Chapter 11 - I and I: immunity to error through misidentification of the subject

Summary

All genuine uses of I, me, my, mine, and myself are immune to error through misidentification (IEM) of their referent. If one is going to argue that 'I' is absolutely immune to error through misidentification of its referent, it is sensible to establish what 'I' refers to. In this chapter the author assumes that materialism is true, and that selves and human beings stand in a straightforward spatio-temporal part-whole relation (the 'inner self' is literally inner). The referring expression 'I' is often contrasted with the referring expressions here and now, which can also vary in their referential reach. Even if it is of the essence of an I-Idea to effect an identification that spans past and present, it remains true that one's quasi-memory concerns only oneself - oneself present now and thought of, if only implicitly, as temporally extended and as existing both now and in 1990.