Expressivism, Psychic Health, and the First-Person Stance

This article addresses the psychotherapeutically important phenomenon of relating first-personally to one's own emotion, belief, desire, or other attitude. The fundamental theoretical challenge is to understand how one can relate to one's attitudes as one's attitudes without occupying a position that is alienated from them. Philosophical questions in this area are significantly illuminated by considering certain clinically manifested vicissitudes and pathologies of the first-person. The article interprets the first-person relation in terms of a complex set of functional capacities: the capacity to occupy the subjective perspective of the attitude as conscious subject; the capacity to both self-ascribe the attitude and articulate its content, in ways that are expressive manifestations of the attitude; and various capacities involved in relating to one's state as an attitude. The resultant conception of the first-person stance accommodates a range of clinically significant phenomena and suggests a multidimensional specification of one key aspect of psychological health.