There are muddles which, once noticed, seem to be simple until you try to straighten them out; they provoke a kind of stammering as when something looms large and obvious but you can't find the words for it. The 'I' in consciousness would seem to be an instance of such a muddle. Isn't it clear that there's nothing we know better but can't in the least explain? Well, there's actually a plethora of explanations, and many of these are implicit in the ways we use the term, but none of them hold up under scrutiny. Take three versions of the 'I': the inexplicit functional 'I' of purposive action, the explicit 'I' of verbal self-explanation, of giving an account of yourself, and the latent and pervasive sense of self, the 'I-I' centred in the heart. Of the first we can say that it is as homely and practical as your favouite saucepan, it is the kitchen-sink 'I', the working man's 'I'. The second is intermittent, it arises when multiple strands of reflexive intentionality coalesce and the resulting unified intentional self steps onto the stage. It soliloquises at best, or otherwise just speaks its lines; it can be fantastically and convincingly eloquent, but then melts away after the show and may never reappear in the same role. The third is usually ignored and anyway can't be ordered to appear. It is nevertheless what makes self-reference possible, is the elusive remainder of semantics that can't be entirely subsumed by syntax, and without which all the proud syntactical monstrosities would collapse in a heap of rubble. As long as we can't separate these three and only apply to each the connotations that belong only to it, then the muddle will persist.