Em minha opinião, uma pessoa é um sujeito consciente com a capacidade de auto-atribuição. A auto-atribuição consiste em tomar algo como sendo ele mesmo (ou ele mesmo como sendo algo). Todos os desempenhos pessoais específicos surgem dessa capacidade: assumir responsabilidade, prestar contas de si mesmo, atribuir a si mesmo um lugar no ambiente de pessoas, coisas e estados de coisas. Assim, a característica única da personalidade parece ser capturada por minha caracterização.
A auto-atribuição é uma identificação de algo comigo (Todo mundo deve pensar em si mesmo.). Ou é uma descrição definida, que se aplica apenas à pessoa em questão, ou pode ser facilmente aperfeiçoada dessa forma. Mas, no caso da auto-atribuição, a descrição definida se diferencia por ter uma inadequação peculiar. Com qualquer outra descrição definida, pode-se esperar conhecer a coisa descrita pela primeira vez, por exemplo, um quarto de hotel, no qual devo passar a noite, especificando a cidade, a rua, o número da casa, o andar e o número do quarto. Somente no caso da auto-atribuição é que a projeção correta do par (ordenado), o relatum (com o que algo é identificado), precisa ser familiar antes do ato de identificação. Caso contrário, haveria uma regressão infinita sem objetivo, com a introdução constante de novas descrições como explanantia, sem nunca revelar que é a mim que se refere. Por exemplo, no meu caso, haveria uma progressão de um homem bom em Leipzig em 1928 para um professor emérito de filosofia, em cada caso com a adição de informações suficientes para uma descrição definitiva. Em nenhum caso seria possível descobrir que sou exatamente eu que sou esse indivíduo; pois todas as especificações apropriadas de, por um lado, Hermann Schmitz e, por outro, Alexandre, o Grande, não contêm nada que indique que eu sou, por exemplo, Hermann Schmitz e não Alexandre. Para saber isso, eu já devo estar familiarizado comigo mesmo antes de qualquer identificação. Somente na direção oposta é que essa afirmação pode se tornar certa: se eu já me conheço, posso, com base na experiência e na lembrança de suas circunstâncias, alocar-me em meu lugar apropriado no mundo. Se, ao fazer isso, eu estiver enganado, por exemplo, ao sonhar ou porque estou iludido, o que eu identifico comigo mesmo está completamente fora de ordem, mas nada muda em relação ao que eu identifico, ou seja, eu mesmo; pois eu trago o conhecimento de mim mesmo para a identificação e me apego a ele em todas as auto-atribuições.
In my view, a person is a conscious subject with the ability of self ascription. Self-ascription consists in taking something to be oneself (or oneself to be something). All specific personal performances arise from this ability: taking responsibility, giving an account of oneself, allotting oneself a place in the environment of people, things and states of affairs. Thus the unique feature of personhood appears to be captured by my characterisation.
Self-ascription is an identification of something with me (Everyone shall think of himself.). Either it is a definite description, which applies only to the relevant person or can easily be thus perfected. But, in the case of self-ascription, definite description differs in having a peculiar inadequacy. With any other definite description, one can expect to become acquainted with the thing described for the first time, for instance with a hotel room, in which I am supposed to spend the night, by specifying the city, the street, the number of the house, the floor and the room number. Only in the case of self-ascription does the right projection of the (ordered) pair, the relatum (what something is identified with), need to be familiar prior to the act of identification. Otherwise there would be an aimless infinite regress by constantly introducing new descriptions as explanantia, without ever revealing that it is I who is meant. For instance, in my case there would be a progression from a man bom in Leipzig in 1928 to a professor emeritus of philosophy, in each case with the addition of information sufficient for definite description. In no case would it turn out that it is precisely I who is this individual; for all appropriate specifications of, on the one hand, Hermann Schmitz and, on the other, Alexander the Great contain nothing that would indicate that I am, e.g., Hermann Schmitz and not Alexander. In order to know this, I must already be acquainted with myself before any identification. Only in the opposite direction can this assertion become certain: if I am already acquainted with myself, I can, on the basis of experience and recollection of its circumstances, allot myself to my appropriate place in the world. If, in so doing, I am mistaken, for instance, in dreaming or because I am deluded, what I identify with myself is thoroughly out of order, but nothing changes about what I identify it with, namely myself; for I bring the acquaintance with myself to identification and hold onto it across all self-ascriptions.
So self-ascription is only possible if it is based on self-consciousness without identification. And such self-consciousness genuinely exists in the form of affective involvement. If I am, e.g., in pain, I immediately know it without having to find a sufferer to whom I ascribe identity with myself. Furthermore, there are states of upheaval or shock with increased or, on the contrary, reduced motion, in which the conscious subject has no access to itself as the referent of an identification but, nonetheless, distinctly feels itself in the intensity of excitement or derangement – e.g. raging anger, panicking fear, mass ecstasy, devoted struggle in the heat of the moment, being sunk in melancholy. The possibility of such a self-consciousness independent of such an identification is that facts of affective involvement are subjective facts which, apart from their mere factuality, have the mark of “Meinhaftigkeit” (mineness), to adopt a term coined by psychiatrist Kurt Schneider1. This can be seen in the fact that, at most, one person^ namely the one affected, can assert such subjective facts, whereas everyone can do so for objective or (synonymously) neutral facts, as long as he is sufficiently knowledgeable and articulate. (The same is generally true fop states of affairs, including non-factual ones.) This criterion is only read off the linguistic expression for purposes of terminological clarity but does not refer to anything particularly linguistic, since the range of linguistic expressions can be large but nonetheless insufficient to restate the subjective fact of an other’s affective involvement. Let me take “I am sad as an example. If someone else wants to express the same fact, he cannot use the first person singular but needs to say something like “Herman! Schmitz is sad”. This I can restate, for instance, retrospectively, when I am no longer sad, replacing “is” by “was”; but if I want to describe the same fact as he does, I have to disregard the fact that I am Hermann Schmitz, top he could not say that, as he is not Hermann Schmitz. So now I have to deal I with the fact that Hermann Schmitz is (or was) sad, disregarding the fact that I am Hermann Schmitz. But there is something missing about this fac| that was expressed by my initial assertion “I am sad”, namely the intensity of involvement with which sadness affects (or affected) me. And it is this nuance that is missing in the objective fact that the other could express and which I can only express in my name. Yet, the content of both facts is the same, even the involvement is not missing in the objective fact, for if Hermann Schmitz is sad, he certainly is so in an involved manner. So the difference does not lie in the content but in the factuality. One has to part with the illusion that all facts are neutral or objective. Much rather, it is the case that there are not only many facts but also many factualities, namely one per conscious subject and one objective one that is shared by everyone and that comes into existence for someone by stripping it of subjectivity.