What is Special about De Se Attitudes?

De se attitudes seem to play a special role in action and cognition. This raises a challenge to the traditional way in which mental attitudes have been understood. This chapter reviews the case for thinking that de se attitudes require special theoretical treatment and discuss various ways in which the traditional theory can be modified to accommodate de se attitudes. It gives a tentative characterization of indexical and de se attitudes, outlines the traditional theory, and presents the main theoretical accounts of de se attitudes. The chapter discusses the question of whether de se attitudes play a special role in cognition and analyze their relation to Frege’s puzzle. It discusses the question of whether de se attitudes play a special role in explaining action. The chapter discusses the claim that de se judgments are immune to error through misidentification.