Research Group
in Analytic Philosophy

Abstract

Many philosophers think that first-personal thoughts, or de se attitudes, are of distinctive philosophical interest. Cappelen & Dever (2013) and Magidor (2015) powerfully challenge this idea. In this talk I will provide a new argument for the philosophical significance of de se attitudes. First, I will introduce and clarify the phenomenon of critical reasoning: the capacity to reason about reasoning and reasons as such in light of rational norms. Second, I will focus on a special case of critical reasoning: self-critical reasoning. I will argue that for self-critical reasoning the applied first-person concept is indispensable. Third, I will indicate that the capacity to reason self-critically is in part constitutive for being a person, or a self. In that sense the applied first-person concept, or de se attitudes in self-critical reasoning are philosophically significant.