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M E N T A L F IL E S I N FL UX
Lines of Thought

Short philosophical books

Published in association with the Aristotelian Society
Series editor: Scott Sturgeon

Hume Variations
Jerry A. Fodor
Moral Fictionalism
Mark Eli Kalderon
Perfectionism and the Common Good: Themes in the Philosophy of T. H. Green
David O. Brink
Knowledge and Practical Interests
Jason Stanley
Thought and Reality
Michael Dummett
Our Knowledge of the Internal World
Robert C. Stalnaker
Mental Files in Flux
François Recanati
Understanding ‘I’: Language and Thought
José Luis Bermúdez
MENTAL FILES
IN FLUX

FRANÇO IS RECANATI

1
 3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX DP,
United Kingdom
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© François Recanati 
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 Contents

Preface vii

Part I. Coreference De Jure and the Flow

of Information
. Coreference De Jure in the Mental File Framework 
. Factivity, Transparency, and Weak Coreference
De Jure 
. Transitivity and Strong Coreference De Jure 
. Coreference De Jure and Sentence Grammar 
. Cognitive Dynamics 

Part II. Interpersonal Coordination

of Mental Files
. Indexical Thought 
. Communication Across Contexts 
. Dynamic Files in Communication 
Appendix to Part II. Communication with Centred
Contents: A Survey 

References 
Index 
 Preface

MENTAL files are cognitive structures which store information

about entities. They are entries in the mental encyclopedia, that
is, concepts. Some, following Grice (), construe them as collec-
tions of information units, but I prefer to think of them as akin to
containers (‘concrete cognitive particulars’, as Crimmins and Perry
 say). The identity of a collection is determined by the identity
of its elements, but the identity of a container is independent of
that of its contents.
Concepts are the constituents of thought, so the question arises,
what is it for a mental file to be deployed in (occurrent) thought?
I take it that a file is deployed in thought only if it has a sufficient
degree of activation (whatever that amounts to in neural terms). An
active file gives access to the information it contains, and contributes
its reference to the semantic content of the thought. However, a
mental file only contributes its reference to the semantic content of
the thought of which it is a constituent. To be a constituent of a given
thought it is not sufficient to be active when the other constituents
are. As Fodor and Pylyshyn point out, ‘when representations express
concepts that belong to the same [thought], they are not merely
simultaneously active, but also in construction with each other’ (Fodor
and Pylyshyn : ). I will not have anything special to say about
the constituency issue here—I merely assume that constituency is
somehow encoded in the brain.
In this book, as in my previous book Mental Files, I am mainly
concerned with singular concepts (mental files about individuals).
The semantic contribution of a (singular) file to the content of the
thought in which it occurs is the individual it refers to—itself
a constituent of the singular proposition which is the content of
the thought.
 The reference of a file is determined relationally, not satisfaction-
ally (Bach ). It is not whatever fits the body of information in
the file. The relations which determine the reference of a file are
ER relations (epistemically rewarding relations) in which the subject
who deploys the file stands to entities in the environment. ER
relations make information flow possible, and the information
which reaches the subject thanks to a given ER relation goes into
the file based on that relation. (To say that a file is ‘based on’ some
ER relation is to say that it is deployed only if the ER relation is
presumed to hold.)
What about the units of information contained in a file? On my
view, files only contain predicative elements. The fact that a
predicate-like information unit is stored in a given file is what
secures the ‘subject’ bit—what the predicate is predicated of
(namely the reference of the file). Because it is determined on
relational grounds, the reference of the file is, to a very large
extent, independent of the information it contains.
The ER relations on which indexical files/concepts (HERE, NOW,
THIS) are based are relevant to perception and action (Perry ).
They are acquaintance relations in the narrow sense. Encyclopedia
entries are more objective files, detached from specific ER relations,
but even they are based on an evolving network of ER relations
through which the reference of the file is determined. Some of these
relations to the reference are mediated by the linguistic community,
as in the historical chain picture of communication. They are
acquaintance relations only in an extended sense.
Although they are mental representations rather than semantic
objects, mental files play many of the roles which Frege assigned to
‘senses’.1 Like senses, files are transparent: the subject knows when

1
There are three main differences with Frege. First, files are mental particulars,
not abstract objects. Second, Fregean senses determine reference absolutely, while
files determine reference only with respect to the context of deployment (at a
particular time). Third, in contrast to Fregean senses, files are not associated with
expressions as a matter of linguistic encoding. File deployment is an aspect of the

VIII ~ Preface
she is deploying the same file twice, and when she is deploying
distinct files.2 Like senses, files come to be associated with linguistic
expressions and determine their reference: in my framework, the
reference of an expression is the reference of the file associated
with it.3 Finally, like senses, files play the role of modes of presen-
tation. Frege’s Constraint states that if a rational subject can believe
of a given object both that it is F and that it is not F (as happens in
so-called ‘Frege cases’), then the subject thinks of that object under
distinct modes of presentation (Schiffer : ). Mental files are
particularly suited to play the mode of presentation role. The
subject’s having distinct mental files about a given object is argu-
ably sufficient to generate the possibility of Frege cases, even if the
files contain the same information about the referent.4
In addition to playing the classical Fregean roles, mental files also
play a key role in what Kit Fine () calls ‘semantic coordination’.
If two token singular terms M and N are associated with the same
file, it is presupposed that they corefer (if they refer at all) and

psychological process of interpreting an utterance, a process that is highly sensitive to

context. A given expression will typically be associated with different files in different
contexts (even for the same subject). What is conventionally associated with a
referring expression (as part of its linguistic meaning) is not a file, but a constraint
on files, which has the effect of coordinating the files deployed by the speech
protagonists.
2
A reader for Oxford University Press objected to the transparency claim on the
grounds that ordinary subjects cannot be credited with theoretically sophisticated
higher order beliefs about the mental files they deploy. My account of coreference
de jure in terms of knowledge of the coreference relation raises the same kind of
objection (as another OUP reviewer pointed out): ordinary subjects cannot be
credited with theoretically sophisticated beliefs about coreference relations holding
between the terms they use. But when I claim that ordinary subjects know certain
things, I take this ‘knowledge’ to be manifested through the subjects’ dispositions
and behaviour, without requiring on their part the ability to make the knowledge in
question explicit.
3
That means that Strawson and ordinary language philosophers were right:
referring is not something an expression does—it’s something language users do
when they use an expression (Strawson : ). See Recanati (forthcoming a) for the
connection between contextualism in the philosophy of language and the mental file
approach to singular reference.
4
This is actually debatable. See Gray () for discussion.

Preface ~ IX
‘trading upon identity’ becomes valid: one can move from ‘M is F ’
and ‘N is G’ directly to ‘there is an x which is F and G’, without
needing to invoke an identity premiss (Campbell ). In such a
case M and N are said to be semantically coordinated, or coreferen-
tial de jure. Coreference de jure—a topic that looms large in this
book—is not just a feature of language or discourse: it is an essential
feature of our cognition. There is coreference de jure in thought
whenever the subject goes through what Millikan (, ) refers
to as a ‘mediate inference’ relying on a presupposition of identity.

* * *
I have just summarized the main tenets of the mental file frame-
work. In this book I deal with a set of potentially problematic issues
that have been thought to threaten its viability, or the viability of
any attempt to resurrect the Fregean approach.
First, there is an apparent tension between the transparency
thesis and externalism about content. If the reference of a file
depends upon the world (which object stands at the other end of
the ER relation) then knowing that the same file is deployed twice
does not guarantee that, on these distinct occurrences, the file
refers to the same thing. Equivocation is always possible. As
Millikan puts it:

What is the guarantee [ . . . ] that the referents of duplicate thoughts actually

are the same? Or if what you mean by ‘duplicate thoughts’ includes that they
have the same referent, what is to guarantee that the mind that grasps two
thoughts can tell whether these thoughts are indeed duplicates? How can
there be uninformative identities that are at the same time certain really to
be identities and not merely false appearances of identity? This line of
questioning highlights the internalist assumption built into the Fregean
position. What is duplicated when ‘the very same thought’ is repeated
has to be something which is at the same time () compelled always to
bring with it the same referent and () capable of being unmistakably
known by the mind (while the mind is doubly entertaining it) as being
the very same thought. (Millikan : )

X ~ Preface
In other words, there is a tension between two alleged features of
Fregean senses and whatever plays the mode of presentation role:
they can’t be simultaneously transparent to the mind and deter-
mine reference. Or at least, the tension arises as soon as one gives
up ‘the internalist assumption built up into the Fregean position’.
Millikan’s critique of Fregean internalism casts doubt on the
very notion of coreference de jure. In the Fregean framework
I espouse, coreference de jure is coreference that is known a priori,
because it holds in virtue of meaning and meaning is transparent.
According to Millikan, there is no such thing. Externalism pre-
cludes transparency. There is tracking and tracking presupposes
identity of reference, but tracking is always fallible: the subject
keeps track of an object dynamically, and may occasionally lose
track, even she does not realize she has lost track.5
Another tension, internal to my framework, has been identified
in several reviews of Mental Files.6 As I describe them, mental files
play two potentially conflicting roles: the mode of presentation
role (to account for Frege cases in accordance with Frege’s Con-
straint) and the semantic coordination role (to enable coreference
de jure). There is a potential conflict because coreference de jure can
hold across ER relations but, qua modes of presentation, files are
typed by ER relations and are only deployed when the relevant ER
relation is assumed to hold. Because of that problem, Papineau
() suggests giving up the indexical files and their associated
ER relations, and doing everything with encyclopedia entries

5
‘There is never an a priori guarantee that one has kept track. The same is true of
recognitional abilities. You may know, for example, literally hundreds of ways to
identify each member of your immediate family, some of which ways—a long look
full into your spouse’s face in full daylight, for example - may (barring removal of
your brain to a vat) actually be infallible. But if that is so, it is because the world, not
anything in your mind, is constructed so as to make it so. It is because there is not in
fact any other person in the world who looks just like that in the face (and no one
actually able, and desirous of, putting your brain in a vat)—a convenient fact but not
one guaranteed by a priori reflection’ (Millikan : ).
6
See Papineau , Onofri , Ball , and Ninan . See also Prosser
forthcoming.

