Self-Identification and the Subject-Object Problem

In The View From Nowhere, Thomas Nagel questions how we can know what we mean when we say ‘I’ in identity statements like “I am Thomas Nagel”. This metaphysical worry, also known as the Subject–Object Problem, asks how the subject of experience, designated by ‘I’, can identify itself with an object in the world. This thesis investigates two possible solutions to Nagel’s puzzle. First, it argues against Elizabeth Anscombe’s view that ‘I’ is not a referring expression, rejecting it as a plausible means of explaining away Nagel’s puzzle. Instead, it defends a solution inspired by Gareth Evans, who holds that ‘I’-thoughts secure direct reference through special information channels generating immunity to error through misidentification. On this view, bodily self-ascriptions, grounded in proprioception and self-location, can yield identification-free self-knowledge of the embodied subject. The remainder of the thesis evaluates this solution by addressing objections from John Campbell and Béatrice Longuenesse, who contest the role of bodily self-ascriptions in securing self-reference. Drawing on Adrian Alsmith’s agentive self-location thesis and José Luis Bermúdez’s arguments for embodied self-consciousness, I argue that these developments strengthen Evans’s account and provide us with a viable response to Nagel’s puzzle.