Solipsism Iep

8/13/2019 Solipsism Iep

1/21

Solipsism and the Problem

of Other Minds

http://www.iep.utm.edu/solipsis/

1. Solipsism is sometimes expressed as the view that I am the only mind

which exists, or My mental states are the only mental states.

However, the sole survivor of a nuclear holocaust might truly come to

elieve in either of these propositions without therey eing a solipsist.

!. Solipsism is therefore more properly regarded as the doctrine that, in

principle, existence means for me my existence and that of my mental

states. "xistence is everything that I experience # physical o$ects,

other people, events and processes # anything that would commonly e

regarded as a constituent of the space and time in which I coexist with

others and is necessarily construed y me as part of the content of my

consciousness.

%. &or the solipsist, it is not merely the case that he elieves that his

thoughts, experiences, and emotions are, as a matter of contingent fact,

the only thoughts, experiences, and emotions. 'ather, the solipsist can

attach no meaning to the supposition that there could e thoughts,

experiences, and emotions other than his own. In short, the true

solipsist understands the word pain, for example, to mean my pain.

He cannot accordingly conceive how this word is to e applied in any

sense other than this exclusively egocentric one.
http://www.iep.utm.edu/solipsis/http://www.iep.utm.edu/solipsis/


2/21

1. (he Importance of the )rolem

1. *o great philosopher has espoused solipsism. +s a theory, if indeed it

can e termed such, it is clearly very far removed from common sense.

In view of this, it might reasonaly e ased why the prolem of

solipsism should receive any philosophical attention. (here are two

answers to this -uestion. &irst, while no great philosopher has explicitly

espoused solipsism, this can e attriuted to the inconsistency of much

philosophical reasoning. Many philosophers have failed to accept the

logical conse-uences of their own most fundamental commitments and

preconceptions. (he foundations of solipsism lie at the heart of the view

that the individual gets his own psychological concepts thining, willing,

perceiving, and so forth./ from his own cases, that is y astraction

from inner experience.

!. (his view, or some variant of it, has een held y a great many, if not

the ma$ority of philosophers since 0escartes made the egocentric search

for truth to the primary goal of the critical study of the nature and limits

of nowledge.

%. In this sense, solipsism is implicit in many philosophies of nowledge andmind since 0escartes and any theory of nowledge that adopts the

artesian egocentric approach as its asic frame of reference is

inherently solipsistic.

2. Second, solipsism merits close examination ecause it is ased upon

three widely entertained philosophical presuppositions, which are

themselves of fundamental and wide3ranging importance. (hese are4 a/

5hat I now most certainly are the contents of my own mind 6 my

thoughts, experiences, affective states, and so forth.7 / (here is no

conceptual or logically necessary lin etween the mental and the

physical. &or example, there is no necessary lin etween the

occurrence of certain conscious experiences or mental states and the

possession and ehavioral dispositions of a ody of a particular ind7


3/21

and c/ (he experiences of a given person are necessarily private to that

person.

8. (hese presuppositions are of unmistaale artesian origin, and are

widely accepted y philosophers and non3philosophers alie. In tacling

the prolem of solipsism, one immediately grapples with fundamental

issues in the philosophy of mind. However spurious the prolem of

solipsism per se may strie one, these latter issues are un-uestionaly

important. Indeed, one of the merits of the entire enterprise is the

extent that it reveals a direct connection etween apparently

unexceptionale and certainly widely3held common sense eliefs and

the acceptance of solipsistic conclusions. If this connection exists and

we wish to avoid those solipsistic conclusions, we shall have no option

ut to revise, or at least to critically review, the eliefs from which they

derive logical sustenance.


4/21

!. Historical 9rigins of the )rolem

1. In introducing methodic dout into philosophy, 'en: 0escartes

created the acdrop against which solipsism suse-uently developed

and was made to seem, if not plausile, at least irrefutale. &or the ego

that is revealed y the cogito is a solitary consciousness, a res cogitans

that is not spatially extended, is not necessarily located in any ody, and

can e assured of its own existence exclusively as a conscious mind.

0iscourse on Method and the Meditations/.

