Some Further Remarks on the "I�

In Wittgenstein"s discussion of first person psychological
statements, we find a number of remarks that point to a
semantic difficulty in the use of such ascriptions. The
meaning ambiguity is due to the fact that one and the
same proposition can both be used to state a matter of fact
and a metaphysical assumption. Hence a sentence such
as, e.g., "Only my pain is real pain� might mean that all
others except me are only pretending. In a solipsistic
context, however, the claim is supposed to express that
nobody except me can be in pain.