Preface ~ XI
(‘detached files’, as Perry calls them). Evans had already suggested
moving to a ‘dynamic’ notion of mode of presentation that persists
through changes of ER relations (Evans ). Pressure in the same
direction comes from another problem: the problem of communi-
cation. If the thoughts entertained by the speaker involve files
based on specific ER relations, how can the speaker communicate
these indexical thoughts to an addressee who does not stand in the
same ER relations to the reference?
The tension between the two roles is apparent in the following
example, due to Ruth Millikan:
Consider the dynamic mode of presentation involved as you percep-
tually track a person, Kate, to whom you have just been introduced at a
party. For a brief moment—not much longer, suppose, than a saccade—
you divert your eyes to the face of a friend, but immediately pick up
Kate’s face again. Then a large fat man, excusing himself, passes
between you and Kate, but again you immediately pick up the track.
Looking at Kate and hearing her voice, you perceive these as having
the same source, as locating the same person. Now Kate passes for
a moment into another room, but you continue to hear her voice—
though of course there are spaces between the words and she soon
emerges again. By now she is beginning both to look and to sound
quite familiar, so that after stepping outside for a moment, you
immediately find her again. The time interval was longer this time
than between her words, but short enough for her voice still to be ‘in
your ears’. (Millikan : –)

The fact that many distinct ER relations succeed each other does
not prevent tracking and trading on identity (coreference de jure).
That is the justification for Evans’ postulation of ‘dynamic Fregean
senses’: modes of presentation as continuants spanning a diversity
of ER relations. But dynamic modes of presentation are coarse-
grained, and we need finer-grained modes of presentation based on
specific ER relations to deal with Frege cases. At any point in the
sequence, the subject can wonder whether or not the tracked
individual is the same; that is only possible if the various ER

XII ~ Preface
relations (hearing the voice, seeing the face, etc.) determine
distinct modes of presentation. Because of this tension, Millikan
says, we lack
a clear principle of individuation—of sameness and difference—[ . . . ] for
[modes of presentation]. When did you leave off one ‘ability to track’ and
start using another ‘ability to track’, or some different kind of ability to
‘know which object you are thinking about’, as you collected information
over time about Kate? (Millikan : )

Millikan concludes on a sceptical note:

The notion of modes of presentation is not a useful notion for any theorist
who has befriended mental representations, nor for any who has
befriended externalism about thought content. The reason is that there
is no principled way to individuate modes of presentation on these views,
or to achieve any of the various effects for the sake of which Frege
introduced them. (Millikan : )

* * *
In this book I do my best to ease the tensions, and to solve the
problems, without giving up any of the main tenets of the mental
file framework. I keep the fine-grained ER relations, used to
account for indexical thought and Frege cases. But, in the spirit
of Evans and Papineau, I introduce dynamic files, which are
sequences of files in the static sense. Relatedly, I show that there
are two distinct notions of coreference de jure, corresponding to
distinct phenomena. Both notions are compatible with the lack of
actual coreference,7 so Millikan’s externalist objection to transpar-
ency does not apply. (Transparency no longer entails the impossi-
bility of equivocation.)

7
That means that there can be coreference de jure (of either sort) without actual
coreference. Because that is so, the phrase ‘coreference de jure’ is somewhat mis-
leading (since it suggests that coreference de jure is a kind of coreference).

Preface ~ XIII
 At the dynamic level, as in tracking or recognition, only weak
coreference de jure holds. Weak coreference de jure is not a transi-
tive relation. But strong coreference de jure—the relation that holds
between synchronous deployments of the same file—is transitive
and can ground identity for mental files. The tension which gives
rise to Millikan’s individuation problem is relaxed by distinguishing
two types of file: static files (or file-stages), which account for
cognitive significance and Frege cases, and dynamic files, which
underlie tracking, recognition, and information update. Dynamic
files are construed as continuants (temporal sequences of stages),
susceptible to growth, fusion, and fission; static files are time-slices
thereof. As for the communication problem, dealt with in the
second part of the book, it is solved by giving up the naïve view
that sees communication as (necessarily) the replication of thought.
Like information update, communication is shown to bring
dynamic files into motion (interpersonal dynamic files, in the case
of communication).

* * *
I said that static files (or file-stages) account for cognitive signifi-
cance and Frege cases:

At any point in the [dynamic] sequence, the subject can wonder whether
or not the tracked individual is the same; that is only possible if the various
ER relations (hearing the voice, seeing the face, etc.) determine distinct
modes of presentation.

In this framework the possibility of Frege cases provides the basis for
individuating modes of presentation construed as static files. Two
modes of presentation are said to be distinct whenever it is rationally
possible for the subject to wonder whether, through their deploy-
ment, he or she is thinking about the same thing. It is that Fregean
criterion which forces us to posit (static) modes of presentation as
fine-grained as the ER relations they are based on, in addition to the
‘dynamic modes of presentation’ which span successive ER relations

XIV ~ Preface
to the reference. But the criterion cannot be merely taken for
granted. It is in need of clarification and justification.
The Fregean criterion of difference can be formulated in two
different ways. One formulation is modal, the other not. The
modal version is what I have just invoked to ground fine-grained
files based on specific ER relations:
Two modes of presentation m and m0 are distinct if it is possible
for the subject to entertain doubts as to whether, through their
deployment, he or she is thinking about the same thing.
The non-modal version does not talk about what is possible, but
about what is actual:
Two modes of presentation m and m0 are distinct if the subject
entertains doubts as to whether, through their deployment, he
or she is thinking about the same thing.
The non-modal version is fine as far as it goes, Papineau says, but
the modal version is objectionable. Since the modal version is that
which the fine-grained mental file theorist appeals to, so much the
worse for that theory.8
The modal version is susceptible to criticism on the grounds that
it multiplies mental files beyond necessity. It is always possible for a
rational subject to doubt whether, e.g., the object he sees is the
object he touches, even if the subject actually harbours no doubt at all.
But if the subject harbours no doubt at all and merely presupposes
the identity of the seen object and the touched object, then he or
she thinks of the object under a single, multi-modal mode of
presentation, rather than under two distinct modes of presentation
(visual and haptic). This shows that the sheer possibility of Frege
cases is not sufficient to establish the distinctness of modes of
presentation, hence the distinctness of files. Only actual Frege

8
That argument was made by Papineau in conversation during the Istanbul
workshop on Mental Files mentioned in note .

Preface ~ XV
cases count in this respect. The Fregean criterion as used by the
fine-grained theorist—i.e. the modal version of the criterion—must
be rejected, because of its illegitimate appeal to potential Frege
cases. So the Papineau argument goes.
The argument fails (I believe) because the fine-grained theorist
appeals to both potential and actual Frege cases. They have differ-
ent roles to play in the theory, in connection with the type/token
distinction for modes of presentation.
Potential Frege cases are used to individuate modes of presen-
tation construed as types. Two mode of presentation types m and
m0 are distinct just in case it is possible for a rational subject to
entertain doubts as to whether, through their deployment, he or
she is thinking about the same thing. But when it comes to token
modes of presentation, what counts is doubt actually harboured, not
doubt that is merely possible. In a situation in which a subject
trades upon the identity of the object seen and the object touched,
what is deployed is a single mental file, based on several ER relations.
The file is of a distinctive type, based on a composite ER relation.
Identity of the object seen and the object touched is presupposed
through the compounding of ER relations. That is, obviously, com-
patible with the possibility for the subject to come to doubt that the
object seen is the object touched, i.e. to stop presupposing the identity.
Coming to doubt is a dynamic operation which amounts to ‘splitting’
the composite file. This can always happen, but the sheer possibility of
doubt is not sufficient to entail that two distinct files are actually
deployed (before the split). The tokens that are deployed are individu-
ated by the subject’s actual dispositions at the time of deployment.9
* * *

