Other Minds

1. Other Minds

2. Skepticism Last time we talked about what might be called “global” skepticism– skepticism that anything at all can be known. We considered several responses to arguments for skepticism: accepting skepticism, accepting idealism, or simply denying that skeptical arguments have any force (Moore’s response).

3. Nobody’s a Skeptic Whatever we think about the particular responses to skepticism, most contemporary philosophers think that skepticism is neither very compelling nor very worrisome. We do know things, even if it’s difficult to say how that’s possible. This is part of Moore’s “common sense” legacy.

4. Local Skepticism In addition to “global” skepticism there are various “local” skepticisms: instead of claiming that you can’t know anything at all, a local skepticism says that you can’t know anything about a certain topic. For example, you might think that it was impossible to know anything about God, even though you could know lots of other things.

5. Global Skepticism Global skepticism presents arguments that apply generally to any claim. For example we saw that SextusEmpiricus thought that there were equal reasons for and against any claim. And Descartes argued that if we were being deceived by an Evil Demon, he could trick us about almost anything (except that we existed and that we had the experiences we did).

6. Local Skepticism Local skepticism instead focuses on specific features of the topic in question that are supposed to make knowledge about that topic impossible. For example, someone might claim that God is unknowable, because She transcends reason and logic, being their creator, or because the human mind is too weak, or because we can’t experience God directly.

7. Two Skepticisms In today’s class and next Monday’s class we are going to consider two different local skepticisms: Skepticism about Other Minds: We can’t ever know that other people have minds. Skepticism about Induction: We can’t ever know about unobserved phenomena.

8. Other minds: the problem

9. Asymmetry The way we have of finding out about our own minds is very different from the way we have of finding out about other people’s minds. To find out what I think, or feel, I might close my eyes and concentrate on my thoughts or sensations. This is called “introspection” which just means “looking inward.”

10. Asymmetry However, I can’t “look inward” at your thoughts and feelings. If I want to know what you think, I have to observe how you act, and what you say. The same is true if I want to know how you feel. This would be silly in the first-person case. I don’t have to look at how I act in order to find out what I believe.

11. Who Has a Mind? But does the fact that other people behave in certain ways really justify us in believing that they have minds? You presumably think that some things don’t have minds and some things do. Cats have minds, and maybe fish do too, probably not worms and definitely not bacteria, or rocks.

12. Who Has a Mind But how do you know these things? Panpsychists believe that everything has a mind, including trees and rocks and gamma radiation and empty regions of space. “A rock doesn’t have a mind,” you might say, “it doesn’t cry out when I kick it.” But the panpsychist can just say: “I said it had a mind, I didn’t say it had a mouth!”

13. Who Has a Mind? Or how do you know that cats have minds? Descartes, for instance, believed that only humans had minds, because the mind = the soul, and God had only given souls to humans. “The cat cried out when you kicked it– isn’t that proof that it feels pain?” “No,” Descartes would say, “I could build a robot that did that, and the robot wouldn’t feel pain.”

14. Philosophical Zombies A philosophical zombie (as opposed to the ordinary kind of zombie) is a thing that is in all respects exactly like a person– it eats, and sleeps, and drinks, and has conversations, and goes on dates. But it has no “inner life”– there’s nothing it’s like to be a zombie. It feels no pain (even though it cries out when you strike it), and it has no beliefs (even though it argues with you forcefully about various subjects).

15. The Epistemological Problem One way of stating the problem of other minds is just this: how do you know that other people aren’t philosophical zombies? What possible argument can you give for attributing mental states to them?

16. Local Skepticism This isn’t global skepticism– the claim isn’t that you can’t know anything. You might think that knowledge = justified true belief. And you can be justified in believing that you have hands, for example, because you see them. If it’s true that you have hands, then you know you have hands. The problem of other minds asks: what justifies you in believing other people have minds?

17. Unusual Justification If there is a justification, it can’t be an ordinary one: It’s not that you see, smell, taste, hear, or feel other people’s minds. And you don’t “directly” experience them either, in the way you do your own.