!. (his view of the self is intrinsically solipsistic and 0escartes evades the

solipsistic conse-uences of his method of dout y the desperate

expedient of appealing to the enevolence of ;od. Since ;od is no

deceiver, he argues, and since He has created man with an innate

disposition to assume the existence of an external, pulic world

corresponding to the private world of the ideas that are the only

immediate o$ects of consciousness, it follows that such a pulic world

actually exists. Sixth Meditation/. (hus does ;od ridge the chasm

etween the solitary consciousness revealed y methodic dout and the

intersu$ective world of pulic o$ects and other human eingsritish

empiricist tradition.

2. 0escartes= account of the nature of mind implies that the individual

ac-uires the psychological concepts that he possesses from his own

case, that is that each individual has a uni-ue and privileged access to

his own mind, which is denied to everyone else.

8. +lthough this view utili?es language and employs conceptual categories


5/21

the individual, other minds, and so forth./ that are inimical to

solipsism, it is nonetheless fundamentally conducive historically to the

development of solipsistic patterns of thought. 9n this view, what I

now immediately and with greatest certainty are the events that occur

in my own mind 6 my thoughts, my emotions, my perceptions, my

desires, and so forth. 6 and these are not nown in this way y anyone

else. >y the same toen, it follows that I do not now other minds in the

way that I now my own7 indeed, if I am to e said to now other minds

at all 6 that they exist and have a particular nature 6 it can only e on

the asis of certain inferences that I have made from what is directly

accessile to me, the ehavior of other human eings.

@. (he essentials of the artesian view were accepted y Aohn Boce, the

father of modern >ritish empiricism. 'e$ecting 0escartes= theory that

the mind possesses ideas innately at irth, Boce argued that all ideas

have their origins in experience. 'eflection that is introspection or

inner experience/ is the sole source of psychological concepts.

5ithout exception, such concepts have their genesis in the experience

of the corresponding mental processes. "ssay oncerning Human

Cnderstanding II.i.2ff/. If I ac-uire my psychological concepts yintrospecting upon my own mental operations, then it follows that I do

so independently of my nowledge of my odily states. +ny correlation

that I mae etween the two will e effected suse-uent to my

ac-uisition of my psychological concepts. (hus, the correlation etween

odily and mental stated is not a logically necessary one. I may discover,

for example, that whenever I feel pain my ody is in$ured in some way,

ut I can discover this factual correlation only after I have ac-uired the

concept pain. It cannot therefore e part of what I mean y the word

pain that my ody should ehave in a particular way.


6/21

%. (he +rgument from +nalogy

1. 5hat then of my nowledge of the minds of others< 9n Boce=s view

there can e only one answer4 since what I now directly is the

existence and contents of my own mind, it follows that my nowledge of

the minds of others, if I am to e said to possess such nowledge at all,

has to e indirect and analogical, an inference from my own case.

!. (his is the so3called argument from analogy for other minds, which

empiricist philosophers in particular who accept the artesian account

of consciousness generally assume as a mechanism for avoiding

solipsism. ompare A. S. Mill, 5illiam Aames, >ertrand 'ussell, and +. A.

+yer/.

%. 9serving that the odies of other human eings ehave as my ody

does in similar circumstances, I can infer that the mental life and series

of mental events that accompany my odily ehavior are also present in

the case of others. (hus, for example, when I see a prolem that I am

trying unsuccessfully to solve, I feel myself ecoming frustrated and

oserve myself acting in a particular way. In the case of another, I

oserve only the first and last terms of this three3term se-uence and, onthis asis, I infer that the hidden middle term, the feeling of

frustration, has also occurred.

2. (here are, however, fundamental difficulties with the argument from

analogy. &irst, if one accepts the artesian account of consciousness,

one must, in all consistency, accept its implications. 9ne of these

implications, as we have seen aove, is that there is no logically

necessary connection etween the concepts of mind and ody7 my

mind may e lodged in my ody now, ut this is a matter of sheer

contingency. Mind need not ecome located in ody. Its nature will not

e affected in any way y the death of this ody and there is no reason

in principle why it should not have een located in a ody radically

different from a human one. >y exactly the same toen, any correlation


7/21

that exists etween odily ehavior and mental states must also e

entirely contingent7 there can e no conceptual connections etween

the contents of a mind at a given time and the nature andDor ehavior

of the ody in which it is located at that time.