9
In the following passage, Heck seems to have difficulties sorting out the roles
played by actual Frege cases and potential Frege cases in establishing the distinctness
of modes of presentation. ‘A few weeks ago’, he says, ‘I was looking outside the
window of my study when I saw a cat who looked very much like my cat, Joe. Joe is
an indoor cat. But, as I realized after a minute or two, that cat was Joe, who had
apparently escaped to the great outdoors. In so recognizing Joe, I was making an

XVI ~ Preface
I am indebted to all of those who have discussed my views, both in
print and in conversation. They are my direct interlocutors in this
book. I have learnt much from those who contributed to the
various recent books or journal issues devoted to mental files,10
or participated in the meetings that were organized around my
work.11 I also benefitted greatly from the comments and sugges-
tions made by the participants in my  EHESS seminar on

identity judgment: That creature—the one presented to me visually, in such and such
a way—is Joe. One can see that two “modes of presentation” must be involved here
by reflecting on the fact that I did not originally recognize Joe, and the structure of the
phenomenon would not have been different had I recognized him immediately. Even if I had,
I could intelligibly have wondered whether that creature really was Joe’ (Heck : –,
emphasis mine). I agree with Heck that two distinct token modes of presentation
were deployed before recognition occurred, but I deny that ‘the structure of the
phenomenon would not have been different had [Heck] recognized [Joe] immedi-
ately’. Had Heck recognized Joe immediately, there would have been a single token
mode of presentation at stake, rather than two distinct token modes of presentation.
The last sentence is supposed to provide an argument for there being two modes of
presentation even in a case of immediate recognition, but this argument is based on
the unactualized possibility of doubt. I agree with Papineau that no such argument
can establish that two distinct token modes of presentation are deployed in ‘imme-
diate recognition’ cases.
10
Two special issues, of Disputatio (in ) and of Inquiry (in ), have been
dedicated to my  book; I am grateful to Fiora Salis and Herman Cappelen for
setting them up. Two other volumes on the topic of mental files have just been
published or are currently in press: a special issue of the Review of Philosophy and
Psychology (Mental Files, edited by M. Murez and myself, ), and Singular Thought
and Mental Files (edited by R. Goodman, J. Genone, and N. Kroll for Oxford
University Press).
11
There were three such workshops in —at Université Paris-Sorbonne in
March (organized by Pascal Ludwig and Jean-Baptiste Rauzy), at Università di
Modena e Reggio Emilia in May (organized by Annalisa Coliva and Michele
Palmira), and at the University of St Andrews in October (organized by Herman
Cappelen)—as well as, in April, an ‘Author-meets-critics’ session on Mental Files at
the Pacific APA, San Diego (set up by Krista Lawlor) and a day-long meeting with
students on the same topic at the University of Toronto (set up by Imogen Dickie).
I am much indebted to the organizers of these events and to all of those who
participated. I am also indebted to Eleanora Orlando and Justina Diaz Legaspe (as
well as Ramiro Caso, Nicolás LoGuercio, Alfonso Losada, Laura Skerk, and Ezequiel
Zerbudis) for the Buenos Aires workshop on mental files and singular reference they
organized in October , and to Lucas Thorpe and Andrea Onofri for setting up
another workshop (‘Thinking of the Same—A Workshop on Mental Files’) in
Istanbul in September .

Preface ~ XVII
mental files, where I presented the first part of the book, and from
those made by the editors of and reviewers for various OUP
volumes in which papers of mine overlapping in content with
this book are due to appear.12 Finally, I am grateful to Robert May,
Ángel Pinillos, and two readers for Oxford University Press for
useful comments which helped me prepare the final version.

12
See my papers ‘Coreference de jure’, in R. Goodman et al. (eds), Singular
Thought and Mental Files (Recanati forthcoming b); ‘Cognitive Dynamics’, in M. de
Ponte and K. Korta (eds), Reference and Representation in Thought and Language
(Recanati forthcoming c); and ‘Indexical Thought: The Communication Problem’,
in M. Garcia-Carpintero and S. Torre (eds), About Oneself (Recanati ).

XVIII ~ Preface
 Part I
Coreference De Jure and
the Flow of Information
 
Coreference De Jure in
the Mental File Framework

.. The Phenomenon

TWO singular terms are coreferential whenever they refer to the

same object. Coreference is de facto when the two terms merely
happen to refer to the same object. Sometimes, however, coreference
seems to be predetermined, and arguably guaranteed, in an a priori
manner. This stronger form of coreference has been given several
names in the literature, e.g. ‘presupposed coreference’ (Fauconnier
: –, Büring : ), ‘stipulated coreference’ (Kamp and
Reyle : –), ‘grammatically determined coreference’
(Fiengo and May : , : ), ‘explicit coreference’ (Taylor
), ‘strict coreference’ (Fine ), ‘internal coreference’ (Lawlor
), and ‘coreference de jure’ (Neale , Pinillos , Recanati
, Goodsell ).1 The phenomenon is well known, but there is
disagreement regarding its proper analysis.

1
Other appellations include ‘intended coreference’ (Kamp : ), ‘presumed
coreference’ (Lawlor ), ‘coco-reference’ (Perry b: ), and ‘assumed
coreference’ (Gibbard : –), among others. It is not obvious that there is a
single phenomenon at stake, however (see Section .; see also Goodsell  on the
distinction between coreference de jure and ‘assumed coreference’).

Coreference De Jure in the Mental File Framework ~ 

 Fine provides the following criterion for (what I will continue
to call) coreference de jure:
A good test of when an object is represented as the same2 is in terms of
whether one might sensibly raise the question of whether it is the same.
An object is represented as the same in a piece of discourse only if no one
who understands the discourse can sensibly raise the question of whether it is the
same. (Fine : , emphasis mine)

The paradigm case is anaphora. A pronoun and its referential

antecedent are coreferential de jure: there is no way in which the
anaphoric pronoun might not refer to the same thing as the
antecedent (assuming the antecedent itself refers). This is guaran-
teed linguistically, so Fine’s criterion applies: whoever has fully
understood the statement cannot doubt that there is coreference
between the pronoun and its referential antecedent.3 Coreference,
in such cases, is a matter of meaning.
But anaphora is only a special case. There is coreference de jure
also between two occurrences of the same name-type. As Fine puts it,
Suppose that you say ‘Cicero is an orator’ and later say ‘Cicero was
honest,’ intending to make the very same use of the name ‘Cicero.’
Then anyone who raises the question of whether the reference was the
same would thereby betray his lack of understanding of what you meant.
(Fine : )

Taylor claims that proper names are essentially devices of coreference.

Their role is to build, and exploit, ‘chains of explicit coreference’,

2
When two singular terms are coreferential de jure, Fine says that they ‘represent
(their referent) as the same’. In contrast, an explicit identity statement such as ‘Cicero
is Tully’ is said to represent the referent of the two singular terms as being the same.
The two names are not coreferential de jure in the identity statement (see note ), so
they do not ‘represent their referent as the same’.
3
In the case of identity statements such as ‘Cicero is Tully’, one can doubt that
there is coreference between the two names, hence doubt the truth of the statement,
even though one fully understands it.

 ~ Coreference De Jure in the Mental File Framework

participation in which guarantees the sharing of subject matter with
other participants. ‘What it is to intend to use an expression as a
name’, he says, ‘is to use that expression with the intention of
either launching or continuing a chain of explicit coreference’
(Taylor : ). When the same name is used twice, coreference
is linguistically guaranteed: ‘Tokens of the same name are guaranteed
to corefer, if they refer at all’ (Taylor : –).4 The fact that
different objects may bear (what sounds superficially like) the same
name is, from this point of view, an accident, irrelevant to the design
of language. Such homonymous names have to be treated as distinct
names for the purposes of logico-linguistic analysis (Kripke ) or,
better perhaps, as distinct expressions (i.e. syntactic types) made up of
the same name (Fiengo and May , ).5 ‘Names are vocabulary
items’, Fiengo and May write, ‘and expressions are syntactic items
that may contain names . . . A name, qua lexical item, may in principle
occur in m-many syntactic expression-types, each of which may have
n-many token occurrences’ (Fiengo and May : –). When the
speaker who makes two successive utterances of ‘Cicero’ ‘intend[s] to
make the very same use of the name “Cicero”’ (as Fine puts it), he
produces two occurrences of the same expression; but a homonym-
ous name (say ‘Cicero’ as the name of a cat) would be a different
expression, made up of the same name.
In addition to the test suggested by Fine, there is another way of
testing for coreference de jure. Two terms α and β are coreferential
de jure just in case they licence a pattern of inference which John
Campbell () famously dubbed ‘Trading on Identity’ (TI):

4
In addition to the norm that distinct occurrences of the same name corefer, Taylor
puts forward a second norm governing proper names: occurrences of distinct name
types refer to distinct objects. The second norm will not play any role in my discussion.
5
Fiengo and May generalize to all ‘expressions’ what Taylor says about names:
‘All tokens of a given expression [ . . . ] corefer, as a matter of grammar’ (Fiengo and
May : ). Coreference de jure, for them, is a matter of type identity in all cases.
As we shall see (Section .), this view leads them to treat an anaphoric pronoun
and its antecedent as two distinct realizations of the same expression (the same
syntactic type).

