Other Minds

167 Pages·1995·7.7 MB·English

by  Alec Hyslop (auth.)

OTHERMINDS
SYNTHESE LffiRARY
STUDIES IN EPISTEMOLOGY,
LOGIC, METHODOLOGY, AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
Managing Editor:
JAAKKO HINTIKKA, Boston University
Editors:
DIRK VANDALEN, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands
DONALD DAV IDSON, University of Califomia, Berkeley
THEO A.F. KUIPERS, University of Groningen, The Netherlands
PAT RICK SUPPES, Stanford University, Califomia
JAN WOLENSKI, Jagiellonian University, Krak6w, Poland
VOLUME246
ALECHYSLOP
La Trobe University, Melboume
OTHERMINDS
Springer-Science+Business Media, B.V.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hyslop, Alec.
Other minds I Alec Hyslop.
p. cm. -- (Synthese library ; v. 246)
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.
1. Other minds <Theory of knowledge) I. Title. II. Series.
BD213.H97 1995
121'.2--dc20 94-41364
ISBN 978-90-481-4497-6 ISBN 978-94-015-8510-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-015-8510-1
Printed on acid-free paper
All Rights Reserved
© 1995 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 1995.
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1s t edition 1995
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and
retrieval system, without written permission from the copyright owner.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface vii
Introduction 1
1. What is the problem 5
2. Who has the problem of other minds? 15
3. Other minds and scientific inference 29
4. The analogical inference to other minds 41
5. Criteria and other minds 71
6. The "old" private language argument and
other minds 93
7. The "new" private language argument:
Kripstein's new form of scepticism 105
8. "Wittgenstein's" "attitudinal approach" to
other minds 121
9. Strawson on other minds 131
Notes 141
References 151
Index 155
PREFACE
This book has been a long time in the making. Other issues have
taken me away from it from time to extended time. But I kept coming
back to the problem of other minds. It has remained a great issue, it is
much contested still, and it is, after all, elose to us all. I like believing
that the time taken has deepened my understanding of the problem and how
it is to be handled.
Other people, some by disagreeing vehemently, have helped greatly.
I mention in particular, Brian Ellis, Robert Fox, Graeme Marshali, Tim
Oakley, Ray Pinkerton and Robert Young. Robert Pargetter argued with
me, and kept insisting that I write this book. John Bigelow, Michael
Bradley, Keith Campbell, Frank Jackson, and William Lycan assisted by
reading an earlier version and providing valued comments. Frank Jackson
has been specially helpful, not just on this topic. He can be blamed for
initially causing me to take the analogical inference seriously. Tbe La
Trobe Philosophy Department has been a good place to do philosophy.
I am grateful to Suzanne Hayster, Sandra Paul, and Betty Pritchard
for struggling at various times with various recalcitrant manuscripts.
Most particularly I thank Gai Larkin. She has seen the project through,
with considerably more than efficiency.
Finally, Alison, Michael, Sandy, and Zoo have profoundly enriched
both me and my understanding of other minds. My father provided an
enduring philosophical example for me, though I have only recently come
to recognise this. I end with my thanks to Diane. She has not allowed
philosophy to come between uso
INTRODUCTION
"To return to Francoise ... if then in my anger at the thought of
being pitied by her I lried to pretend that on the contrary I bad scored
a distinct suecess, my lies broke feebly on the wall of her respectful
but obvious unbelief. . . . For she knew the truth." - Proust.
" ... it was she who fust gave me the idea that a person does not (as I
bad imagined) stand motionless and clear before our eyes with bis
merits, his defects, bis plans, his intentions with regard to ourself
an
exposed on his surface, like a garden at wbieh, with its horders
spread out before us, we gaze through a railing, but is a shadow,
whieh we can never succeed in penetrating, of wbieh there can be no
sueh thing as direct knowledge, with respect to which we form
countless beliefs, based upon his words and sometimes upon his
actions, though neither word nor actions can give us anything but
inadequate and as it proves contradictory information - a shadow
behind wbich we can altemately imagine, with equal justification,
that there bums the flame of hatred and of love." -Proust.l
Most people find at least some other people mysterious. Some
people find at least some others transparent. Some people are perhaps
mysterious to some and transparent to others. Some people find all others
mysterious. Perhaps there are some who find allother people
transparentlyon view, though that seems (significantly) much more
doubtful. Most of us, however, fmd that some people are more difticult
than others to understand and people in general are more difticult to
understand at some times than at others. Mostly, we get by weH enough,
sometimes regretting, sometimes welcoming, the degree of difficulty that
attends the business of fathoming the actions of other people.
an
In this it is not doubted though, that there are, indeed, other
people, be they varyingly mysterious, transparent, or whatever. Outside of
an
professional scepticism oe psychopathology, we are sure that we are not
alone. Other human figures are, at least to an extent, sufficiently as we
are. We are sure they too engage in thinking, reasoning, doubting and
believing. We are sure they feel siek, feel pain, feel happy and so on,
from time to time.
But what entitles us to such sureness? How is our belief that we are
not alone justified? Here sureness gives way to uncertainty. There is no
2 INTRODUCTION
generally accepted answer. It is not even clear that. generally, people have
their own answer. Our confidence seems undisturbed. Neither the lack of
general agreement nor the absence of apersonal view shakes our general
sureness.
This sureness both suggests that we are, indeed. justified in our
sureness and demands that we need to be justified, personally, each of us.