8. (his raises the -uestion as to how my supposed analogical inferences to

other minds are to tae place at all. How can I apply psychological

concepts to others, if I now only that they apply to me< (o tae a

concrete example again, if I learn what pain means y reference to

my own case, then I will understand pain to mean my pain and the

supposition that pain can e ascried to anything other than myself will

e unintelligile to me.

@. If the relationship etween having a human ody and a certain ind of

mental life is as contingent as the artesian account of mind implies, it

should e e-ually easy 6 or e-ually difficult 6 for me to conceive of a

tale as eing in pain as it is for me to conceive of another person as

eing in pain. (he point, of course, is that this is not so. (he supposition

that a tale might experience pain is a totally meaningless one, whereas

the ascription of pain to other human eings and animals that, in their

physical characteristics andDor ehavioral capailities, resemle humaneings is something which even very young children find unprolematic.

Budwig 5ittgenstein, )hilosophical Investigations, I. E !F2/.

G. How is this to e accounted for< It will not do, in this context, to simply

respond that a tale does not have the same complex set of physical

characteristics as a human ody or that it is not capale of the same

patterns of ehavior as a human ody. >ecause the artesian position

implies that there is no logical connection etween the mental and the

physical, etween the possession of a ody of a particular ind and the

capaility for consciousness. )hysical differentiation can and must e

acnowledged, ut it can play no role in any explanation of what it is to

have a mental life.

F. I am surrounded y other odies, some of which are similar to mine, and


8/21

some of which are different. 9n artesian principles such similarities

and such differences are irrelevant. (he -uestion as to whether it is

legitimate for me to ascrie psychological predicates to entities other

than myself, which the argument from analogy is designed to address,

cannot hinge on the ind of ody that I am confronted at a given time.

Malcolm, *. a//.

. +ssuming the validity of the artesian position, we have to infer that it

maes as much or a little sense, on these premises, to attriute any

psychological predicate to another human eing as it does to attriute it

to a tale or a roc.

1.9n these premises, it maes no sense to attriute consciousness to

another human eing at all. (hus on strict artesian principles, the

argument from analogy will not do the wor that is re-uired of it to

ridge the gulf etween my conscious states and putative conscious

states that are not mine. Cltimately, it must e confessed that on these

principles I now only my own mental states and the supposition that

there are mental states other than my own ceases to e intelligile to

me. It is thus that solipsism comes to seem inescapale.

11.If the aove argument is valid, it demonstrates that the acceptance ofthe artesian account of consciousness and the view that my

understanding of psychological concepts derives, as do the concepts

themselves, from my own case leads inexoraly to solipsism. However, it

may fairly e said that the argument accomplishes more than $ust this. It

can, and should, e understood as a reductio ad asurdum refutation of

these artesian principles. Jiewed from this perspective, the argument

may e paraphrased as follows4

1!.If there is no logical connection etween the physical and the mental, if

the physical forms no part of the criteria that govern my ascription of

psychological predicates, then I would e ale to conceive of an

inanimate o$ect such as a tale as having a soul and eing conscious.

>ut I cannot attach any intelligiility to the notion of an inanimate


9/21

o$ect eing conscious. It follows therefore that there is a logical

connection etween the physical and the mental4 the physical does form

part of the criteria that govern my ascription of psychological words.


10/21

2. (he )hysical and the Mental

1. 5hat then is this logical connection etween the physical and the

mental< (his -uestion can est e answered y reflecting, for example,

on how a cartoonist might show that a particular tale was angry or in

pain. +s indicated aove, it is impossile to attach literal meaning to the

assertion that a given inanimate o$ect is angry or in pain, ut clearly a

certain imaginative latitude may e allowed for specific purposes and a

cartoonist might conceivaly want to picture a tale as eing angry for

humorous reasons.

