http://www.iep.utm.edu/s/solipsis.htm#H2
though the concern here is something less rather than what other people are thinking than whether other bodies are inhabited by minds to start with.
The philosophical debate on the existence of other minds has lost a lot of traction in European philosophy since Hegel, who argued that self consciousness depends necessarily on recognition of one's own self by another consciousness, and also undermined Descartes' "foundationalist" or build-things-up-from-indubitable-premises approach. In modern Anglo-American philosophy, the decline started later, and is probably attributable to the influence of the ideas of the later Wittgenstein, who has a quasi-Hegelian argument that (on one interpretation) you can't follow a rule, including one involving correct use of concepts, i.e., thinking, unless it's socially enforced so you're corrected if you err.
Btw there is a pointed joke I heard attributed to Russell, who, it was said, was asked at a soiree by a grand dame of some education whether he could prove there were other minds. "Certainly, Madame," Russell replied. "But to whom should I address this demonstration?"
I am not sure how this connects to the other minds issue raised here. It's one thing to doubt whether there a r other minds, it's another to to be able to "read" them -- to have enough empathy and understanding to put yourself in the place of another to see that person's point of view. You might be like me, absolutely certain that there are other minds, but pretty dense about picking up on how other people are thinking or feeling. On the other hand I have a friend who has so much empathy that she feels bad if I'm feeling bad and unconsciously suppressing it.
Btw, the idea that folk psychology, so called, is a theory is a different and more recent debate, basically one that arose not in response to skepticism bout other minds but to skepticism about _any_ minds -- a theory called "eliminativism" that got some play from the mid 1960s through the late 1980s.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/materialism-eliminative/
It was advocated, more or less, by people like WVO Quine and (formerly) Richard Rorty, more recently by Paul and Patricia Churchland, Stephen Stich (who ha\ve given it up). The idea was that we might end up dropping talk of beliefs and desires for superior (more accurate and predictive) purely neurochemical accounts of the explanation of behavior, and so psychology, and the idea of minds -- ours included -- might be refuted by scientific developments. I wrote part of my dissertation on this in the late 1980s and published a few papers touching on the subject.
The issue raised the question about whether "folk psychology" is a theory that was up for refutation and replacement like other scientific theories or was something else entirely. For example Donald Davidson thought that psychology is an a priori framework for regarding others as agents that is immune from scientific attack. Others doubted whether folk psychology was coherent enough to be a theory, or was a way of talking that was pragmatically useful for some purposes, but no more in competition with science than talk of tables and chairs, etc. Others, like Lynne R. Baker and Paul Boghossian argued that is was self-refuting the deny that minds (including one's own) existed -- but not on Cartesian grounds.
So anyway the issue of the truth of "folk psychology" (vs. eliminative materialism) as philosophers understand it is different from "the problem of other minds," now pretty much an obsolete issue, and both seem distinct from questions about empathy.
--- Jerry Monaco <monacojerry at gmail.com> wrote:
> By the way it might interest you to know that the
> first use of the idea of
> the "theory of mind" (it should be called "the
> theory of the other mind")
> was in primatology. The discovery that Chimps
> (later Bonobos) could
> actually orient things so that the point-of-view of
> another chimp (or human)
> was taken into account was considered a remarkable
> discovery. Essentially
> experiments have proved that chimps know when other
> chimps or humans don't
> know when things are hidden, etc. It was only after
> the notion of the
> "theory of mind" made its way through some of the
> primatology literature
> that it was picked up by philosophers.
>
> The beginnings of the theory of mind debate for any
> who are interested is
> well covered in Davies, M. and Stone T., eds., 1995,
> *Folk Psychology: The
> Theory of Mind Debate*.
>
> Given the origins of the idea that each of us has a
> theory of the other's
> mind I have always found it amusing how "theory of
> mind" has factored into
> the debate over "Animal Consciousness".
>
> Anyone who is interested in this can read this
> article in the Stanford
> Encyclopedia of Philosophy
>
>
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consciousness-animal/
>
>
>
> On 5/3/06, Jim Devine <jdevine03 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 5/3/06, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
> > > Wojtek suffers from a serious defect of
> imagination. He honestly cannot
> > > conceive, even hypothetically, of anyone
> disagreeing with him. Hence
> > > when someone doesm it has to be due to some
> character defect or
> > > dishonest motive...
