Language, Intentionality and Appropriation

In the mid 80s Daniel Dennett has published a
series of articles on the problem of the self. His suggested
solution to the problem is rather unique and seems to be at
odds with some more recent work on the subject. It is my
aim to try to square his thoughts with some other
approaches that tentatively point to quite different sources of
selves. Dennett in all of his papers relies heavily upon a
strategy that made it all the way to the title of one of them.
He speaks of selves as centers of narrative gravity (Dennett
1992). This strategy uses two crucial components –
language and fiction. Let me say few words about each of
them. First, in accordance with a general tactics of his postbehaviorism
and fully in line with his method of
heterophenomenology (see Dennett 1991), he treats mental
phenomena in linguistic terms. We only know of a presence
of the former via our confrontation with the latter.
Psychological self receives the same treatment. Claiming to
capture a fundamental building block of the self, Dennett
gives elaborate examples of linguistic practices that lead one
to become oneself. It is in the game of asking and answering
questions on their history, present conditions and future
plans or desires that organisms arrive to a coherent, stable
and lasting view of their selves. He doesn"t seem to be
troubled by questions of subjectivity, i.e. what constitutes
subjects and whether in fact some accounts of their selves is
needed. At various points where he speaks of subjects, he
dismisses philosophical explanations and wants to replace
them with biological ones (e.g. Dennett 1989).