Immunity to Error Through Misidentification : What It Is and Where It Comes From

François Recanati (1)

1 IJN - Institut Jean-Nicod

I argue that immunity to error through misidentification primarily characterizes thoughts that are 'implicitly' de se, as opposed to thoughts that involve an explicit self-identification. Thoughts that are implicitly de se involve no reference to the self at the level of content: what makes them de se is simply the fact that the content of the thought is evaluated with respect to the thinking subject. Or, to put it in familiar terms : the content of the thought is a property which the thinking subject self-ascribes (as in the Loar/Lewis/Chisholm analysis). After answering an objection (to the effect that immunity can affect explicit de se thoughts), I extend the analysis to demonstrative thoughts, which also exhibit the property of immunity to error through misidentification.

Mots clés: Immunity to error through misidentification; self; mental indexicality; first person; demonstrative thought; proprioception; experience

François Recanati. Immunity to Error Through Misidentification : What It Is and Where It Comes From. Simon Prosser & François Recanati. Immunity to Error through Misidentification: New Essays., Cambridge University Press., pp.180-201, 2012. ⟨ijn_00760417⟩