{"id":{"repo_id":"buffalo","oai_identifier":"oai:ubir.buffalo.edu:10477/79354"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/buffalo/oai:ubir.buffalo.edu:10477/79354","repository":{"repo_id":"buffalo","name":"Buffalo","base_url":"https://ubir.buffalo.edu/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"De se Cognitive Attitudes and Their Ascriptions","abstract":"Ph.D.","abstract_html":"Ph.D.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Ray, Patrick"],"institution":"State University of New York at Buffalo","degree_name":null,"degree_level":null,"degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Braun, David","Philosophy"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2019,"date_issued":"2019-04-04T20:30:45Z","date_published":"2019-04-04T20:30:45Z","updated_at":"2026-07-27T19:05:16Z","subjects":["philosophy"],"languages":["eng"],"rights":["Users of works found in University at Buffalo Institutional Repository (UBIR) are responsible for identifying and contacting the copyright owner for permission to reuse. University at Buffalo Libraries do not manage rights for copyright-protected works and cannot assist with permissions.","Copyright retained by author."],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/10477/79354","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Braun, David","Philosophy"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Ray, Patrick"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2019-04-04T20:30:45Z","2019","2018-12-18 17:04:46"]},{"key":"dc:publisher","label":"Institution","values":["State University of New York at Buffalo"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Text","Dissertation"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["philosophy"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Users of works found in University at Buffalo Institutional Repository (UBIR) are responsible for identifying and contacting the copyright owner for permission to reuse. University at Buffalo Libraries do not manage rights for copyright-protected works and cannot assist with permissions.","Copyright retained by author."]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/10477/79354"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Ph.D.","This project offers a solution to the traditional puzzles of de se belief. De se beliefs are a type of belief about oneself that ordinary, competent users of language are inclined to express with sentences that contain the first-person pronoun (in English, the word ‘I’). Monolingual English speakers who have a de se belief typically express these beliefs by the use of the word ‘I’ and they are commonly referred to as “beliefs about oneself” or “first-person beliefs.” The problem of the de se is framed in terms of two related questions: what explanatory role, if any, does de se communication and belief play in the various philosophical subdisciplines and what single account of the de se can provide a solution to these problems? Key to this endeavor is the assumption that the de se is special in some way. I argue that we have good evidence to think that the de se is indeed special.In an attempt to answer these questions, I begin with a general overview of the problems of the de se and then examine the traditional solutions to these problems. I argue that the solutions are inadequate and move to offer a solution that is traditional in the sense that it takes the objects of our de se beliefs to be propositions, not properties. The project departs from traditional accounts of de se belief in that it offers a distinctive guise under which one may have de se beliefs. The contributing guise is posited to appear with PRO, an unpronounced pronominal element. I contend that PRO itself contributes a guise to certain propositions -- viz., those propositions expressed by attitude ascriptions and particularly those containing PRO. I argue that: i) there is something distinctive about de se belief, ii) theories that offer solutions to puzzles of de se belief are incorrect or problematic, and iii) there exists a workable (philosophical and linguistic) theory of belief de se that takes the objects of such belief to be propositions with a first-personal guise as a constituent.The resulting view is that de se beliefs are not merely special relations that agents may stand to any propositions whatsoever, but that such guises semantically encoded by PRO are those de se attitudes toward propositions that agents have only in certain contexts (those where there is a de se belief evidenced by PRO). I favor adopting a propositional view of PRO, whereon the complement clauses that contain ‘PRO’ refer to complete propositions rather than properties, for a couple of reasons. First, if we are rejecting a Property Theory of self-locational belief, then there is no reason to suppose that the objects of cognitive attitudes will be properties. If we also reject the Fregean account of the objects of belief, belief ascriptions making use of PRO would then have a propositional reading where the proposition is a Russellian proposition. It is my contention that PRO contributes a way of thinking about (or guise) to the belief ascription and the proposition itself. This allows us to escape the problems of unarticulated constituents provided we have good syntactic evidence for PRO, which was the main reason one has for arguing away the Unarticulated Constituent view from Perry and Crimmins. However, it is consistent with the general view espoused by Crimmins and Perry that some propositional attitude ascriptions do semantically encode a guise."]},{"key":"dc:format","label":"Dc Format","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["De se Cognitive Attitudes and Their Ascriptions"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Braun, David","Philosophy"],"dc:creator":["Ray, Patrick"],"dc:date":["2019-04-04T20:30:45Z","2019","2018-12-18 17:04:46"],"dc:description":["Ph.D.","This project offers a solution to the traditional puzzles of de se belief. De se beliefs are a type of belief about oneself that ordinary, competent users of language are inclined to express with sentences that contain the first-person pronoun (in English, the word ‘I’). Monolingual English speakers who have a de se belief typically express these beliefs by the use of the word ‘I’ and they are commonly referred to as “beliefs about oneself” or “first-person beliefs.” The problem of the de se is framed in terms of two related questions: what explanatory role, if any, does de se communication and belief play in the various philosophical subdisciplines and what single account of the de se can provide a solution to these problems? Key to this endeavor is the assumption that the de se is special in some way. I argue that we have good evidence to think that the de se is indeed special.In an attempt to answer these questions, I begin with a general overview of the problems of the de se and then examine the traditional solutions to these problems. I argue that the solutions are inadequate and move to offer a solution that is traditional in the sense that it takes the objects of our de se beliefs to be propositions, not properties. The project departs from traditional accounts of de se belief in that it offers a distinctive guise under which one may have de se beliefs. The contributing guise is posited to appear with PRO, an unpronounced pronominal element. I contend that PRO itself contributes a guise to certain propositions -- viz., those propositions expressed by attitude ascriptions and particularly those containing PRO. I argue that: i) there is something distinctive about de se belief, ii) theories that offer solutions to puzzles of de se belief are incorrect or problematic, and iii) there exists a workable (philosophical and linguistic) theory of belief de se that takes the objects of such belief to be propositions with a first-personal guise as a constituent.The resulting view is that de se beliefs are not merely special relations that agents may stand to any propositions whatsoever, but that such guises semantically encoded by PRO are those de se attitudes toward propositions that agents have only in certain contexts (those where there is a de se belief evidenced by PRO). I favor adopting a propositional view of PRO, whereon the complement clauses that contain ‘PRO’ refer to complete propositions rather than properties, for a couple of reasons. First, if we are rejecting a Property Theory of self-locational belief, then there is no reason to suppose that the objects of cognitive attitudes will be properties. If we also reject the Fregean account of the objects of belief, belief ascriptions making use of PRO would then have a propositional reading where the proposition is a Russellian proposition. It is my contention that PRO contributes a way of thinking about (or guise) to the belief ascription and the proposition itself. This allows us to escape the problems of unarticulated constituents provided we have good syntactic evidence for PRO, which was the main reason one has for arguing away the Unarticulated Constituent view from Perry and Crimmins. However, it is consistent with the general view espoused by Crimmins and Perry that some propositional attitude ascriptions do semantically encode a guise."],"dc:format":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier":["http://hdl.handle.net/10477/79354"],"dc:language":["eng"],"dc:publisher":["State University of New York at Buffalo"],"dc:rights":["Users of works found in University at Buffalo Institutional Repository (UBIR) are responsible for identifying and contacting the copyright owner for permission to reuse. University at Buffalo Libraries do not manage rights for copyright-protected works and cannot assist with permissions.","Copyright retained by author."],"dc:subject":["philosophy"],"dc:title":["De se Cognitive Attitudes and Their Ascriptions"],"dc:type":["Text","Dissertation"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-27T19:05:16Z"}