Kripke, Perry eta “ni”

Abstract

In this paper, I focus on Saul Kripke’s views about the first-person pronoun “I”. I

aim to show how Kripke’s later views on “I” differ from the views expressed in Naming and

Necessity, and to contrast it with John Perry’s explanation, which is closer to Kripke’s earlier

claims. I discuss two of Kripke’s later papers: “Frege’s Theory of Sense and Reference” and “The

First Person”. I first argue that Kripke’s interpretation of Frege is not adequate, and then I show

how Kripke’s own view on the first person derives from this interpretation. I compare Kripke’s

views with those defended by Perry, mostly in his 1977 paper, “Frege on Demonstratives”.

Kripke’s proposal includes two basic assumptions: the acceptance of incommunicable

Thoughts, when it comes to discussing the Fregean view, and the appeal to a Cartesian self to

explain the uses of “I”. These two assumptions are not present in Naming and Necessity and

are not needed in a semantic account of the first person pronoun “I”.