Coreference De Jure in the Mental File Framework ~ 

 Trading on Identity (TI)
α is F
β is G
Therefore, something is both F and G.
Trading on Identity is licensed when the same name occurs in both
premisses, as in () below, or when the singular term in the second
premiss is anaphoric on the singular term in the first premiss, as in ():

() Cicero is F
Cicero is G
Therefore, someone is both F and G
() Ciceroi is F
hei is G
Therefore, someone is both F and G.

In the absence of either recurrence or anaphora, however, TI is not

licensed: an additional identity premiss is needed to reach the
conclusion, as illustrated by ():

() Cicero is F
Tully is G
Cicero = Tully
Therefore, someone is both F and G.

.. Recurrence

Fiengo and May claim that coreference de jure is a matter of

recurrence (type identity) in all cases, and not merely in the cases
in which the same proper name occurs twice. In general,

Occurrences of an expression type corefer if they refer at all; all occur-

rences in a given discourse will be coindexed, and hence coreferential as a
matter of representation. (Fiengo and May : )

 ~ Coreference De Jure in the Mental File Framework

When the same expression recurs, it carries the same semantic
value; that’s the general principle. This explains why two occur-
rences of the same name (qua syntactic expression) corefer de jure.
But Fiengo and May take the recurrence account to apply to
anaphora as well. They treat an anaphoric expression and its
antecedent as two distinct realizations of the same expression (the
same abstract ‘syntactic’ type), despite the lack of morphophon-
emic identity between them (Fiengo and May : ). In their
framework, just as two distinct ‘syntactic expressions’ may involve
the same lexical item (say, the same homonymous name), what
counts as the same expression from the syntactic point of view may
sometimes involve distinct items (a name and a pronoun).6 Both
types of case are illustrated by sentence ():
() After their first meeting, Aristotle invited Jackie to spend
a week on his yacht. She was then readings the Metaphysics,
where Aristotle says that knowledge is a basic human need.
In this sentence the numerical indices track type identity at the
underlying syntactic level. The two occurrences of ‘Aristotle’ in ()
are tokens of distinct expressions (one, Aristotle, referring to the
shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, the other, Aristotle, referring
to the ancient philosopher), while the anaphoric pronoun ‘she’ in
the second sentence counts as the same expression as its antecedent
in the first sentence, in virtue of being syntactically coindexed.
As a result, Trading on Identity is licensed in the latter case
(Jackie/she) but not in the former (Aristotle/Aristotle). () allows
the inference to ():
() Onassis invited someone who was then reading the
Metaphysics.

6
‘Two NPs may be occurrences of the same syntactic expression even though
one may contain the name ‘John’ and the other the pronoun ‘he’; binding theory
proceeds on this assumption’ (Fiengo and May : ).

Coreference De Jure in the Mental File Framework ~ 

But the inference from () to () is not licensed, because the two
occurrences of the name ‘Aristotle’ bear different indices and do
not count as tokens of the same expression:
() Someone for whom knowledge is a basic need invited
Jackie on his yacht.
The idea that an anaphoric expression is the same expression as
its antecedent is reminiscent of an early stage of transformational
grammar, when an anaphoric pronoun was taken to be a trans-
formation of a copy of its antecedent. ‘Martin sold his car’ was
analysed as derived from ‘Martin sold Martin’s car’ by a pronoun
transformation, a condition of which is the syntactic identity
between the pronominalized term and its antecedent. Because
different individuals may be called ‘Martin’, the syntactic identity
was taken to include the identity of the referential index: in
‘Martin sold Martin’s car’, there is syntactic identity, but in
‘Martin sold Martin’s car’ there isn’t, so pronominalization (lead-
ing to ‘Martin sold his car’) is only possible in the former case.
Generative linguistics has given up the idea that pronouns result
from a transformation of (a copy of ) their antecedent, but Fiengo
and May retain the idea of a syntactic identity, corresponding to
coindexing, between the pronoun and its antecedent.
Fiengo and May’s use of ‘expression’ is somewhat counter-
intuitive because (in the case of anaphora) it abstracts from issues
of morphophonemic identity. Moreover, special problems may be
thought to arise in connection with examples involving epithets or
anaphoric descriptions (rather than anaphoric pronouns):
() a. I met Johni/my new neighbouri the other day
b. The bastardi did not greet me
Do we want to treat the name ‘John’ (or the description ‘my new
neighbour’) and the anaphoric description ‘the bastard’ as (two
tokens of) the same expression type? Aren’t they, rather, two distinct
expressions, despite being coindexed? Clearly they are. Yet the

 ~ Coreference De Jure in the Mental File Framework

issue is more complex than meets the eye. According to a recent
analysis, epithets like ‘the bastard’ in () actually are (null) pronouns
modified by a nominal appositive (Patel-Grosz ). The logical
form of (b) would be:
(b*) proi, the bastard, did not greet me.
If this is right, then we could treat the null pronoun proi as the same
syntactic expression as its antecedent, in Fiengo and May’s sense,
while acknowledging that the appositive description ‘the bastard’ is
not the same expression as, e.g., the antecedent description ‘my new
neighbour’. (Indeed, the two descriptions carry distinct meanings.)
Be that as it may, we don’t have to treat an anaphoric pronoun as
the same expression as its antecedent to acknowledge that recurrence is
what ultimately grounds coreference de jure. What recurs, arguably,
is not (or not necessarily) a linguistic representation but a mental
representation. Let us admit that ‘in cases of anaphora (as when
I say “I saw John, he was wearing a bowler hat”), we can have two
expressions representing an object as the same without the expres-
sions themselves being the same’ (Fine : ). This does not
prevent us from accepting Fiengo and May’s point that there is
identity, at a suitably deep level of analysis. There is, one might say,
identity at the conceptual level—at the level of thought or logical form.
The expressions ‘John’ and ‘he’ are not the same, in the ordinary sense
of ‘expression’, but they are associated with the same conceptual
representation, and that is what coindexing indicates. Because of
coindexing, anyone who understands the utterance has to redeploy
the singular concept associated with the name when processing the
anaphoric pronoun. Likewise, in () the antecedent ‘John’ (or ‘my
new neighbour’) and the anaphoric description ‘the bastard’ are
associated with the same singular representation. Anyone who under-
stands the utterance has to redeploy the singular concept associated
with the antecedent when processing the anaphoric description.
Placing the relevant identity at the conceptual level does not
mean that it is not syntactically encoded. Sentences partially

Coreference De Jure in the Mental File Framework ~ 

encode thoughts, and it is plausible that recurrence constraints on
conceptual elements are encoded in the syntax of natural language.
What recurs, however, is primarily a conceptual element (whether
or not there is identity of expression at the linguistic level). That
justifies shifting focus to the mental level and considering the
associated representations directly.
Another consideration supports the shift to the cognitive level.
Arguably, there is nothing specifically linguistic about Trading on
Identity, coordination, etc. Suppose I hold a glass in my hand while
looking at it. The glass looks dirty, and it feels cold. When, on the
basis of my perceptual experience, I judge that the glass is cold and
dirty, I trade upon the identity of the seen glass and the touched glass
(Campbell ). Similarly, when I keep track of the glass from t to t0
and judge that it is moving, I trade upon the identity of the object
I perceive at the various times throughout the attentional episode
(Evans ). That is already, at the most basic level, the phenom-
enon we are trying to elucidate. In other words: when I say ‘the
glass looks dirty, and it feels cold’, what I express in language is a
thought whose constituents already bear the relevant relation of
coreference de jure to each other. Likewise, when, on the basis of my
perception of the glass, I form the intention to drink from it, there is
coreference de jure between the referential elements in the percep-
tual judgment and the intention based on it (Kamp ). Corefer-
ence de jure, even though it manifests itself in language, is first and
foremost a phenomenon at the level of thought.7

