins, Identity and Spatio-Temporal Continuity (Oxford: Blackwell,1967), 50; and Parfit,Reasonsand Persons, 254ff.Parfitsays (n. 40), "I decided to study philosophy almost entirelybecause I was enthralledby Wiggins'simagined case." 74

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successors. If I tryto picture the moment as it will appear in an or experience specified merelyas forthcoming, to follow,I won't to succeed in picking out the perspectivefromwhich I'm trying sense, pictureit, since mypicturemaybe followed,in the relevant experiences of the moment in question, and I by two different to cannot be trying draw it fromboth perspectivesat once. Simiperlarly,my anticipation may be remembered in two different specified spectives,and so I cannot frame it from a perspective merelyas that in which it will be remembered. In order to specifythe perspective from which I'm tryingto it picture the future,I'll have to identify with one of my psychoThat is, I'll have to pick out the logical successors or the other.52 person whose perspectiveis the intended targetand destinationof whatI do myprojectivethoughts-whereupon I'll be doing exactly when imaginingthatI am Napoleon. Myanticipationof the future will be nothingmore than an act of imagination.
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By deprivingme of unique futureperspectives,fissionwould deIt priveme of real futureselves.53 wouldn't preventme frombeing fullyengaged withboth successors,however,since both lie in the causal path of my present thoughts.The question is whetheranengagement with them would preserve all that matters ticipatory loss a Would I suffer significant in havingno subject about survival. terms? withwhom I was on genuinelyfirst-personal a thatI would indeed suffer loss. I could My inclinationis to say
52This point figures prominentlyin Rovane's "Branching Self-Consciousness." in referenceis asymmetrical thiscase. Although 53Notethatfirst-person theycan refer to I cannot referfirst-personally the productsof myfission, to first-personally me, in the contextof theirexperientialmemories.This correct.When I imagine undergoingfission me resultstrikes as intuitively I tomorrow, don't seem to have much of a future;but when I imagine that I I am the product of fissionthat occurred yesterday, stillseem to have a complete past. (This intuitionis shared by Simon Blackburn,"Has Kant thatselfhood,definedperRefutedParfit?")This resultalso demonstrates of cannot coincide with the identity a person, since selfhood spectivally, cannot. whereas relationsof identity turnsout to be asymmetric For the claim that "creatures involvedin fissionand fusion could have person," see JohnCampbell, Past, nothinglike our ordinaryuse of the first grounds. 97. Space,and Self; Campbell bases thisclaim on verydifferent 75

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no longer think just about how the futurewould look; I'd have to thinkabout how it would look to particular, specifiedobservers.I could no longer plan just to act; I'd have to plan actions to be performed particular, by specifiedagents.I could no longerimagine a futureas existingsimply the other side of thisimage; I'd have on to imagine it as existingon one or another of the image's "other sides," in the livesof one or anotherof mypsychological successors. Here I am tempted to borrow again fromBernard Williams,by sayingthat my relationswith successors-by-fission would alwaysinvolve "one thoughttoo many." Williamscoined this phrase to express the loss of intimacy that a Kantian moral agent would suffer in relationswithothers.54 too, am using the phrase to express a I, loss of intimacy, but the intimacylost in this case would be in relation to myown psychologicalsuccessors,and the excess thought would simplybe the thoughtof who theywere. In cases of fission, I would have to identify particularsuccessorsbefore I could enter their perspectives:there would be no future perspectivesthat I could enter withouta second thought.And the second thoughtof whose perspectiveI was enteringwould be an alienating thought, one too manyfor the intimacy that holds among selves. In some respects,of course, I would stillbe in a position to anticipate the lives of my successors "from the inside," as we sometimessay.In particular, would be able to projectmythoughts I into theirperspectives both causallyand representationally, sendinginto theirpoints of viewimages drawnfromthose points of view.But in anotherrespectI would no longer be in a positionto anticipateany futurelifefromthe inside,since therewould be no lifethatI could anticipatewithoutfirst pickingit out for the purpose of projecting into it. Surely, positionfromwhichI mustdeliberately myself a prointo a lifeis not a position on the inside of thatlife. ject myself My sense, then,is thatthe ability prefigure to futureexperiences is unselfconsciously an important part of havinga futureat all. Not being just plain "me" to myself would be more than the loss of a pronoun; it would be the loss of a self-intimacy is part of what that mattersabout having futureselves.
University Michigan, Ann Arbor of 54"Persons,Character,and Morality," Moral Luck (Cambridge: Camin bridge University Press, 1981), 1-19.
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