The interest in a better understanding of what is constitutive for being a person is a concern
philosophy shares with some of the sciences. The views currently discussed in evolutionary
biology and in the neurosciences are very much influenced by traditional philosophical views
about the self and self-knowledge while contemporary philosophical accounts are not considered
at all. Such an account will be given by an analysis of three focal elements of the use of the
first-person pronoun. These elements have something to do with the faculty of taking a
first-person point of view. The conceptual structure of this point of view is explained by
comparing it with a second- and third-person point of view. There is an extensive discussion of
various views about self-knowledge (Davidson Bilgrami Burge) and a new conception of
authoritative self-knowledge is established. The first-person point of view is a reflexive
attitude which includes various attitudes to one's past and future. These attitudes are
necessarily or contingently de se. By bringing into focus the concern for one's future
intentions will be discussed as an activity-based attitude while there are other attitudes
like hope or fear which are shaped by the acceptance of one's future situations which are not
or not completely under one's control. This view gives rise to a criticism of Frankfurt's
notion of Caring.