.. Mental Files

According to many authors in the recent singular thought litera-

ture, the singular concepts through which we represent particulars

7
See Kamp : . When it comes to thought, Fine talks of ‘corepresentation’
rather than ‘coreference’.

 ~ Coreference De Jure in the Mental File Framework

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never have been exposed to hostile criticism at all, but for the
metaphysical objections, already dismissed by us as fallacious,
founded upon the notion that the mechanical postulates with which
Interaction conflicts are ascertained truths about the actual structure
of the reality with which we are in touch in immediate experience.
It is clear that, from the nature of the problem to be solved, we
cannot be called upon to prove the actual occurrence of
psychophysical interaction. As a working hypothesis for the
interrelation of two sets of scientific abstractions, the theory is in
principle incapable of direct establishment by the “appeal to facts.”
All that is requisite for its justification is to show that it is (a) not in
principle at variance with any fundamental axiom of scientific
procedure, and (b) enables us to co-ordinate our scientific results in
the manner most suitable for the uses to which we propose to put
them. Both these conditions are fulfilled by the hypothesis of
Interaction, if our foregoing arguments are sound. We have seen the
fallacious nature of the objections brought against it on a priori
grounds of logical method, and have also seen that it is positively
demanded if we are at once to be faithful to the mechanical
postulates upon which physical science depends for its successes,
and to recognise in our psychological constructions that teleological
character of human action which is all-essential for History and
Ethics. In substance this is the whole case for the Interaction
hypothesis, and no further accession of strength would result from its
elaboration in detail.
It may be added that it is one great recommendation of the
hypothesis of Interaction, that it is quite consistent with the full
recognition of the relative usefulness of the alternative theories,
though they, as we have seen, are unable to do justice to those
aspects of fact which can only be expressed in terms of Interaction.
Thus the hypothesis of Interaction can readily afford to admit that, for
certain purposes and up to a certain point, it is possible to treat
physical or psychical processes as if they were determined solely by
physical or psychical conditions respectively, and even to treat some
physical processes as if the presence of their psychical concomitants
made no difference at all to their occurrence. The reason of this is,
that whereas a mechanical hypothesis can give no intelligible
account of a purposive process at all, a teleological hypothesis can
quite easily account for the apparently mechanical character of some
of the processes which fall under it. As we have seen (Book III. chap.
3, § 6), a purposive reaction, once established, approximates to
mechanical uniformity in the regularity with which it continues to be
repeated, while the conditions are unchanged, and the end of the
reaction is therefore still secured by its repetition.
Thus we can readily see that, even if we contented ourselves with
the attempt to translate into the language of psychological science
the processes which make up the life of an individual subject, many
of them would appear to be going on with routine uniformity. And
when we deliberately set ourselves to obtain uniformities by taking
an average result, derived from comparison of a multitude of
subjects, our results are, of course, always mechanical in
appearance, because the element of individual purpose and initiative
has been excluded by ourselves from our data in the very process of
taking the average. Hence we can understand how, on the
hypothesis of Interaction itself, all those mental processes which
consist in the repetition of an already established type of reaction
should come to appear mechanical, and thus to suggest that
mechanical conception of psychical processes which is common to
the epiphenomenalist and the parallelist view. Interaction, and
Interaction alone, is thus a hypothesis capable of being applied to
the whole field of psychological investigation.
I will conclude this chapter with some considerations on the
bearing of our result upon the special problems of Metaphysics. We
have explicitly defended Interaction as being no statement of actual
experienced fact, but a working hypothesis for the convenient
correlation of two scientific constructions, neither of which directly
corresponds to the actualities of experience. This means, of course,
that Interaction cannot possibly be the final truth for Metaphysics. It
cannot ultimately be the “fact” that “mind” and “body” are things
which react upon each other, because, as we have seen, neither
“mind” nor “body” is an actual datum of experience; for direct
experience and its social relations, the duality subsequently created
by the construction of a physical order simply has no existence. Nor
can it be maintained that this duality, though not directly given as a
datum, is a concept which has to be assumed in order to make
experience consistent with itself, and is therefore the truth. For the
concept of Interaction manifestly reposes upon the logically prior
conception of the physical as a rigidly mechanical system. It is
because we have first constructed the notion of the “body” on rigidly
mechanical lines that we have subsequently to devise the concept of
“mind” or “soul” as a means of recognising and symbolising in our
science the non-mechanical character of actual human life. And
since we have already seen that the mechanical, as such, cannot be
real, this whole scheme of a mechanical and a non-mechanical
system in causal relation with one another can only be an imperfect
substitute for the Reality it is intended to symbolise. In fact, we might
have drawn the same conclusion from the very fact that the
psychophysical hypothesis we have adopted is couched in terms of
Transeunt Causality, since we have already satisfied ourselves that
all forms of the causal postulate are more or less defective
appearance.
The proposition that the psychophysical theory of the “connection”
of “body” and “mind” is an artificial transformation, due to the needs
of empirical science, of the actual teleological unity of human
experience, is sometimes expressed by the statement that mind and
body are really one and the same thing. In its insistence upon the
absence of the psychophysical duality from actual experience, this
saying is correct enough, but it perhaps fails to express the truth with
sufficient precision. For, as it stands, the saying conveys no hint of
the very different levels on which the two concepts stand in respect
to the degree of truth with which they reproduce the purposive
teleological character of real human experience. It would perhaps be
nearer the mark to say that, while the physiologist’s object, the
“body,” and the psychologist’s object, the “mind,” are alike
conceptual symbols, substituted, from special causes, for the single
subject of actual life, and may both be therefore said to “mean” or
“stand for” the same thing, their actual content is different. For what
in the language of physiology I call my “body” includes only those
processes of actual life which approximate to the mechanical ideal
sufficiently closely to be capable of being successfully treated as
merely mechanical, and therefore brought under a scheme of
general “laws” of nature. Whereas what, as a psychologist, I call my
“mind” or “soul,” though it includes processes of an approximately
mechanical type, includes them only as subordinate to the initiation
of fresh individual reactions against environment which can only be
adequately expressed by teleological categories. Thus, though
“mind” and “body” in a sense mean the same actual thing, the one
stands for a fuller and clearer view of its true nature than the other. In
Dr. Stout’s terminology their intent may be the same, but their
content is different.[183]

Consult further:—R. Avenarius, Der Menschliche Weltbegriff; B.

Bosanquet, Psychology of the Moral Self, lect. 10; F. H. Bradley,
Appearance and Reality, chap. 23; Shadworth Hodgson, Metaphysic
of Experience, vol. ii. pp. 276-403; William James, Principles of
Psychology, vol. i. chaps. 5 and 6; H. Lotze, Metaphysic, bk. iii.
chaps. 1 and 5 (Eng. trans., vol. ii. pp. 163-198, 283-517); H.
Münsterberg, Grundzüge der Psychologie, i. chaps. 11. (pp. 402-
436), 15 (pp. 525-562); G. F. Stout, Manual of Psychology,3
Introduction, chap. 3; James Ward, Naturalism and Agnosticism, vol.
ii. lects. 11 and 12 (art. “Psychology” in Supplement to Encyclopædia
Britannica, p. 66 ff.).

