Seminariet i teoretisk filosofi: Alla Choifer, What is the first-person perspective? Resolving a conceptual confusion

Seminar

Alla Choifer håller ett seminarium med titlen: What is the first-person perspective? Resolving a conceptual confusion

Abstract: One of the central methodological questions in the contemporary study of consciousness is how to distinguish between first- and third-person perspectives. Despite the centrality of the distinction there are surprisingly no scientifically elaborated or systematically discussed criteria for how these two perspectives should be defined. Researchers of consciousness rely in their studies upon some kind of intuitive understanding of how the pronouns ¿I¿, ¿he¿ or ¿she¿ when applied to the object of study, serve as the defining characteristic of the perspective in question. In this paper I question this commonly accepted every-day approach, for this practice leaves us in a situation where researchers of consciousness make use of two mutually exclusive notions of the first-person perspective. The outcome of this is that the first- and third-person perspectives overlap each other, and that the connection between them is obscured.