So I can only conclude that in all important respects, neither the presence nor absence of other minds is metaphysically conceivable. — sime

It is certainly conceivable - you've done that. But whether it is completely knowable - in a way that your logicism wants to demand - is another question.

So that goes to the issue of what counts as knowledge. As a Pragmatist, my view is that it is what you cannot doubt in your heart. It is what you would actually be willing to act upon in confidence.

So a Pragmatist admits to the possibility of eternal scepticism - doubt can never be absolutely eradicated. But meanwhile back here in the real world we are acting on the most ropey states of belief the whole time. And in that context, belief that other people are other minds - based on the behaviour and similarity we observe - seems one of our safer bets.

But then again there is a real issue as - due to the empathetic modelling you describe - we can jump to faulty conclusions. We can think a dog or cat has a self-aware kind of subjectivity "just like us" (it takes psychological science to tease out the truth there). Or going further back into traditional culture with its animism, we can believe even the wind and earthquakes are out to get us in some sentient fashion.

Alternatively, we can go the other way of not recognising self-hood in others when it is there. A person in a coma might actually still be aware. That curious looking savage that greets the missionary explorer might be just as much a fellow mind.

So yes, it is a business of projection. And empathy is a neurobiological resource that helps us in gathering the personal evidence when we seek to divide the world in that fashion - into the mindful and the mindless.

But only in the logicist's infinite regress of Cartesian doubt could we worry too much about the properness of projecting mental status on to our fellow humans as some kind of sane epistemic minimum.

The problem of other minds is frequently over-blown.

The analogical approach to 'other minds' is a common approach, but is beset by a problem which is equally often pointed out: what motivates the application of the analogy to begin with, if you did not already recognise the 'other mind' in the first place? In other words, aren't you simply assuming your conclusion?

So I can only conclude that in all important respects, neither the presence nor absence of other minds is metaphysically conceivable. — sime


It is certainly conceivable - you've done that. But whether it is completely knowable - in a way that your logicism wants to demand - is another question. — apokrisis

mmm... but I must protest again, do the habits of my social cognition really amount to metaphysical conceivability of other minds in themselves, given the fact i can neither imagine the presence nor absence of sensation in the third person?

What about children relating in earnest to dolls, robots, cartoon characters and teapots? does this mean that they have metaphysically conceived of objective idealism or pan-psychism? and isn't equating psychological attitude with metaphysical absolutes fraught, misleading and even potentially dangerous?

So that goes to the issue of what counts as knowledge. As a Pragmatist, my view is that it is what you cannot doubt in your heart. It is what you would actually be willing to act upon in confidence. — apokrisis

well it appears I have at least a choice between perceptual stances. I am free to perceive someone as a person as i naturally do and to feel empathy towards them in a pragmatic fashion, but I am also free to perceive them as a zombie in a critical fashion and to deconstruct their speech acts into acoustic blasts, and analyse away their appearance into moving edges and changing colour blobs. It appears that i have a freedom of stances, but without any means of epistemological justification for choosing one over the other. And in no event, can the stance I take tell me anything metaphysically, since what i interpret is strictly relative to the perspective of my a priori chosen stance.

The analogical approach to 'other minds' is a common approach, but is beset by a problem which is equally often pointed out: what motivates the application of the analogy to begin with, if you did not already recognise the 'other mind' in the first place? In other words, aren't you simply assuming your conclusion? — StreetlightX

Perhaps the stance I take towards other people is the starting point of the sense of my language and a necessary condition to be established prior to its meaning and use. In which case, the so called ontological question about other minds does not really concern the existence of other minds, surely an inconceivable interpretation of the question, that as you've additionally mentioned often leads to a circular answer. Rather it is a question concerning the psycho-linguistical grammar or stance that one should use in every day social interaction. Choose whichever stance you wish, either way, you're right!

What about children relating in earnest to dolls, robots, cartoon characters and teapots? — sime

As I said, we can over-project and under-project because it is only ever a habit of projection. We don't know (in some direct access way). But we can certainly believe. It is empirically reasonable.