174. Compare the following striking passage from Avenarius,

Menschliche Weltbegriff, p. 75: “Let an individual M denote a definite
whole of ‘perceived things’ (trunk, arms and hands, legs and feet,
speech, movements, etc.) and of ‘presented thoughts’ as I, ... then
when M says ‘I have a brain,’ this means that a brain belongs as part
to the whole of perceived things and presented thoughts denoted as
I. And when M says ‘I have thoughts,’ this means that the thoughts
themselves belong as a part to the whole of perceived things and
presented thoughts denoted as I. But though thorough analysis of
the denotation of I thus leads to the result that we have a brain and
thought, it never leads to the result that the brain has the thoughts.
The thought is, no doubt, a thought of ‘my Ego,’ but not a thought of
‘my brain’ any more than my brain is the brain of ‘my thought.’ I.e.
the brain is no habitation, seat, generator, instrument or organ, no
support or substratum of thought. Thought is no indweller or
commander, no other half or side, and also no product, indeed not
even a physiological function or so much as a state of the brain.”
175. As elsewhere in this work, I am using the terms “mind” and
“soul” as virtually interchangeable names for the object studied by
the psychologist. So far as there is any definite distinction of
meaning between the terms as currently used by English writers,
“soul” seems to carry with it more of the implication of substantiality
and relative independence than “mind.” It might not be amiss to
adopt the term “soul” as a name for the finite subject of experience
as he is for himself in actual social life, and to confine the name
“mind” to the construction which symbolises this subject for
psychological purposes. But the popular antithesis between soul and
body is perhaps too strongly rooted to admit of this suggestion. In
earlier passages, e.g., Book II. chap. 2, § 6, I have used the term
“spirit” in the sense here suggested for “soul.”
176. So, in dealing with astronomical problems, we are free to
adopt either the Copernican or the Ptolemaic scheme, whichever
happens to be the more convenient for our special purpose. The
superior truth of the Copernican system seems to mean no more
than that the range of its utility is the wider of the two. I may observe
that I do not here employ the term “utility” in the narrowly practical
sense of those philosophers who, e.g., condemn all speculation
about the “Absolute” on the ground of inutility. Whatever satisfies any
human aspiration is for me, so far, “useful.” It follows that there is, for
me, no such thing as the “useless knowledge” which “Pragmatism”
denounces. Thus, if a man’s peace of mind depends upon
speculation about the “Absolute”—on the habits of angels, or any
other topic you like (and this is a matter in which every man must in
the end decide for himself)—Pragmatism would appear to be false to
its own principle in forbidding him to speculate.
177. The assumption is not always made, however. Professor
Münsterberg, who classes himself as a supporter of Parallelism,
holds on metaphysical grounds that all causal connection must be
between physical states. Hence he denies that psychical states can
be causally connected with one another, except indirectly through
the causal relations of their physical correlates. His doctrine is thus
hardly to be distinguished from Epiphenomenalism, except in
terminology, though he avoids the consequence of practical Fatalism
by his insistence upon the purely artificial nature of both the physical
and the psychical series. (His reason for refusing to admit causal
relation between psychical states is that causal connection can only
be established between universals, whereas every psychical state is
unique. Does not this argument imply a confusion between the
actual experience and its psychological symbol?)
178. Most supporters of Parallelism, it may be noted, stultify their
own case, so far as it rests on this special contention, by admitting
the causal determination of psychical states by one another, though,
as psychical states are essentially qualitative, the reduction of
causation to quantitative identity is particularly inadmissible here.
Professor Münsterberg is quite consistent, therefore, in denying
psychical causality and reducing Parallelism to Epiphenomenalism.
179. The reader who has followed the argument of our Third Book
will not need to be reminded that the world of purely mechanical
processes is simply an ideal construction based on postulates which
we make for their practical convenience, and in no sense a direct
transcript of the world of actual experience.
180. The “neutral Monism” to which the doctrine of rigid
Parallelism logically leads, when put forward as more than a working
hypothesis, will, one may hope, in England at least, fail to survive the
exposure of its illogicalities in the second volume of Professor
Ward’s Naturalism and Agnosticism.
181. This case includes, as will be apparent on a little reflection,
not only the initiation of new motor reactions upon a sensation or
percept, but also that of sensation itself as a qualitatively novel
reaction upon physiological stimulation, and thus includes both the
processes in which supporters of Interaction have always recognised
the causal interconnection of the physical and the psychical.
182. It is with great pleasure that I note the coincidence of my own
view on the impossibility of reconciling Parallelism with the
recognition of the psychological importance of “meaning” with that of
Mr. Gibson (essay on “The Problem of Freedom,” in Personal
Idealism, p. 150 ff.). Professor Münsterberg’s declaration, that the
consciousness investigated by Psychology “knows nothing by its
knowledge and wills nothing by its will,” seems to me a confession of
the bankruptcy of Parallelism as a basal psychological hypothesis.
Still more so his elaborate and brilliant demonstration that the “brain”
with which my “mind” may be regarded as “parallel” is not the brain
as studied and charted by the anatomist, i.e. not the brain as a
physical object at all. See Psychologie, i. 415-428.
183. See his essay on “Error” in Personal Idealism.
 CHAPTER III

THE PLACE OF THE “SELF” IN REALITY

§ 1. The “self” is (1) a teleological concept, (2) implies a contrasted not-self (where
this contrast is absent from an experience there is no genuine sense of self);
(3) but the limits which divide self and not-self are not fixed but fluctuating.
The not-self is not a merely external limit, but consists of discordant elements
within the individual, which are extruded from it by a mental construction. (4)
The self is a product of development, and has its being in the time-series. (5)
The self is never given complete in a moment of actual experience, but is an
ideal construction; probably selfhood implies some degree of intellectual
development. § 2. The Absolute or Infinite Individual, being free from all
internal discord, can have no not-self, and therefore cannot properly be called
a self. § 3. Still less can it be a person. § 4. In a society of selves we have a
more genuinely self-determined individual than in the single self. Hence it
would be nearer the truth to think of the Absolute as a Society, though no finite
whole adequately expresses the Absolute’s full nature. We must remember,
however, (a) that probably the individuals in the Absolute are not all in direct
relation, and (b) that in thinking of it as a Society we are not denying its real
individuality. § 5. The self is not in its own nature imperishable; as to the
particular problem of its continuance after death, no decision can be arrived at
on grounds of Metaphysics. Neither the negative presumption drawn from our
inability to understand the conditions of continuance, nor the lack of empirical
evidence, is conclusive; on the other hand, there is not sufficient metaphysical
reason for taking immortality as certain.

