Perception, Evidence, and Our Expressive Knowledge Of
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What the Problem of Other Minds Really Tells Us About Descartes
What the Problem of Other Minds Really Tells us about Descartes Gideon Manning The College of William and Mary Ever since the first generation Cartesian Gerauld de Cordemoy wrote a self- standing book dedicated to the problem of other minds philosophers have proceeded as though Descartes’ work entails some version of the problem.1 In this paper I evaluate Descartes’ own contribution to creating and answering skepticism about other minds. It is my contention, first, that for most of his working life Descartes did not see the problem as distinct from the problem of the external world. Second, that when he was finally presented with the problem in a late letter from Henry More, Descartes looked not to behavior, but to a body’s origins as a guide to who does and does not have a mind. Specifically, the response Descartes offers to More appeals to a shared “nature,” something which has struck many readers as an ineffectual response, even as a response which begs the question. On the contrary, and this is my third contention, Descartes’ response is a fairly plausible one when read as utilizing the meaning of “nature” as complexio found in Meditation Six.2 Though it may be translated as “complex,” complexio is really a technical Latin term coming from the medical tradition, likely introduced into the lexicon at Salerno in the tenth- or eleventh-century. It means, roughly, a unique composition of elements or qualities distinguishing species (and individual members of a species) from one another. By emphasizing our shared complexio Descartes is telling More that having resolved the problem of the external world we can rely on God’s uniform action in the world to entail joining a mind to members of our species. -
Moral Reason
Moral Reason OXFORD PHILOSOPHICAL MONOGRAPHS Editorial Committee ANITA AVRAMIDES R. S. CRISP WILLIAM CHILD ANTONY EAGLE STEPHEN MULHALL OTHER TITLES IN THIS SERIES INCLUDE Nietzsche and Metaphysics Peter Poellner Understanding Pictures Dominic Lopes Things That Happen Because They Should: A Teleological Approach to Action Rowland Stout The Ontology of Mind: Events, Processes, and States Helen Steward Wittgenstein, Finitism, and the Foundations of Mathematics Mathieu Marion Semantic Powers: Meaning and the Means of Knowing in Classical Indian Philosophy Jonardon Ganeri Hegel’s Idea of Freedom Alan Patten Metaphor and Moral Experience A. E. Denham Kant’s Empirical Realism Paul Abela Against Equality of Opportunity Matt Cavanagh The Grounds of Ethical Judgement: New Transcendental Arguments in Moral Philosophy Christian Illies Of Liberty and Necessity: The Free Will Debate in Eighteenth-Century British Philosophy James A. Harris Plato and Aristotle in Agreement? Platonists on Aristotle from Antiochus to Porphyry George E. Karamanolis Aquinas on Friendship Daniel Schwartz The Brute Within: Appetitive Desire in Plato and Aristotle Hendrik Lorenz Moral Reason Julia Markovits 1 1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, ox2 6dp, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Julia Markovits 2014 The moral rights of the author have been asserted First Edition published in 2014 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. -
CHAPTER4: Private Language Argument and the Problem of Other Minds
84 CHAPTER4: Private Language Argument and the Problem of Other Minds The problem of other minds is an age old predicament in the history of philosophy. It existed during the time of Plato and still remains a quandary in philosophical discussions at length. We find in Plato's Theaetetus the question: "Are you quite certain that the several colours .appear to a dog or to any animal whatever as they appear to you? ... Or that anything appears the same to you as to another man?"lls This problem is a kind of other minds dilemma. The problem of other minds is found in Wittgenstein' s philosophy too. As far as Wittgenstein is concerned, the problem arises due to the self- centred perception of knowledge. When one thinks that he can have knowledge of his own psychological states and on that basis he constructs the world from his own private experiences or sense data, problem of other minds take place. This is a major issue which Wittgenstein strikes to resolve. This issue originally came up from the Cartesian Meditations where Descartes takes his own self as the being to doubt, by his method arrives at the conclusion that one has the best possible access to his own private self. Wittgenstein. believes that it is a ns Benjamin Jowett (tr.), Plato's Theaetetus: With Introduction and Analysis (Rockville, Maryland: Serenity Publishers, 2009), p. 102. 85 false idea to construct the world view in this way. His private language argument is related to the problem of other minds in a quite integrated way. -
The Problem of Other Minds: a Yoruba Hermeneutic Deconstruction of the Logical Behaviourist Approach