And indeed it is socially necessary. Our introspective sense of self - our self-consciousness - is a culturally-evolved habit encoded in language. Awareness of "being a self" is born out of dialog with others. It is socially formed. So just to function in our social settings as humans, we have to have a "theory of mind". It is no accident that we thus do believe in the consciousness of others.

I am free to perceive someone as a person as i naturally do and to feel empathy towards them in a pragmatic fashion, but I am also free to perceive them as a zombie in a critical fashion and to deconstruct their speech acts into acoustic blasts, and analyse away their appearance into moving edges and changing colour blobs. — sime

Yes, logic always creates this kind of counterfactuality. For every sensible belief, there is its crazy opposite. That is automatic.

But it is one thing to talk about a crazy counterfactual and another to live by it. How far would you expect to get in treating your fellow humans as zombies? Does that really sound like a good plan? If it doesn't, then you must have other reasons or evidence that you have not yet brought to the table here.

Intersubjectivity doesn't amount to anything more than the fact that you can agree with and cooperate with other people on a behavioral level.

I'm not sure anyone has a mind, this issue has been bothering me lately. But I often know what other people are thinking even when they don't speak, or if they just grunt monosyllabically. I'm a student of other people, and so, as far as I can tell, are most of my fellows. If I didn't make a reasonable guess about the state of other people's thinking and feeling, most of the time, I don't see how I would live any kind of an orderly life.

One thing that tangles me up when thinking about other minds is that the whole question seems to assume that my experience of my own mind is unproblematic.

For example, if I am a solipsist, then I believe my mind to be the only reality. Other people are objects in my mind, so they're real, too. :s Whoops! Looks like this whole concept of "my own mind" ought to be examined.

The experience of the body is given in two ways; as an external perception (of other's bodies, or parts of my own body) and as an internal somato-sensory perception, the sense of inhabiting or being in a body, and being able to control its movements.

The brain is experienced only in the "external" way, only as an object that is revealed when the skull of another is opened. I do not experience my own brain.

Symmetrically with, but oppositely to, this the mind is experienced only in the internal way; it cannot be experienced as an external object, like the brain can, but only as the feeling of control I have over the actions of my body. That feeling of control is precisely what I call the mind. I can infer the existence of the minds of others by witnessing the obvious control they are able to assert over their bodies. If I say to someone "move your arm" (moving the other's arm is obviously something which I cannot mentally do) their possession of a mind is demonstrated by their ability to reliably carry out this request.

This is the extent of what is given to us in experience regarding the body, brain and mind. When it comes to the mind, what is thought about it is often unwarranted. The idea, for example, that the mind is the source of thought is unwarranted. It is more correct to say that the mind, being entirely a product, in the direct sense, of thinking and not of perception, is the product of thought and will (will being the directly experienced control of the body).

So, to return to the OP; of course intersubjectivity is metaphysically conceivable, due to the fact that I can prove to myself by requesting her to demonstrate it that the other is able to control her body. This shows me that she, just like me, has a mind, that she is a being just like me; and shows me not merely that intersubjectivity, which is really just mutually acknowledged agreement about what is experienced in common, is metaphysically conceivable; but that lack of intersubjectivity is metaphysically inconceiveable.

I tend to think along with Levinas, in this respect. While the problem of other minds wasn't his focus, if you accept that philosophy begins with the face-to-face encounter, then there just isn't really much of a question of other minds in the sense that we might wonder if this human is human like I am human. In the first respect, there is no question of their humanity, and in the second, you don't have access to the Other -- the Other is always other. There is no deduction that will prove some other's humanity is the same as yours, but you don't need it to be in order for you to recognize their humanity due to your encounter with the face-to-face.

Intersubjectivity is a curious beast to a particular line of thinking. But what I'm trying to get at here is that it's this line of thinking which is more fruitful to suspend and question -- the thinking where:

"

Mustn’t logical concepts be isomorphic to the structure of empirical observations to have sense and use value? — sime

is a question which makes sense to ask.