§ 1. We have already, in Book II. chap. 1, § 5, incidentally raised

the question whether the whole spiritual system which we found
ground to regard as the reality of the universe, can properly be
spoken of as a “self.” We decided that to apply such a predicate to it
was at least misleading, and might prepare the way for serious
intellectual sophistication. Our discussion of the general character of
psychological conceptions has now made it possible for us to return
to the problem with reasonable hopes of being able to treat it more
fully, and to arrive at some definite conclusion as to the amount of
truth embodied by the notion of “self.”
First of all, then, let us attempt to fix the general meaning of the
concept, and to single out some of its more prominent
characteristics. It would clearly require much more space than we
can spare to enumerate all the senses in which the notion of “self”
has been used in Psychology, and the work, when done, would not
be entirely germane to our metaphysical purpose. What I propose to
attempt here will be simply to consider certain aspects of the concept
of “self” which are manifestly indispensable for the purpose of ethical
and historical appreciation, and to ask what their value is for the
metaphysical interpretation of existence.
(1) It is manifest, to begin with, that “self” is a teleological concept.
The self whose quality is revealed in Biography and History, and
judged in Ethics, has for its exclusive material our emotional
interests and purposive attitudes towards the various constituents of
our surroundings; of these, and of nothing else, our self is made.
And the self, again, is one and individual, just in so far as these
interests and purposes can be thought of as forming the expression,
in the detail of succession, of a central coherent interest or purpose.
Where this central interest appears not to exist at all, we have no
logical right to speak of a succession of purposive acts as the
expression of a single self. Thus, though it may be necessary for
some of the practical purposes of police administration to take bodily
identity as evidence of identity of self, we all recognise that what a
man does in a state of mental alienation complete enough to abolish
continuity of purpose, is not material for his biographer except in so
far as the knowledge of it may modify his interests and purposes on
his return to sanity. And even in cases where we may acquiesce in
the necessity for assuming responsibility before the law for “deeds
done in the body,” conscience acquits us of moral guilt if we honestly
feel we can say, “I was not myself when it was done.”[184] The
teleological character of the unity we ascribe to the self is further
illustrated by the puzzles suggested by the “alternate” and “multiple”
personalities occasionally brought to light in the study of hypnotism
and of mental pathology. Finally, in the fairly numerous cases of
“conversion,” where a man, as we say, becomes a “new being” or
parts with his “old self,” we only recognise him as identical with his
past self in so far as we succeed in thinking of his “new life” as being
the expression of aims and interests which were, at least implicitly
and as “tendencies,” already present, though concealed, in the “old.”
 (2) The self implies, and has no existence apart from, a not-self,
and it is only in the contrast with the not-self that it is aware of itself
as a self. This seems to me clear, as a matter of principle, though the
consequences of the principle are in much current speculation partly
misconceived, partly neglected. The most important among them, for
our purposes, are the following. The feeling of self is certainly not an
inseparable concomitant of all our experience. For it only arises—
and here nothing but direct experimentation can be appealed to as
evidence—as a contrast-effect in connection with our awareness of a
not-self, whether as imposing restraints upon the expression of the
self, or as undergoing modification by the self. Hence experiences
from which this contrast is absent seem to exhibit no trace of
genuine “self-consciousness.”[185] Feeling, where you can get it in its
simple form, seems to be universally allowed to be an instance in
point. Much of our perception appears to me, though I know the view
is not widely current among psychologists, to be in the same
position. E.g., normally when I am looking at an object, say for
instance, a white-washed wall, I do not find that I am in any real
sense “conscious of self.” The content of my awareness seems, to
me at least, to be just the wall in a setting of a mass of unanalysed
feeling, organic and other, which you may, if you please, from your
standpoint as an external observer, call my perceiving self, but of
which I am only aware as the setting of the perceived wall.
It is only when attention to the content of the perception becomes
difficult (as, e.g., through fatigue of the organs of sense, or conflict
with some incompatible purpose) that I am normally aware of the
perceived object as a not-self opposed to and restricting my self. The
same is, I think, true of much of our life of conscious purposive
action. I do not find that in my intellectual pursuit of a chosen study,
or again in my social relations to the other members of my
community, I have explicit awareness of the “facts” of science, or the
interests and purposes of others as a not-self with which my own
interests are contrasted as those of the self, except in so far as I
either find these facts and interests in actual collision with some aim
of my own, or experience the removal of such a collision. In ordinary
social life, for instance, I have a strong feeling of self as opposed to
not-self when the plans of some member of my immediate circle
clash with my own, and again when I succeed in winning such a
recalcitrant over to my own side; my self in the one case feels
repression, in the other expansion. But I do not think it can be said
that the self-feeling arises in actual life where there is temporarily no
consciousness of opposition or its removal. For instance, while we
are harmoniously working with other men for a previously concerted
end, the consciousness of self and its contrasted not-self scarcely
appears to enter into our experience.[186] This is, I presume, why
practical worldly wisdom has always regarded “self-consciousness”
as a source of weakness and moral failure. While we are steadily
engaged in the progressive execution of a purpose, we “lose
ourselves” in the work; it is only upon a check that we become “self-
conscious.”
(3) The next point to be noted is that there is no definite line of
demarcation between self and not-self. In particular, we must not fall
into the error of supposing that the whole content of the relation
between self and not-self is social,—the self on its side consisting of
me, and the not-self of other men. It is true, no doubt, that the origin
of the distinction is mainly social, since it is in the main through
experience of what it is to have my execution of a desired act
repressed by others, and again to have the stumbling-blocks which
have previously restricted my action removed by their co-operation,
that I come to be definitely aware of what I want, and of the fact that
it is I who want it. But it would be hard to show that the distinction
between the self and the not-self could not originate at all except in a
social medium, and it is clear that the range of its applicability, when
originated, is not limited to the social relation. There seems, on the
one hand, to be no feature in our experience whatever which is
entirely excluded from entering into the constitution of what is felt as
the self. My social intimates, my professional colleagues, my regular
occupations, even my clothes or articles of furniture, to which I have
grown accustomed, may be so essential to the continuity of my
characteristic interests in life that their removal would make my
character unrecognisable, or possibly even lead to insanity or death.
And as thus indispensable to the teleological unity or my existence,
all these “external” objects seem to be capable of passing into and
becoming part of the self.
 We see an extreme instance of this in the case of the savage
transplanted into civilised surroundings, who fails in body and mind
and finally dies, without recognisable disease, simply from the
disappearance of the interests connected with his old surroundings;
or that of the clinging affectionate persons who, in the same way,
fade away upon the loss of a beloved relative or friend. In a minor
degree we see the same thing in those changes of character which
common speech happily describe by such phrases as “he has never
been himself since—his wife died, since he lost that money,” and so
forth. In principle there seems to be no factor of what we should
currently call the self’s environment which may not in this way come
to be part of the content of the self.[187]
On the other side, it seems difficult to say whether there is
anything which ordinarily forms part of the “self” which may not,
under special conditions, become a part of what we recognise as the
“not-self.” Thus our bodily feelings and sensations, our thoughts and
desires, and in particular our virtuous and vicious habits, are usually
reckoned as definitely belonging to our self. Yet in so far as we can
think of any desire or habit as an element which is discordant with
the rest of our self, and ought not to be there,—and the whole
business of moral progress depends on our being able to take up
this attitude,—we, so far, relegate that element to the not-self. To will
the habit or desire to be otherwise is already, in principle, to expel it
from the teleological unity which makes up our inner life. So again
with our thoughts: in so far as we can suspend our assent to a
judgment, and balance reasons for or against accepting it into the
general system of our beliefs, the judgment clearly belongs to the
external not-self.
Yet it is at least conceivable that there may be intellectual as well
as moral habits so deeply engrained in our constitution that we
cannot thus set them over-against the self for judgment and
sentence. We must not deny that there are cases in which we could
not will or think differently, or even mentally entertain the possibility
of thinking or willing differently, without the destruction of our life’s
continuity of purpose. Again, our bodily sensations seem to belong in
a very special way to our self. Yet in so far as we can acquire the
power of voluntarily observing them, or again of withdrawing
attention from them, they are in principle reduced to the position of
elements in the not-self.
Even pleasure and pain do not seem to belong inalienably to the
self’s side of the contrast. E.g., to adapt a Platonic illustration, if I feel
pleasure in contemplating the vulgar or obscene, and at the same
time feel disgusted with myself for being so pleased, the pleasure
seems in the act of condemnation to be recognised as no part of my
“true” self, but an alien element obtruded on the self against its
nature. Pain, by reason of that urgency and insistency which give it
its biological importance, is much harder to banish from the self; but
experience, I think, will convince any one who cares to make the
experiment, that bodily pains, when not too intense (e.g., a
moderately severe toothache), can, by directing attention to their
sensational quality, be sometimes made to appear as definitely
foreign to the experiencing self. And the history of asceticism,
ancient and modern, as well as the practice of “mind-curers,”
suggests that this process of extrusion can be carried further than
we commonly suspect.
Organic or “common” sensations of general bodily condition
probably form the element in experience which most obstinately
resists all attempts to sever it from the whole self and treat it as a
foreign object, though in some cases we certainly seem able to
extrude the organic sensation from the felt self by analysis of its
quality and “localisation.” Still, it must be admitted that if there are
any elements in experience which are absolutely incapable of
transference to the not-self, they are probably in the main masses of
unanalysed and unanalysable organic sensation.[188]
All these considerations make two points very clear. (a) The self in
which we are interested in Ethics and History is not anything with
definitely fixed boundaries. The line dividing it from its complement,
the not-self, is one which we cannot draw according to any precise
logical rule; and again, what is at one time on one side of the
boundary is at another on the other. If there is any part of our
experience at all which must be regarded as always and essentially
belonging to the self’s side of the dividing line, it will in all probability
be merely masses of bodily feeling which are manifestly not the
whole of what Ethics and History contemplate when they appraise
the worth of a self.[189]
Further, a conclusion follows as to the nature of the opposition of
self to not-self. The not-self, as the readiness with which most of the
contents of experience can pass from one side of the antithesis to
the other shows, is in a sense included in at the very time that it is
excluded from the self. The various factors of which the not-self can,
at different times, be composed, our fellows, the physical world,
thoughts, habits, feelings, all agree in possessing one common
characteristic; when referred to the self, they are all elements of
discord within the whole of present experience, and it is on account
of this discordancy that we treat them as foreign to our real nature,
and therefore as belonging to the not-self. We may thus say with
accuracy that what is ascribed to the not-self is so ascribed because
previously found to be discrepant, and therefore excluded from the
self; in other words, the not-self is not an external limit which we
somehow find in experience side by side with the self, but is
constructed out of experience-data by the extrusion of those data
which, if admitted into the self, would destroy its harmony. Thus we
finite beings are confronted by a not-self ultimately because in our
very finitude, as we have seen in earlier chapters, we contain in
ourselves a principle of strife and disharmony. The not-self is no
merely external environment, but an inevitable consequence of the
imperfection of internal structure which belongs to all finitude.
(4) The self is essentially a thing of development, and as such has
its being in the time-process. This is a point upon which it seems for
many reasons necessary to insist. Its truth seems manifest from our
previous consideration of the nature of the experiences upon which
the concept of the self is based. As we have seen, it is primarily to
our experience of internal disharmony and the collision of purpose
that we owe our distinction between self and not-self. And such