The Problem of Other Minds: A Yoruba Hermeneutic Deconstruction of the Logical Behaviourist Approach by Babalola Joseph Balogun [email protected] Department of Philosophy Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria : Abstract Using the hermeneutics of the Yoruba linguistic framework, the paper reconsiders the scepticism about other minds, especially from the logical behaviourist perspectives. As a theory, logical behaviourism equates other minds with the overt movements of other bodies. The paper advances arguments against logical behaviourism, particularly on the ground that it blurred our traditional concept of mind as something different from the body. The paper concludes by proposing a search for an appropriate methodological approach through which the logical behaviourist account could be improved to properly incorporate the role of the mind in the production of physical behaviour of the body. Keywords: Other Minds, Logical Behaviourism, Yoruba, hermeneutics Introduction Our intention in this paper is not to set out a theory of other minds that will explain the theoretical flaws inherent in the existing theories. Rather, it is a demonstration of the inadequacy of one of the earliest theories of other minds, namely, logical behaviourism. Hence, the paper is essentially a critique. This critique is basically aimed at arousing the need for a search for a better theory of other minds that will take into consideration some of the identified shortcomings of the existing theories, especially as they are somewhat reducible to the behaviourist attitude. It should be noted that such exercise is not new, as several contemporary commentators have amply shown. However, the novelty of the present paper derives from the fact that it is the first time an objection to any of the theories of other minds would be attempted using an African language, especially Yoruba language. -
Seeing Souls: Wittgenstein and Cavell on the “Problem of Other Minds”
Seeing Souls: Wittgenstein and Cavell on the “Problem of Other Minds” JÔNADAS TECHIO The human body is the best picture of the human soul. LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN, Philosophical Investigations […] not to believe there is such a thing as the human soul is not to know what the human body is […] CAVELL, The Claim of Reason Introduction The so-called “Part I” of Philosophical Investigations (PI) contains many claims con- cerning the grammar of psychological predicates, and particularly about the condi- tions for ascribing them to others. The following are some of the most well-known (and also most representative) among such claims: (i) “only of a living human being and what resembles (behaves like) a living human being can one say: it has sensa- tions; it sees; is blind; hears; is deaf; is conscious or unconscious”;1 (ii) “An ‘inner process’ stands in need of outward criteria.”2 The content of these and other kindred remarks has led a great number of readers to ascribe some kind of “externalistic”3 ac- count to the author of the Investigations. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, trans. P. M. S. Hacker and Joachim Schulte (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2009), §281. 2. Ibid., §580. 3. I mean this in a very broad sense, so as to cover many different attempts of including in the analysis of the content of (presumably “inner”) mental states some features of the subject’s larger. (“external”) environment, such as her behavior, her community’s standards, the constitution of the objects with which she relates, etc. CONVERSATIONS 1 64! Now, “externalism” comes in many flavors. -
The Elusive Origins of Consciousness: a Philosophical Argument for Panpsychism Over Competing Metaphysical Theories of Mind
Trinity College Trinity College Digital Repository Trinity Publications (Newspapers, Yearbooks, The Trinity Papers (2011 - present) Catalogs, etc.) 2019 The Elusive Origins of Consciousness: A Philosophical Argument for Panpsychism over Competing Metaphysical Theories of Mind Tommy Tobias Aahlberg Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/trinitypapers Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Aahlberg, Tommy Tobias, "The Elusive Origins of Consciousness: A Philosophical Argument for Panpsychism over Competing Metaphysical Theories of Mind". The Trinity Papers (2011 - present) (2019). Trinity College Digital Repository, Hartford, CT. https://digitalrepository.trincoll.edu/trinitypapers/79 The Elusive Origins of Consciousness: A Philosophical Argument for Panpsychism over Competing Metaphysical Theories of Mind Tommy Tobias Aahlberg Introduction Underpinning everything that constitutes our perceived reality is consciousness. The fact that there is something that it is like to be us is at the foundation of everything we consequently come to care about in our lives. Every observation, sensation, thought, and emotion is predicated on the phenomenon that there is something that it is like to observe, sense, think, and feel. The awareness and experience of a world is the essential factor that separates our universe from any conceivable zombie universe where nothing is observed, sensed, thought, or felt. Necessarily, we filter every single moment through our consciousness. If consciousness did not exist there would be no groundwork for meaning as it would hold no basis in any conceivable creature’s awareness, and therefore such a universe would be meaningless. Despite, or perhaps due to, its fundamental nature and important implications – consciousness is poorly understood by contemporary science and philosophy alike, at least in the theoretical sense of understanding. -
