“I,” Singular and Universal

In each instance of its use, “I” refers to just one individual: the individual currently saying the sentence or thinking the proposition in which “I” (or, as the case may be, the first-person inflection of the verb) is in use. At the same time, having available the concept and word “I” is understanding that any other person using “I” thereby refers to herself, the thinker or speaker. Moreover, uses of “I” are not necessarily the expression of an egoistic obsession with our individual person. Some of the sentences in which “I” is in use display a striking combination of the singular character of the word and concept “I” and the universality of the claim we make on others, using the singular term and concept “I.” The chapter explores these contrasting features of “I” in relation to our cognitive and agential access to the world.

“I” in Morality

The chapter explores the contrasting analyses of the moral standpoint offered by the eighteenth-century Enlightenment philosopher Immanuel Kant, on the one hand; and, on the other, the pessimistic observer of human moral frailty, Sigmund Freud. The lecture explores the similarities and contrasts between Freud’s and Kant’s respective conceptions of the structure of mental life and the place in that structure of the categorical imperative of morality. From this confrontation, new lessons emerge concerning the relation between the radically individual nature of the first-person pronoun “I” (considered here in the phrase “I—morally—ought to”) and the claim to universal validity of at least some of the pronouncements we make in our own name or from what we call “the first-person standpoint.”