egocentric particular a word whose denotation is determined by identity of the speaker and/or the time, place, and audience of his utterance. Examples are generally thought to include ‘I,’ ‘you’, ‘here’, ‘there’, ‘this’, ‘that’, ‘now’, ‘past’, ‘present’, and ‘future’. The term ‘egocentric particular’ was introduced by Russell in An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth (1940). In an earlier work, ‘The Philosophy of Logical Atomism’ (Monist, 1918–19), Russell called such words ’emphatic particulars.’ Some important questions arise regarding egocentric particulars. Are some egocentric particulars more basic than others so that the rest can be correctly defined in terms of them but they cannot be correctly defined in terms of the rest? Russell thought all egocentric particulars can be defined by ‘this’; ‘I’, for example, has the same meaning as ‘the biography to which this belongs’, where ‘this’ denotes a sense-datum experienced by the speaker. Yet, at the same time, ‘this’ can be defined by the combination ‘what I-now notice’. Must we use at least some egocentric particulars to give a complete description of the world? Our ability to describe the world from a speaker-neutral perspective, so that the denotations of the terms in our description are independent of when, where, and by whom they are used, depends on our ability to describe the world without using egocentric particulars. Russell held that egocentric particulars are not needed in any part of the description of the world. See also CAUSAL THEORY OF PROPER NAMES , INDEXICAL , TOKEN -REFLEXIV. P.Mar.