> >
> > >The "theory of mind" is quite simply, the ability
> to think about
> > one's own mind and the mind of another. It is
> called a "theory"
> > because, at best, when we think about what may be
> going on in the mind
> > of another person it is an educated guess. Some
> people [including
> > Simon Baron-Cohen, cousin of Ali G] have referred
> to this ability as
> > "mind reading". Probably this is an accurate
> description.
> >
> > >[Neurotypical] Children as young as age three or
> four can already
> > "read minds". That is, they are able to know that
> others have
> > different thoughts than they do, they know that
> others may not know
> > everything they do, and they can guess what
> another may think or do
> > about something they do, say, or even think. They
> are not perfect at
> > this, hence you may get a child who makes up
> fantastic stories in
> > order to cover up what they actually did (e.g.,
> "The dog ate my
> > homework.").
> >
> > >How this applies to autism is that researchers
> have found the theory
> > of mind to be an area of deficiency for most
> people with autism and
> > Asperger's Syndrome. <
> >
> > [from
>
http://groups.msn.com/TheAutismHomePage/theoryofmind.msnw
> ]
> >
> > >[The theory of an absence of a] Theory of mind
> [among those with
> > autism] refers to the notion that many autistic
> individuals do not
> > understand that other people have their own plans,
> thoughts, and
> > points of view. Furthermore, it appears that they
> have difficulty
> > understanding other people's beliefs, attitudes,
> and emotions.
> >
> > >Many of the tasks used to test this theory have
> been given to
> > non-autistic children as well as children with
> mental retardation, and
> > the [lack of a] theory of mind phenomenon appears
> to be unique to
> > those with autism. In addition, [the presence or
> absence of] theory of
> > mind appears to be independent of intelligence
> even though people with
> > Asperger's syndrome exhibit this problem to a
> lesser degree.
> >
> > >Interestingly, people with autism have difficulty
> comprehending when
> > others don't know something. It is quite common,
> especially for those
> > with savant abilities [for example, those seen in
> the Dustin Hoffman
> > character in the fictional film "Rainman"], to
> become upset when
> > asking a question of a person to which the person
> does not know the
> > answer.
> >
> > >By not understanding that other people think
> differently than
> > themselves, many autistic individuals may have
> problems relating
> > socially and communicating to other people. That
> is, they may not be
> > able to anticipate what others will say or do in
> various situations.
> > In addition, they may have difficulty
> understanding that their peers
> > or classmates even have thoughts and emotions, and
> may thus appear to
> > be self-centered, eccentric, or uncaring.
> >
> > >Although this is an egocentric view of the world,
> there is nothing in
> > the [lack of a] theory of mind to imply that
> autistic individuals feel
> > superior to others. <
> >
> > [from "Theory of Mind" by Stephen M. Edelson,
> Ph.D., Center for the
> > Study of Autism, Salem, Oregon
> http://www.autism.org/mind.html]
> >
> > I am not saying that WS has autism or Asperger's
> Syndrome, since
> > e-mail tends to produce autistic tendencies in us
> all. And there is
> > nothing wrong with being autistic. After all, such
> luminaries as
> > Albert Einstein and Bill Gates may have (had) it.
> I have a tad of
> > autism (mild Asperger's syndrome) myself.
> > --
> > Jim Devine / "Economics is extremely useful as a
> form of employment
> > for economists." -- John Kenneth Galbraith.
> >
> > ___________________________________
> >
>
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Jerry Monaco's Philosophy, Politics, Culture Weblog
> is
> Shandean Postscripts to Politics, Philosophy, and
> Culture
> http://monacojerry.livejournal.com/
>
> His fiction, poetry, weblog is
> Hopeful Monsters: Fiction, Poetry, Memories
> http://www.livejournal.com/users/jerrymonaco/
>
> Notes, Quotes, Images - From some of my reading and
> browsing
> http://www.livejournal.com/community/jerry_quotes/
> > ___________________________________
>
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com