!. 5hat is significant in this connection, however, is that to achieve this

effect, the cartoonist must picture the tale as having human features 6

the pictured tale will appear angry to us only to the extent to that it

possesses the natural human expression of anger. (he concept of anger

can find purchase in relation to the tale only if it is represented as

possessing something lie a human form. (his example demonstrates a

point of -uite fundamental importance4 so far from eing ac-uired y

astraction from my own case, from my own inner mental life, my

psychological concepts are ac-uired in a specifically intersu$ective,social, linguistic context and part of their meaning is their primary

application to living human eings. (o put this slightly differently, a

person is a living human eing and the human person in this sense

functions as our paradigm of that which has a mental life7 it is precisely

in relation to their application to persons that we learn such concepts as

consciousness, pain, anger, and so forth. +s such, it is a necessary

and antecedent condition for the ascription of psychological predicates

such as these to an o$ect that it should possess a ody of a particular

ind.

%. 5ittgenstein articulated this point in one of the centrally important

methodological tenets of the Investigations4 9nly of a living human eing

and what resemles ehaves lie/ a living human eing can one say4 it


11/21

has sensations7 it sees7 is lind7 hears7 is deaf7 is conscious or

unconscious. I. E !F1/.

2. onse-uently, the elief that there is something prolematic aout the

application of psychological words to other human eings and that such

applications are necessarily the products of highly fallile inferences to

the inner mental lives of others, which re-uire something lie the

argument from analogy for their $ustification, turns out to e

fundamentally confused. (he intersu$ective world that we live with

other human eings and the pulic language3system that we must master

if we are to thin at all are the primary data, the proto3phenomena,

in 5ittgenstein=s phrase. I. E @82/ 9ur psychological and non3

psychological concepts alie are derived from a single linguistic

fountainhead. It is precisely ecause the living human eing functions as

our paradigm of that which is conscious and has a mental life that we

find the solipsistic notion that other human eings could e

automatons, machines devoid of any conscious thought or experience,

i?arre and ewildering. (he idea that other persons might all in reality

e automatons is not one which we can seriously entertain.


12/21

8. Knowing 9ther Minds

1. 5e are now in a position to see the essential redundancy of the

argument from analogy. &irst, it is a misconception to thin that we

need any inferential argument to assure us of the existence of other

minds. Such an assurance seems necessary only so long as it is assumed

that each of us has to wor outwards from the interiority of hisDher

own consciousness, to astract from our own cases to the internal

world of others.

!. +s indicated aove, this assumption is fundamentally wrong 6 our

nowledge that other human eings are conscious and our nowledge of

their mental states at a given time is not inferential in nature at all, ut

is rather determined y the pulic criteria that govern the application of

psychological concepts. I now that a person who ehaves in a particular

way 6 who, for example, gets red in the face, shouts, gesticulates,

speas vehemently, and so forth 6 is angry precisely ecause I have

learned the concept anger y reference to such ehavioral criteria.

(here is no inference involved here. I do not reason he ehaves in this

way, therefore he is angry 6 rather ehaving in this way is part ofwhat it is to e angry and it does not occur to any sane person to

-uestion whether the individual who acts in this way is conscious or has

a mental life. Investigations, I. E %%7 II. iv., p. 1GF/.

%. Second, ecause the argument from analogy treats the existence of the

mental lives of other living human eings as prolematic, it sees to

estalish that it is legitimate to infer that other living human eings do

indeed have mental lives, that each one of us may e said to e $ustified

in his confidence that he is surrounded y other persons rather than

automatons. (he difficulty here, however, is that the argument

presupposes that I can draw an analogy etween two things, myself as a

person and other living human eings, that are sufficiently similar to

permit the analogous comparison and sufficiently different to re-uire it.


13/21

(he -uestion must e faced, however, is how or in what respects am I

different from or similar to other human eings< (he answer is that I am

neither. I am a living human eing, as are these others. I see aout me

living human eings and the argument from analogy is supposed to allow

me to infer that these are persons lie myself. However, the truth is

that I have no criterion for discriminating living human eings from

persons, for the very good reason that persons are living human eings 6

there is no conceptual difference etween the two. Since the argument

acnowledges that I now living human eings directly, it therey

implicitly acnowledges that I now other persons directly, thus maing

itself functionally redundant. Malcolm, *. op. cit./.

