 As Perry points out, he knew all along that the shopper with the torn sack was making a mess. He may also have believed that the oldest philosopher in the shop (in fact himself) was making a mess, yet failed to check his own cart since he falsely believed that Quine was at the Deli Counter. Indeed, it seems that for any non-indexical term a that denotes Perry, it is possible for Perry to fail to believe anything naturally expressed by the sentence “I am a”. If so, it is possible for Perry to rationally believe that a is making a mess without believing anything that he would express as “I am making a mess”. It was only when Perry came to believe that he himself was making a mess that he stopped the chase. Indeed, it would seem that only the first-personal content can provide an adequate explanation of Perry’s behaviour when he stops. If Perry had come to believe that John Perry is making a mess then, unless he also believed that he himself was John Perry, he would not have stopped. The first-personal content is “self-locating”, thereby enabling action, whereas the non-first-personal content is not. To use Kaplan’s (1977) example, if I believe that my pants are on fire, pure self-interest will surely motivate me do something about it. If, however, I believe that Smith’s pants are on fire, pure self-interest will only so motivate me if I also believe that I am Smith.