ABSTRACT
Touraine is a region in France where supposedly the purest French is spoken. You go for a visit to check it out. At the edge of a forest, a remnant of a thickly forested Gaul, you meet a man who tells you: “I am René Descartes.” If you are a native speaker of the same language, you will know that this man has also said, in other circumstances, “I think, therefore I am.” Going into the woods, you begin to meditate on this strange homology, that is, to realize that independent of circumstance, this man expressed his identity with the immutable personal pronoun “I”: “I think …”, “I am.” You yourself have done the same thing, and in other circumstances as well. You have never referred to yourself any differently, except when talking to your young children; then instead of saying “I” you said “Papa” or “Mama”. Sometimes you may have said “your servant” instead of “I”, but that was only for fun.