Mcdowell's Disjunctivism and Other Minds
MCDOWELL’S DISJUNCTIVISM AND OTHER MINDS Anil Gomes Birkbeck College, London Forthcoming, Inquiry [accepted 2010] John McDowell’s original motivation of disjunctivism occurs in the context of a problem regarding other minds. Recent commentators have insisted that McDowell’s disjunctivism should be classed as an epistemological disjunctivism about epistemic warrant, and distinguished from the perceptual disjunctivism of Hinton, Snowdon and others. In this paper I investigate the relation between the problem of other minds and disjunctivism, and raise some questions for this interpretation of McDowell. 1. Introduction In his ‘Criteria, Defeasibility and Knowledge’, John McDowell uses a debate about other minds, as raised in the context of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations, to motivate a disjunctive claim about those cases where things appear to a subject to be a certain way.1 In the recent focus on disjunctive theories in the philosophy of perception, a number of writers have moved to distance McDowell’s disjunctivism from the perceptual disjunctivism discussed and advocated by such writers as J.M. Hinton, Paul Snowdon and Mike Martin.2 The standard way of effecting such a distancing is by distinguishing McDowell’s ‘epistemological 1 [McDowell 1982], reprinted as [McDowell 1998a]. All references to this edition. 2 [Hinton 1973], [Snowdon 1980-1], [Martin 2002], [Martin 2004]. disjunctivism’ from the ‘metaphysical’ or ‘perceptual disjunctivism’ of Hinton, Snowdon and Martin, and concluding – as Byrne and Logue do – that ‘[McDowell’s] -
The You-Turn in Philosophy of Mind: on the Significance of Experiences That Aren’T Mine
THE YOU-TURN IN PHILOSOPHY OF MIND: ON THE SIGNIFICANCE OF EXPERIENCES THAT AREN’T MINE A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I AT MĀNOA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN PHILOSOPHY AUGUST 2018 By Joshua Stoll Dissertation Committee: Arindam Chakrabarti, Chairperson Vrinda Dalmiya Ronald Bontekoe Joseph Tanke Jesse Knutson Ashley Maynard Acknowledgements I could not have written this dissertation without the help and support of others, including my family, my friends, and my professors at the UH Mānoa Department of Philosophy. My parents Luci and Howie Stoll have always been there to unwaveringly support my endeavors. They have been a great source of love, inspiration, and guidance. I owe them everything I have become. My brother Adam and his wife Lisa and their kids have also been a great source of love, inspiration, and guidance. And I’m thankful that my nieces and nephew really got me moving on this project by playfully asking me every Thanksgiving (perhaps with some prodding from my parents) if I have finished it yet. In addition, I’d like to thank my fellow graduate student colleague-friends in the department, in particular: Matt Izor, Elyse Byrnes, Ben Zenk, Brandon Underwood, Jane Allred, and Joel Label. More particularly, out of this group, I’d like to thank Sydney Morrow for being a close friend and great officemate, as well as Ian Nicolay, for being a close friend and great roommate. Our camaraderie and support of each other, the community we formed, truly made me feel at home here in Hawai‘i. -
Park, Sam-Yel (1999) a Study of the Mind-Body Theory in Spinoza. Phd Thesis. Copyright and Moral R
Park, Sam-Yel (1999) A study of the mind-body theory in Spinoza. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/2040/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] A Study of the Mind-Body Theory in Spinoza Departmentof Philosophy University of Glasgow A Study of Theory in Spinoza the pffindýBody by Sam-Yel Park A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of Arts in Fulfilment of the Requirementsfor the degreeof Doctor of Philosophy June 1999 C Sam-Yel Park 1999 Abstract A Study of the Mind-Body Theory in Spinoza by Sam-Yel Park This thesis investigates Spinoza's mind-body theory starting with the discussion of the diverse interpretations of his mind-body theory such as hylomorphism.,idealism, epiphenomenalism,and materialism. From the critical comments on inadequaciesof these interpretations, it turns out that Spinoza's argumentof the relationshipbetween the mind and the body should be understood as holding that there is a non-causalrelationship between the mind and the body and that they have equal weight. -
Oxfordcolleges