experience seems only possible to beings who can oppose an ideal
of what ought to be, however dimly that ideal may be apprehended,
to what is. A being who either was already all that it was its nature to
become, or was incapable of in some way apprehending the fact that
it was not so, would thus not have in its experience any material for
the distinction between the self and the foreign and hostile elements
in experience. And, as we have already seen in our Third Book, time
is the expression in abstract form of the fundamental nature of an
experience which has as yet attained only the partial fulfilment of its
purpose and aspirations, and is therefore internally subject to that
want of perfect harmony in which we have now sought the origin of
the distinction between self and not-self. Hence we may, I think, take
it as certain, at least for us who accept this account of the origin of
the self concept, that selves are necessarily in time and as such are
necessarily products of development.
This conclusion seems in accord with positive facts which are too
well established to permit of question. It is probable that there is not
a single element in what I call my present self which is not
demonstrably the product of my past development, physical and
mental. Nor does it appear reasonable to contend that though the
material of my existing self is a result of development, its form of
selfhood is underived. It is not merely that my present self is not as
my past self, but we cannot avoid the admission that my mental life
is the result of a process of development by which it is continuously
connected with that of the embryo and even the spermatozoon. And
thus it seems to have its beginnings in experiences which are
probably so little removed from simple feeling as to afford no
opportunity for the sense of self as contrasted with not-self. Or if we
maintain that the contrast cannot be altogether absent from even the
crudest forms of experience, we still have to reckon with the fact
that, one stage further back in my personal history, I had no
existence even as an animalcule. An embryonic self is at least not
positively inconceivable, but where was Levi’s selfhood while he was
yet in the loins of his father? If we will consider what we mean when
we say we have all had parents, it will, I think, be confessed that our
self must be admitted to have been actually originated in the course
of development, impossible as we find it to imagine the stage of such
a process.[190]
(5) Finally, we must deal briefly with one more point of some
importance. The self, as we can now see, is never identical with
anything that could be found completely existing at any one moment
in my mental life. For one thing, it is thought of as having a temporal
continuity which goes far beyond anything that can be immediately
experienced at any given moment. It stretches out both into the past
and the future beyond the narrow limits of the “sensible present.”
Again, this temporal continuity is only an abstract expression of the
inner sameness and continuity of aims and interests we ascribe to
the self. My experiences are, as we have seen, thought of as being
the life of one self ultimately because I look on them as the
harmonious expression of a consistent attitude of interest in the
world. And any elements in experience which will not coalesce in
such a harmony are, by one device or another, extruded from the
true self and declared to be alien intruders from elsewhere. Now, in
real life we never find this complete and absolute harmony of the
contents of experience; there are always, if we look for them,
elements in our actual experience which are discordant, and conflict
with the system of interests which, on the whole, dominates it. Hence
self, in the last resort, is seen to be an ideal which actual experience
only imperfectly realises,—the ideal of a system of purposes and
interests absolutely in harmony with itself. And there must be, at
least, grave doubt as to the logical self-consistency of this ideal,
doubts which we must shortly face.
For the present the point to which I want to call attention is this.
Must we say that any degree of felt continuity of existence is enough
to constitute rudimentary selfhood, or ought we to hold that there is
no true self where there is not at least as much intellectual
development as is implied in the power to remember the past and
anticipate the future, as one’s own? In other words, are we to make
selfhood as wide in its range as sentient life, or to limit it to life
sufficiently rational to involve some distinct and explicit recognition of
the contrast between self and not-self? This is perhaps, in the main,
a question as to terminology; for my own part, I confess I find the
second alternative the more satisfactory. I do not see that such a
degree of teleological continuity as is implied in the mere feeling of
pain, for instance, deserves to be recognised as genuine selfhood;
and there is, I think, in the unrestricted use of the term self, selfhood,
as applied to merely feeling consciousness, a danger of ambiguity.
When we have once applied the terms in such a case, we are
inevitably tempted to over-interpret the facts of such simple mental
life in order to bring them into fuller accord with what we know of
selfhood in our own life.[191] At the same time, it is clear that we have
no right dogmatically to deny the presence of the intellectual
processes involved in the recognition of self where our methods of
observation fail to detect them.
§ 2. We may now approach the problem of the degree of reality
which belongs to the self. We have to ask, how far is the conception
of self applicable to the individual experiences which in our Second
Book we identified as the contents of the system of real existence?
Is the infinite individual experience properly to be called a self?
Again, is every finite experience a self? And how must we take finite
selves, if they are real, to be related to each other? Lastly, perhaps,
we might be called on in this connection to face the question how far
an individual finite self is more than a temporary feature in the
system of existence. Our conclusions on all these points were no
doubt in principle decided by the discussions of our Second Book,
but it is desirable to make some of them more explicit than was
possible there.
First, then, I think it is clear that the infinite experience or
“Absolute” cannot properly be called a self. This is immediately
apparent if our view as to the essential implications of self-feeling be
accepted. We have urged that self is only apprehended as such in
contrast to a simultaneously apprehended not-self. And the not-self,
we have seen, is composed of all the discordant elements of
experience, so far as their discord has not been overcome. It was for
this reason that we held the self to be indissolubly bound up with that
experience of the world as a process in time, with a “no longer” and
“not yet,” which is the universal characteristic of finitude. It must
follow that an experience which contains no discordant elements, in
their character as unresolved discords, is not characterised by the
contrast-effect which is the foundation of selfhood. An experience
which contains the whole of Reality as a perfectly harmonious whole
can apprehend nothing as outside or opposed to itself, and for that
very reason cannot be qualified by what we know as the sense of
self.
To put the same thing in another way, “self” as we have seen, is
essentially an ideal, and an ideal which is apprehended as
contrasted with the present actuality. Hence only beings who are
aware of themselves as in process of becoming more fully
harmonious in their life of feeling and purpose than they at present
are, can be aware of themselves as selves. Self and imperfection
are inseparable, and any being which knows nothing of the
opposition between the ideal and the actual, the ought and the is,
must also know nothing of the feeling of self. Or in yet a third form of
words, only creatures whose life is in time—and therefore only finite
creatures—can be selves, since the time-experience is an integral
constituent of selfhood.
One objection which might be brought against this inference is
sufficiently ingenious to deserve special examination. It may be
urged that though the experience of imperfection and thwarted
purpose are conditions without which we in particular could not come
to the apprehension of self, they do not remain as ingredients in the
experience of selfhood when once it has been developed. Hence, it
might be said, the “Absolute” may conceivably have the experience
without having to acquire it through these conditions. In general
principle, no doubt this line of argument is sound enough. It is
perfectly true that the special conditions through which we come to
have experience of a certain quality cannot, without investigation, be
taken as everywhere indispensable for that experience. E.g., even if
it were proved that the pessimists are right in saying that we never
experience pleasure except as a contrast with previous pain, it would
still not follow that the pleasure, as felt, is the mere rebound from the
pain, and has no further positive quality of its own, and it would then
still be an open question whether other beings might not experience
the pleasure without the antecedent pain. But the principle does not
seem applicable to the case now under consideration, since it is our
contention that the contrast of the discordant factor with the rest of
the experience to which it belongs is not simply an antecedent
condition, but is in fact the central core of the actual apprehension of
self. It is not simply that we do not, if our previous analysis has been
correct, have the feeling of self except in cases where such a
contrast is present, but that the feeling of self is the feeling of the
contrast. Hence our result seems untouched by the undoubtedly
sound general principle to which we have referred.
 That our conclusion is so frequently opposed by philosophers who
adopt a generally idealistic position, is, I believe, to be accounted for
by the prevalence of the belief that experience, as such, is
essentially characterised by consciousness of self. To experience at
all, it is commonly thought, is to be aware of one’s self as in relation
to an environment of the not-self. Hence to deny that the absolute
Reality is a self is often thought to be equivalent to denying that it is
an experience at all and this, from the idealistic point of view, would
mean to deny that it is real. But if our previous analysis was sound, it
is not even true of human experience as such that it is everywhere
conditioned by the felt contrast of self with not-self. From the point of
view of that analysis, the contrast only exists where there is felt
discord between experience as a whole and some of its constituents.
The conception of our experience as essentially marked by a sense
of self, must therefore rest upon our intellectual reconstruction
effected by the transparent fiction of ascribing to every experience
features which analysis detects only in special cases and under
special conditions. Hence it is quite possible for us to unite the
affirmation that all real existence ultimately forms a single
experience-system, with the denial that that system is qualified by
the contrast-effect we know as the sense of self. How, indeed,
should that outside which there is nothing to afford the contrast, so
distinguish itself from a purely imaginary other?[192]
§ 3. If the Absolute is not a self, a fortiori it is manifest that it
cannot be a “Person.” Exactly how much is intended when the
“personality” of the Absolute, or indeed of anything else, is affirmed,
it would not be easy to determine. A “self” does not seem to be
necessarily a “person,” since those philosophers who hold that there
is no reality but that of selves, while admitting that the lower animals
are selves, do not usually call them persons. But it is hard to say
how much more is included in personality than in selfhood. If we
bear in mind that personality is, in its origin, a legal conception, and
that it is usually ascribed only to human beings, or to such
superhuman intelligences as are held capable of associating on
terms of mutual obligation with human beings, we may perhaps
suggest the following definition. A person is a being capable of being
the subject of the specific obligations attaching to a specific position
in human society. And it becomes manifest that, if this is so,
personality is, as Mr. Bradley has said, finite or meaningless.
For a society of persons is essentially one of ἴσοι καὶ ὅμοιοι, social
peers, with purposes mutually complementary though not identical,
and standing in need of each other’s aid for the realisation of those
purposes. Only those beings are personal for me whose aims and
purposes are included along with mine in some wider and more
harmonious system, and to whom I therefore am bound by ties of
reciprocal obligation. But it is clear that, to ask whether the wider
system which is thus the foundation of our mutual rights and duties
as persons, is itself a person, would be ridiculous. Thus, e.g., there
would be no sense in asking whether “human society”—the
foundation of our moral personality—is itself a person. You might, in
fact, as reasonably ask whether it can be sued for trespass or
assessed under schedule D for Income Tax.
Still more manifestly is this true of the Absolute which includes
within it all the (conceivably infinitely numerous) groups of mutually
recognising persons, and all those other forms of experience which
we cannot properly call personal. Between the whole system and its
component elements there can be no such relation of mutual
supplementation and completion as is the essence of genuine
personality. If the system, as a whole, may be said to supplement
and correct our defects and shortcomings, we cannot be said, in any
way, to supplement it; the Absolute and I are emphatically not, in any
true sense, ἴσοι καὶ ὅμοιοι, and the relation between us cannot
therefore be thought of as personal. All this is so obvious, that, as I
take it, the personality of the Absolute or whole of existence would
find no defenders but for the gratuitous assumption that whatever is
an individual experience or spiritual unity must be personal. This, as
far as I can see, is to assume that such an individual must have an
external environment of other experience-subjects of the same
degree of harmonious and comprehensive individuality. And for this
assumption I can, speaking for myself, see no ground whatever.[193]
§ 4. If we cannot, then, properly say that the Absolute, or the
Universe,—or whatever may be our chosen name for the infinite
individual which is the whole of existence,—is a self or person, can
we say that the finite individuals which compose it are one and all