On Production and Use of Tokens of “I”

Abstract

DOI: https://doi.org/10.26333/sts.xxxv1.06 In this paper, I analyze the semantics of the first person pronoun “I” from the perspective of the user/producer distinction. In the first part of the paper, I describe the Simple View (SV) and propose three interpretations of its thesis (following de Gaynesford, 2006). In the second part, I analyze the notions of use and production of a linguistic token. In the next part, I show that all of the interpretations of SV are sensitive to counterexamples. In the end, I discuss possible answers of the proponents of SV and argue against them. The first aim of this paper is to show that SV is wrong, and the second is to convince the reader that the user/producer distinction is of high importance in the philosophy of language.

Keywords

• indexical expression
• pure indexicals
• I
• user
• producer
• use