Other Minds

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now that
there are not, and never can be, any theories that prove demonstratively
that other minds exist, or that I know others’ mental states. This is not
what should be aimed at in attempting to solve the problem. As Austin puts
it "To suppose that the question ‘How do I know that Tom is angry?’ is
meant to mean ‘How do I introspect Tom’s feelings?’ is simply barking up
the wrong gum-tree."

Most philosophers agree that their theories only bestow a greater or
lesser amount of probability onto statements about other minds (although
there are exceptions, e.g. Peter Strawson’s attempt to argue
transcendentally for the existence of other minds through our own self-
consciousness). There have been a number of different attempts to do this.
J.S. Mill, who produced the first known formulation of the Other Minds
problem, used the so-called ‘Argument from Analogy’ both to explain how we
come to believe in other minds and to justify this belief. Briefly, the
argument holds that I am directly ...

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circumstances under
which I would be able to ascertain whether or not the human who is
expressing anger-behaviour really is angry or not. And as Norman Malcolm
has pointed out, as there are no conceivable criteria I could use to
determine whether someone is angry or not, simply claiming that they are
angry is a meaningless statement.

Many philosophers, perceiving this fatal flaw in the argument from analogy,
have attempted to produce theories on other minds that are not based on
analogy. Malcolm himself held that the problem lies in the belief that in
looking for evidence of other minds, we need to start off from our own
case and then look for evidence that other cases resemble my ...

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