2. + final, fre-uently3encountered o$ection to the argument from analogy

derives from the wor of Strawson and Malcolm4 the argument attempts

to move inferentially from my supposed direct nowledge of my own

mental life and inner states to my indirect nowledge of the mental

states of others. It thus presupposes that I now what it means to assign

mental states to myself without necessarily nowing what it means to

ascrie them to others. (his is incoherent. (o spea of certain mental

states as eing mine in the first place is to discriminate them frommental states that are not mine and these, y definition, are the mental

states of others. It follows, therefore, that in a fundamental sense the

argument from analogy cannot get off the ground4 one cannot now how

to ascrie mental states to oneself unless one also nows what it means

to ascrie mental states to others.

8. )lausile as this o$ection seems at first sight, it is ironically, on

5ittgensteinian criteria/ -uite mistaen. &or it is not the case that when

I am in pain I first identify the pain and suse-uently come to recogni?e

that it is one that I, as distinct from someone else, have. (he personal

pronoun I in the locution I am in pain is not the I of personal

individuation 6 it does not refer to me or discriminate me as a pulicly

situated person as distinct from others. (he >lue >oo and >rown


14/21

>oos, pp. @G3@7 also Investigations, I. E 2@/. (he exponent of the

argument from analogy is not guilty of the charge of presupposing the

very thing that he is endeavoring to demonstrate, as oth Strawson and

Malcolm suggest. 5ittgenstein in fact considered that there is a genuine

asymmetry here, in relation to the ascription of psychological predicates

to oneself and to others, which is dimly perceived ut misrepresented y

those who feel the need of the argument from analogy. 5hereas one

ascries psychological states to others y reference to odily and

ehavioral criteria, one has and re-uires no criteria at all to self3ascrie

or self3avow them. Investigations, I. E !F3!/.

@. (hus the exponent of the argument from analogy sees, -uite correctly,

that present3tense, first3person psychological assertions such as I am in

pain differ radically from third3person psychological predicate

ascriptions, ut thins of the former as descriptions of inner mental

states to which he alone has a privileged access. (his is crucially wrong.

Such uses of the word I as occur in present3tense, first3person

psychological assertions do not identify a possessor7 they do not

discriminate one person from amongst a group. +s 5ittgenstein puts it,

to say I have pain is no more a statement aout a particular personthan moaning is. (he >lue >oo and >rown >oos, p. @G7 also

Investigations, I. E 22./.

G. (o ascrie pain to a third party, on the other hand, is to identify a

concrete individual as the possessor of the pain. 9n this point alone

5ittgenstein concurs with the exponent of the argument from analogy.

However, 5ittgenstein here calls attention to the fact that the

asymmetry is not one that exists etween the supposedly direct and

certain nowledge that I have of my own mental states as distinct from

the wholly inferential nowledge which, allegedly, I have of the mental

states of others. 'ather, the asymmetry is that the ascriptions of

psychological predicates to others re-uire criterial $ustificatory grounds,

whereas the self3avowals or self3ascriptions of such predicates are


15/21


16/21

@. (he )rivacy of "xperience

1. 5hat then of solipsism< (o what extent does the foregoing undermine it

as a coherent philosophical hypothesis, aleit one in which no3one really

elieves< Solipsism rests upon certain presuppositions aout the mind

and our nowledge of mental events and processes. (wo of these, the

thesis that I have a privileged form of access to and nowledge of my

own mind and the thesis that there is no conceptual or logically

necessary lin etween the mental and the physical, have een dealt

with aove. If the foregoing is correct, oth theses are false. (his leaves

us with the final presupposition underlying solipsism, that all

experiences are necessarily that is logically/ private to the individual

whose experiences they are. (his thesis 6 which, it is fair to say, is very

widely accepted 6 also derives from the artesian account of mind and

generates solipsistic conclusions y suggesting that experience is

something that, ecause of its occult or ephemeral nature, can never

literally e shared. *o two people can ever e said to have the same

experience. (his again introduces the prolem of how one person can

now the experiences of another or, more radically, how one can nowthat another person has experiences at all.

!. 5ittgenstein offers a comprehensive criti-ue of this view. He attacs the

notion that experience is necessarily private. His arguments against this

are complex, if highly compressed and rather oracular. &or more

detailed accounts, see Kenny, +., Malcolm, *. /, Johra, +./.

%. 5ittgenstein distinguishes two senses of the word private as it is

normally used4 privacy of nowledge and privacy of possession.

