The other minds problem in early Heidegger

Abstract

In Being and Time, Heidegger seems to have gotten the other minds problem backwards?taking it as obvious that we are in the midst of an intersubjective or "public" world and struggling with the question of how (in some sense) we come to know ourselves (given intersubjectivity, how to find an "I" or individuate myself). In what follows, I will try to make sense of Heidegger's backwardness here; to piece together the somewhat sketchy treatment of the traditional problem which prepares the way for his move in the opposite direction. Heidegger's discussion of our knowledge of others in Being and Time consists largely of brief and scattered remarks which look like conclusions without argument.l One is tempted to join Sartre in his charge that Heidegger has "solved" the philosophical problem by simply defining human existence as coexistence and awarding, without justification, privileged status to our ordinary beliefs.2 I will argue that Heidegger cannot be dismissed so easily. By placing his remarks about our encountering of others into the context ofthe theory ofthe nature of things and the world which emerges from earlier sections o? Being and Time, I will try to show that Heidegger offers a substantial criticism of, and a plausible alternative to, the traditional account ofthe relation of self to others which leads to the other minds problem. Being and Time represents, at least in part, Heidegger's response to Husserl's suggestion that a complete characterization of the "natural standpoint" (or attitude) would be a task of great importance?though one which Husserl could not take time to pursue, the more pressing task being the