18. The Conceptual Problem In addition to the epistemological problem of other minds (“How do we know?”) there is also a conceptual problem of other minds: how do we even think of other minds than our own? My personal experiences allow me to think about my own mind, and the appearances of physical objects give me a way to think about them: but I don’t experience other minds, and they don’t cause appearances in me. How can I even think the thought “You have a mind”?

19. The Conceptual Problem That might sound a little weird. I know what it is for me to have a mind. So when I think “she has a mind” I am just saying that’s how it is for her. But the skeptic thinks this is a verbal trick. Wittgenstein famously remarked that it’s like saying “I know what it is for it to be 5:00pm in Hong Kong, therefore I know what it is for it to be 5:00pm on the sun.”

20. Analogy

21. Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)

22. Russell Bertrand Russell was a British aristocrat (the 3rd Earl Russell) who made lasting contributions to logic, mathematics, and philosophy. Together with G.E. Moore, he helped lead British philosophical thought away from Absolute Idealism towards a pluralistic realism.

23. Arguments from Analogy Russell’s suggested solution to the problem of other minds is an argument from analogy. According to Russell, the argument takes this form: Only A’s cause B’s I observe a B_________________________ Therefore, I know that B was caused by an A.

24. Thunder and Lightning Here’s an example that’s not about minds: Only lightning causes thunder. I hear some thunder in the distance (but I didn’t see any lightning)._______________________ Therefore, there must have been some unobserved lightning that was the cause of the thunder.

25. Analogy Argument for Other Minds And here’s how the argument works for minds: Premise 1: Only the sensation of thirst causes water-drinking behavior. Premise 2: That other person is drinking water (but I don’t experience their thirst).________ Conclusion: Therefore, that person’s water-drinking behavior was caused by an unobserved thirst.

26. New Analogy Argument Russell doesn’t explicitly say this, but he seems to suggest a different argument from analogy as well: All A’s cause B’s. I observe an A (but can’t observe B). Therefore, there was an unobserved B

27. New Analogy Argument Here’s how this might work for the mind: Premise 1: Walking through the desert for four hours with no water causes a sensation of thirst. Premise 2: That person walked through the desert for four hours with no water._________ Conclusion: That person is thirsty.

28. Both Arguments Together And we can combine the two forms of argument Premise 1: Walking in the desert causes thirst AND thirst causes drinking water. Premise 2: That guy walked in the desert AND drank water.___________________________ Conclusion: Therefore, that guy was thirsty.

29. Evaluating the Argument Premise 2 is obviously acceptable: as long as we’re not being global skeptics, we’ll be inclined to think that other people are in fact drinking when it looks like they are, or that they walked through the desert, when it looks like they did.

30. Russell’s Postulate What can be said in defense of premise 1? Russell proposes a postulate: “If, whenever we can observe whether A and B are present or absent, we find that every case of B has an A as a causal antecendent, then it is probable that most B’s have A’s as causal antecedents, even in the cases where observation does not enable us to know whether A is present or not.”

31. Russell’s Postulate So the idea is this. Only in my own case can I ever observe both a sensation of thirst and water-drinking behavior. (For others I can only observe drinking, not thirst). But every time I drank water, it was because I was thirsty. Therefore, I can conclude that most water drinking behavior is caused by sensations of thirst, even though I can’t observe them in other people.

32. Induction on One Instance Russell’s postulate seems to break down in certain scenarios. Suppose you haven’t been over to anyone else’s house, you’ve only been to your own house. At your house, everyone takes off their shoes at the door– nobody walks around at home with their shoes on. It doesn’t seem safe to conclude that at everybody else’s house everyone takes off their shoes. You’d need to look at more than just one house (yours) to conclude that.

33. Induction on One Instance Here’s another example. In the U.S., servers come to your table to take your order, ask you if you need refills, bring you the check, etc.– and you never have to call them over. In fact, Americans would probably think it was rude to call across the restaurant to get service. Suppose you’ve only ever lived in America. Can you conclude that this is how it is in every other country? It seems you’d need to look at more than just one country to draw that conclusion.