Something is private to me in the first sense if only I can now it7 it is

private to me in the second sense if only I can have it. (hus the thesis

that experience is necessarily private can mean one of two things, which

are not always discriminated from each other with sufficient care4 a/

only I can now my experiences or / only I can have my experiences.


17/21

5ittgenstein argues that the first of these is false and the second is true

in a sense that does not mae experience necessarily private, as follows4

2. Cnder a/, if we tae pain as an experiential exemplar, we find that the

assertion 9nly I can now my pains is a con$unction of two separate

theses4 i/ I can/ now that I am in pain when I am in pain and ii/ other

people cannot now that I am in pain when I am in pain. (hesis i/ is,

literally, nonsense4 it cannot e meaningfully asserted of me that I now

that I am in pain. 5ittgenstein=s point here is not that I do not now

that I am in pain when I am in pain, ut rather that the word now

cannot e significantly employed in this way. Investigations, I. E !2@7 II.

xi. p. !!!/. (his is ecause the veral locution I am in pain is usually

though not invarialy/ an expression of pain 6 as part of ac-uired pain3

ehavior it is a linguistic sustitute for such natural expressions of pain

as groaning. I. E !22/. &or this reason it cannot e governed y an

epistemic operator. (he prepositional function I now that x does not

yield a meaningful proposition if the variale is replaced y an

expression of pain, linguistic or otherwise. (hus to say that others learn

of my pains only from my ehavior is misleading, ecause it suggests

that I learn of them otherwise, whereas I don=t learn of them at all 6 Ihave them. I. E !2@/.

8. (hesis ii/ 6 other people cannot now that I am in pain when I am in

pain 6 is false. If we tae the word now is as it is normally used, then

it is true to say that other people can and very fre-uently do now when

I am in pain. Indeed, in cases where the pain is extreme, it is often

impossile to prevent others from nowing this even when one wishes to

do so. (hus, in certain circumstances, it would not e unusual to hear it

remared of someone, for example, that a moan of pain escaped him 6

indicating that despite his efforts, he could not ut manifest his pain to

others. It thus transpires that neither thesis i/ nor ii/ is true.

@. If we turn to /, we find that 9nly I can have my pains expresses a

truth, ut it is a truth that is grammatical rather than ontological. It


18/21

draws our attention to the grammatical connection etween the

personal pronoun I and the possessive my. However, it tells us

nothing specifically aout pains or other experiences, for it remains true

if we replace the word pains with many other plural nouns e.g. 9nly

I can have my lushes/. +nother person can have the same pain as me.

If our pains have the same phenomenal characteristics and

corresponding locations, we will -uite correctly e said to have the

same pain. (his is what the expression the same pain means. +nother

person, however, cannot have my pains. My pains are the ones that, if

they are expressed at all, are expressed y me. >ut y exactly the same

grammatical/ toen, another person cannot have my lushes, snee?es,

frowns, fears, and so forth., and none of this can e taen as adding to

our stocpile of metaphysical truths. It is true that I may delierately

and successfully eep an experience to myself, in which case that

particular experience might e said to e private to me. >ut I might do

this y articulating it in a language that those with whom I was

conversing do not understand. (here is clearly nothing occult or

mysterious aout this ind of privacy. Investigations, II. xi, p. !!!/.

G. Similarly, experience that I do not or cannot eep to myself is notprivate. In short, some experiences are private and some are not. "ven

though some experiences are private in this sense, it does not follow

that all experiences could e private. +s 5ittgenstein points out, 5hat

sometimes happens could always happen is a fallacy. It does not follow

from the fact that some orders are not oeyed that all orders might

never e oeyed. &or in that case the concept order would ecome

incapale of instantiation and would lose its significance. I. E %28/.


19/21

G. (he Incoherence of Solipsism

1. 5ith the elief in the essential privacy of experience eliminated as

false, the last presupposition underlying solipsism is removed and

solipsism is shown as foundationless, in theory and in fact.