Whether or not the answer has been articulated, by anyone, it needs to be
available to us all, in principle, and "internalised" by each of US, in fact. It
must give us a secure ground for our believing in others, sustain the
sureness. It need not, though, be a matter of its having caused us to
believe, initially. The answer needs to be what keeps us going, not what
got us started. The available answers have to meet this test, sustain the
sureness.
It would. after all, be extraordinary, and fascinating, Ü there were no
justification (and this could be demonstrated). Some would be terrified,
some, perhaps, exhilarated. Some philosophers think it would make no
difference. We would go on undisturbed. Much more interestingly, they
think that would be the right thing to do. They even seem to have an
argument, of sorts, which is that this extraordinary situation is the actual
situation.
How far does our sureness extend? If we are sure that other human
beings think and feel, ache and yearn, are we sure they think and feel, ache
and yearn as we do? Are their pains as ours are? Is our sunflower their
sunflowec?
I think most of us think the answer to each of these questions is yes,
thougb not everyone thinks so. I think most people are also sure the
answer is yes, if they think it is yes. So we (generally) look for a
justification for this particular sureness.
Various justifications are on offer. The traditional analogical
inference appealing to the similarity between ourselves and others bas long
been out of favour. The essential element in that inference is the primacy
of one's own case, whicb makes it a generalisation from one case. The
essential thrust of the "scientific inference" approach is to avoid just that
primacy and, therefore, that generalisation. That (scientific) approacb
treats other minds as theoretical entities and seems to be the approacb
currently, and increasingly, in favour. However, those wbo support it,
though numerous, rarely venture into peint.
These two, the old-fasbioned analogical inference and the new
scientific inference seem to me to be tbe real cboices. The others seem to
me to faiI. These are the various criterialist views, the private language
position (old and new), and Strawson's. It is often claimed that these are
significantly different from the previous two, being "dissolutions" of the
problems of other minds rather than solutions. That is not true of all of
INTRODUCTION 3
them. But they all of them can be seen as providing a reason for believing
that there are other people. Wbat is common to the "failures" is the idea
that it is incoherent for each of us to think there is a problem. But if so, a
justification for believing in other people is surely that it would be
incoherent to believe otherwise. So they can all be viewed as arguments
justifying belief in other minds. Of course, nothing follows about their
being in fact a justification utilised by uso Indeed, on this view the
ordinary person is in fact, justified, given the incoherence of any
alternative, while being seen, given that incoherence, as not requiring
justification.
I sball be defending the analogical inference as basically right. I
shall argue, also, that none of the alternatives wort. In particular, treating
other minds as theoretical entities, the "scientific inference", does not do
the job unless one makes crucial use of one's own case. That is always
needed to sustain the beliefs we have about other people.
The alternatives threaten the analogical inference from without The
threat from within is the reliance each of us has on our own case. That
has in more recent times seemed to almost all philosophers a fatal defect.
Its adherents have tried to extricate themselves by claiming their inference
is not, when properly understooo. a generalisation from one case. I am
sure that it is indeed a generalisation from one case but that it is none the
worse for that. The old analogical inference basically remains a good
argument. It does the job. So I sball defend resolutely aversion of the
analogical inference and reject, successively, tbe alternatives. Tbat
inference will be defended as a generalisation from one case. There is no
escaping that dependence on our own C8Se.
CHAPTER ONE
WHAT IS THE PROBLEM?
Wbat generates the problem of other minds? Is it tbat we live and
die alone? Some would thint that a surprising thought given the number
of death-bed scenes in literature. One of the things that might be more
plausibly meant by dying alone is tbat no Olle else can, by dying with me,
share my death. To be less poignant, no one eise can share my toothache.
But no one else can share my smile, my cover drive, my pitching, my
swimming. Tbere is, however, a problem of other toothaches but no
problem of other smiles. So living and dying alone, so understood,
whether or not a problem, is a different problem.
Is it tbat we cannot observe the mental states of others? That is not
the problem, for two reasons. Tbe flfSt is that though we generally do not
observe the mental states of others, it is not clear that it is impossible to
do so. Telepathyand various forms of healing might be instances of such
observation. They are frequently thought to be.
Tbe second reason is the more important. Were 1 to observe
another's pain, that would not help me with my problem. What would be
needed would be my observing it ~ the pain of another. It would need to
be "labelIed" . 1 should have to know that what I observed was, indeed,
being feIt by someone eise.
Take the case of "Siamese" twins Fred and George who "share" a leg.
It comes about that they have a pain in their big toe. Each feels pain.
There are various ways to describe the mental typology of these twins with
their pain. One way, certainly, is to view the situation as one where they
are sharing a pain. So each has a pain, the same pain. Each feels pain,
the same pain. Fred feeIs George's pain and George feeIs Fred's pain, there
being but one pain, which each feels, and each Gointly) owns.
Given our immediate interest, in what generates the other minds
problem, it does not matter that there are other ways of classifying this
case. Nor does it matter tbat this particular way be regarded as plausible or
5