34. Induction on One Instance Russell wants us to conclude that certain sensations are usually present in others when they behave in certain ways, because that’s how it usually is for us. But if I’ve only ever looked at my mind, or my house, or my country, is that enough to draw a conclusion about everyone’s mind, or everyone’s house, or everyone’s country? No, I don’t think it is.

35. Only Thirst Russell needs to claim that thirst is the only cause of drinking water. If there are other causes, then you can’t infer from water-drinking to sensations of thirst. But aren’t there other causes? Sometimes you need to cleanse your palate, or you’re trying to prevent future thirst, or you’re just absentmindedly drinking because it’s there.

36. Complexity Increases Certainty Russell claims that the more complex the task is, the better the analogical argument is. So if you ask someone to solve a difficult mathematical problem, and they give you the right answer, you are safer in assuming that they did this in the same way as you would.

37. Really? But it would seem that the opposite is true. If I give a difficult problem to 30 different computer programmers, I’m liable to get 30 very different programs written in 30 very different programming languages. Why should we think that there’s not an entirely different set of complicated inner workings– not thoughts or feelings, as for us– in other people? Maybe they have a totally different complex way of operating.

38. Conclusion A lot of philosophers think that the argument from analogy just doesn’t work, because only looking at one instance (how things are for you), is not a good way to generalize about how things are in other instances, for other people. We are justified in believing in other minds, but that justification does not come from an analogical argument.

39. Conclusion The analogy viewpoint also leaves unsolved the conceptual problem of other minds. Here’s what Wittgenstein says: “If one has to imagine someone else’s pain on the model of one’s own, this is none too easy a thing to do: for I have to imagine pain which I do not feel on the model of the pain which I do feel.”

40. criteria

41. Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951)

42. Wittgenstein Ludwig Wittgenstein was the son of the second wealthiest man in the Habsburg Empire, the Austrian steel baron Karl Wittgenstein. His father wanted his sons to be part of his steel empire 3 (out of 5) of them committed suicide, and Ludwig gave away his entire inheritance. Wittgenstein was a student of Russell’s, and many consider him the only philosophical genius of the 20th Century.

43. Philosophical Confusion Wittgenstein thought that the ordinary analogical way we think of other people’s mental states (as being ‘like’ ours) doesn’t make sense. He thought that once you cleared up the confusion about what ‘That other person is in pain’ really means, you would find that obviously, we can know about other people’s minds.

44. Hume Next class when we study the problem of induction, we’ll talk about a famous skeptic, David Hume. But I’ll bring him up now just for some background. Hume thought there wasn’t a problem of other minds, because he thought that there was no evidence that I have a mind.

45. Hume against the ‘Self’ “For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular impression or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe anything but the perception.”

46. Denial of Minds What Hume denied was the picture on which there were thinkers and thoughts, or perceivers and perceptions: he argued that there were only thoughts and perceptions, not minds that had those things. His argument was that when you introspected, you found a bunch of thoughts, but you never found you– the thing that does the thinking.

47. Wittgenstein only published one book and one article in his lifetime, so most of what we know about his views is from his notes and other sources. G.E. Moore wrote about lectures Wittgenstein gave in 1930-1933.

48. It Thinks Moore writes, quoting Wittgenstein: ‘Just as no (physical) eye is involved in seeing, no Ego is involved in thinking or in having toothache’; and he quotes, with apparent approval, Lichtenberg’s remark that ‘instead of saying “I think” we ought to say “it thinks”’

49. The Cogito Again The idea is that Descartes was wrong when he concluded, “I think, therefore I am.” He thought he was certain of a self– himself– a thinker that did the thinking. But you don’t experience yourself, you just experience your thoughts and perceptions. You don’t see your eye when you look out in the world. So the only thing Descartes could really be sure of is not that he exists, but that thoughts were happening.

50. Nothing to Analogize What does this have to do with other minds? If we deny that thinking is a relation between a thinker and a thing thought, but instead maintain that there is just “thinking happening” or “no thinking happening,” then it is impossible to say that I have certain thoughts and experiences and so do other people. There are no selves, so no other minds to do the thinking.