!. 9ne might even say, solipsism is necessarily foundationless, for to mae

an appeal to logical rules or empirical evidence the solipsist would

implicitly have to affirm the very thing that he purportedly refuses to

elieve4 the reality of intersu$ectively valid criteria and a pulic, extra3

mental world. (here is a temptation to say that solipsism is a false

philosophical theory, ut this is not -uite strong or accurate enough. +s

a theory, it is incoherent. 5hat maes it incoherent, aove all else, is

that the solipsist re-uires a language that is a sign3system/ to thin or

to affirm his solipsistic thoughts at all. ;iven this, it is scarcely

surprising that those philosophers who accept the artesian premises

that mae solipsism apparently plausile, if not inescapale, have also

invarialy assumed that language3usage is itself essentially private. (he

cluster of arguments 6 generally referred to as the private language

argument 6 that we find in the Investigations against this assumptioneffectively administers the coup de grLce to oth artesian dualism and

solipsism. I. E !!7 !2!3%18/. Banguage is an irreducily pulic form of

life that is encountered in specifically social contexts. "ach natural

language3system contains an indefinitely large numer of language3

games, governed y rules that, though conventional, are not aritrary

personal fiats. (he meaning of a word is its pulicly accessile/ use in a

language. (o -uestion, argue, or dout is to utili?e language in a

particular way. It is to play a particular ind of pulic language3game.

(he proposition I am the only mind that exists maes sense only to the

extent that it is expressed in a pulic language, and the existence of

such language itself implies the existence of a social context. Such a

context exists for the hypothetical last survivor of a nuclear holocaust,


20/21

ut not for the solipsist. + non3linguistic solipsism is unthinale and a

thinale solipsism is necessarily linguistic. Solipsism therefore

presupposes the very thing that it sees to deny. (hat solipsistic

thoughts are thinale in the first instance implies the existence of the

pulic, shared, intersu$ective world that they purport to call into

-uestion.

F. 'eferences and &urther 'eading

+yer, +. A. (he )rolem of Knowledge. )enguin, 18@.

>ec, K. 0e re >elief and Methodological Solipsism, in (hought and

9$ect 6 "ssays in Intentionality ed. +. 5oodfield/. larendon )ress, 1F!.

0ancy, A. Introduction to ontemporary "pistemology. >lacwell, 1F8.

0escartes, '. 0iscourse on Method and the Meditations trans. &. ".

Sutcliffe/. )enguin, 1@F.

0evitt, M. 'ealism and (ruth. >lacwell, 1F2.

Hacer, ).M.S. Insight and Illusion. 9.C.)., 1G!.

Aames, 5. 'adical "mpiricism and a )luralistic Cniverse. ".). 0utton, 1G1.

Kenny, +. 5ittgenstein. )enguin, 1G%.

Boce, A. "ssay oncerning Human Cnderstanding ed. +.. &raser/, 0over,18.

Malcolm, *. a/ )rolems of Mind4 0escartes to 5ittgenstein, +llen N

Cnwin, 1G1.

Malcolm, *. / (hought and Knowledge. ornell Cniversity )ress, 1GG.

Mill, A.S. +n "xamination of Sir 5illiam Hamilton=s )hilosophy. Bongmans

;reen @th ed./, 1FF.

9liver, 5.0. + Soer Boo at Solipsism, Studies in the (heory of

Knowledge ed. *. 'escher/. >lacwell, 1G.

)inchin, . Issues in )hilosophy. Macmillan, 1.

Ouine, 5.J. a/ (he Scope of Banguage in Science, (he 5ays of )aradox

and 9ther "ssays. 'andom House, 1@@.

Ouine, 5.J. / "pistemology *aturali?ed, 9ntological 'elativity and


21/21

9ther "ssays. olumia Cniversity )ress, 1@.

'ussell, >. Human Knowledge4 Its Scope and Bimits. +llen N Cnwin, 12F.

Strawson, ).&. Individuals, an "ssay in 0escriptive Metaphysics. Methuen,

18.

Johra, +. 5ittgenstein=s )hilosophy of Mind. room Helm, 1F@.

5ittgenstein, B. a/ (he >lue >oo and >rown >oos, >lacwell, 1G!.

5ittgenstein, B. / )hilosophical Investigations. >lacwell, 1G2.

+uthor Information

Stephen ). (hornton

"mail4 stephen.thorntonPmic.ul.ie

Cniversity of Bimeric, Ireland

Bast updated on 9ctoer !2, !2 Q ategories4 Mind N ognitive Science

Solipsism Iep

Documents

Transcript of Solipsism Iep