Oxford colleges Oxford University is made up of different colleges. Colleges are academic communities. They are where students usually have their tutorials. Each one has its own dining hall, bar, common room and library, and lots of college groups and societies. If you study here you will be a member of a college, and probably have your tutorials in that college. You will also be a member of the wider University, with access to University and department facilities like laboratories and libraries, as well as hundreds of University groups and societies. You would usually have your lectures and any lab work in your department, with other students from across the University. There is something to be said for an academic atmosphere wherein everyone you meet is both passionate about what they are studying and phenomenally clever to boot. Ziad 144| Does it matter which college I go to? What is a JCR? No. Colleges have a lot more in common than Junior Common Room, or JCR, means two they have differences. Whichever college you go different things. Firstly, it is a room in college: to, you will be studying for the same degree at the a lively, sociable place where you can take time end of your course. out, eat, watch television, play pool or table football, and catch up with friends. The term Can I choose my college? JCR also refers to all the undergraduates in a college. The JCR elects a committee which Yes, you can express a preference. When you organises parties, video evenings and other apply through UCAS (see ‘how to apply’ on p 6) events, and also concerns itself with the serious you can choose a college, or you can make an side of student welfare, including academic ‘open application’. -
Why Neural Correlates of Consciousness Are Fine, but Not Enough
Vaas, R. (1999): Why Neural Correlates Of Consciousness Are Fine, But Not Enough. Anthropology & Philosophy volume 3, number 2, pages 121 - 141. http://www.swif.uniba.it/lei/mind/texts/t0000009.htm ______________________________________________________________________________ Rüdiger Vaas Institute of Philosophy, University of Stuttgart Institute of Zoology, University of Hohenheim e-mail: Ruediger.Vaas@t-online de Why Neural Correlates Of Consciousness Are Fine, But Not Enough Summary The existence of neural correlates of consciousness (NCC) is not enough for philosophical purposes. On the other hand, there's more to NCC than meets the sceptic's eye. (I) NCC are useful for a better understanding of conscious experience, for instance: (1) NCC are helpful to explain phenomenological features of consciousness – e.g., dreaming. (2) NCC can account for phenomenological opaque facts – e.g., the temporal structure of consciousness. (3) NCC reveal properties and functions of consciousness which cannot be elucidated either by introspective phenomenology or by psychological experiments alone – e.g., vision. (II) There are crucial problems and shortcomings of NCC: (1) Correlation implies neither causation nor identity. (2) There are limitations of empirical access due to the problem of other minds and the problem of self-deception, and (3) due to the restrictions provided by inter- and intraindividual variations. (4) NCC cannot be catched by neuroscience alone because of the externalistic content of representations. Therefore, NCC are not sufficient for a naturalistic theory of mind, (5) nor are they necessary because of the possibility of multiple realization. (III) Nevertheless, NCC are relevant and important for the mind-body problem: (1) NCC reveal features that are necessary at least for behavioral manifestations of human consciousness. -
Three Problems of Other Minds." Think 51 (Spring 2019): 63-75
1 "Three Problems of Other Minds." Think 51 (Spring 2019): 63-75. Three Problems of Other Minds Chad Engelland, University of Dallas Abstract: The traditional problem of other minds is epistemological. What justification can be given for thinking that the world is populated with other minds? More recently, some philosophers have argued for a second problem of other minds that is conceptual. How can we conceive of the point of view of another mind in relation to our own? This paper retraces the logic of the epistemological and conceptual problems, and it argues for a third problem of other minds. This is the phenomenological problem which concerns the philosophical (rather than psychological) question of experience. How is another mind experienced as another mind? The paper offers dialectical and motivational justification for regarding these as three distinct problems. First, it argues that while the phenomenological problem cannot be reduced to the other problems, it is logically presupposed by them. Second, the paper examines how the three problems are motivated by everyday experiences in three distinct ways. Key Words: Problem of Other Minds; Epistemology; Phenomenology; Motivation 2 Three Problems of Other Minds The traditional problem of other minds is epistemological. How can I know that there are other minds? Enthusiasm for this sort of question has waned in recent years, because the question can appear artificial or insoluble. Several philosophers have pointed to a second kind of question concerning other minds. The conceptual problem of other minds concerns how the concept of mind I have from experiencing one from the inside can be attributed to another whom I necessarily experience from the outside.