Knowledge Of Other Minds Research Articles

The Window: Knowledge of Other Minds in Virginia Woolf's To The Lighthouse

then, she had asked herself, did one know one thing or another thing about people, sealed as they 1 Sitting to Mrs. Ramsay, close as she could (78), her arms around Mrs. Ramsay's knees, loving her intensely, Lily Briscoe wonders how to get inside her to see the sacred inscriptions in her heart, if one could spell them out, would teach one everything, but they would never be offered openly, never made public (79). She searches for a technique by which these internal tablets might be read: What art was there, known to love or cunning, by which one pressed through into those secret chambers? (79). The art eludes her, and yet she continues to long for it: How, then, she had asked herself, did one know one thing or another thing about people, sealed as they were? Only like a bee, drawn by some sweetness or sharpness in the air intangible to touch or taste, one haunted the domeshaped hive, ranged the wastes of the air over the countries of the world alone, and then haunted the hives with their murmurs and their stirrings; the hives, which were people (79-80).

Sympathy, Simulation, and the Impartial Spectator

Hume observed that our minds are mirrors to one another: they reflect one another's passions, sentiments, and opinions.' This "sympathy," or "propensity we have to sympathize with others, to ... receive by communication [the] inclinations and sentiments [of others], however different from, or even contrary to, our own," he held to be the chief source of moral distinctions.2 Hume presented an account of how this mirroring of minds works. After a brief presentation of the account, I will show how it needs to be updated and corrected in the light of recent empirical research. Then I will give some reasons to think that the mirroring of minds is more pervasive than even Hume had thought: that mirroring is an essential part of the way in which we think about other minds. Finally, I will make some remarks about the relevance of mirroring to ethics.

Visual Imagery as the Simulation of Vision

Abstract: Simulation Theory says we need not rely exclusively on prepositional knowledge of other minds in order to explain the actions of others. Seeking to know what you will do, I imagine myself in your situation, and see what decision I come up with. I argue that this conception of simulation naturally generalizes: various bits of our mental machine can be run‘off‐line’, fulfilling functions other than those they were made for. In particular, I suggest that visual imagery results when the visual system is run off‐line. I briefly review the empirical evidence and consider the philosophical implications, particularly concerning the mode of mental representation in imagery.

Sensations: A Defense of Type Materialism.

Preface Part I. Introduction: 1. Topics and themes Part II. The Mind-Body Problem: 2. The failings of dualism and the double-aspect theory 3. The failings of functionalism 4. In defense of type materialism Part III. Introspection: 5. Introspective awareness of sensations 6. Introspection and the skeptic Part IV. Sensory Concepts: 7. Concepts of bodily sensations: Their semantic properties 8. Concepts of visual sensations: Their content and their deployment Part V. Other Minds: 9. Knowledge of other minds 10. Unity of consciousness, other minds, and phenomenal space Index.

Interpretation, psychoanalysis, and the philosophy of mind.

I suggest that a conflict between two philosophical models of the mind so far unremarked in discussions of psychoanalysis is at the heart of questions about its status as a science, the objectivity of psychoanalytic interpretations, and the nature of the unconscious. In philosophy one model is embodied in the tradition of Descartes, Hobbes, Locke, Kant, among many others, which construes thought as prior to and independent of language. According to this tradition the mind is self-contained and mental contents or "ideas" are essentially subjective phenomena. It follows that knowledge of other minds and the material world is radically problematic. In the second and more contemporary model the phenomenon of meaning is dependent on interactions between minds, and between mind and the world. Since meaning is understood to be intrinsically social, so in an important sense is mind. I develop this second philosophic model, indicating its relevance for psychoanalysis. I also point out some of the contributions of psychoanalysis to philosophy of mind.

Our knowledge of other minds

Our knowledge of other minds

On the Road to Solipsism

The first task, in the philosophical therapy that opens the way to constructive appropriation of the theological tradition, must be to examine one’s notions of the soul. The very idea of the mind, let alone of the soul, has been eliminated by one powerful philosophical school — exemplified here by Quine. We are far more likely, however, to endorse, or unwittingly host, a certain incipient Solipsism. John Stuart Mill’s argument from analogy for our knowledge of other minds may be classical, but it is not free from objections. On the contrary, it only confirms the myth of the Little Man inside the shell of the body which it is intended to refute. The problem is not intra-theological. The difficulty of the relationship between mind and body, and between myself and others, may be illustrated by some quotations from Proust. This brings us to the threshold of a re-examination of the work of Wittgenstein on the philosophy of psychology — but his work is best read in the context of further work by John Wisdom and Stanley Cavell, two of his finest interpreters, in this matter at any rate.One line is to eliminate talk of the soul altogether. This could not satisfy Catholics, or any other Christians who regard themselves as obliged to make sense of the tradition which they have inherited. We may well feel strongly tempted by a Platonizing dualism that longs to release the soul from the barnacles and cirripeds with which it is encrusted in this present life (Republic, 612). But out and out behaviourism can have little attraction for people who find themselves at home, or even simply searching, within any Christian tradition. It is hard even for us to imagine what the allurements might be of any such strict materialist theory of consciousness. Quine’s eliminative physicalism will do as an example.

Nielsen and Penelhum an agents outside space

‘For the inference involved in our knowledge of other minds is not, after all, an inference to them as bodily existences…’ (H. D. Lewis)In his recent and typically thought-provoking paper, ‘On the Rationality of Radical Theological Non-Naturalism’, Kai Nielsen attacks those who, like Terence Penelhum, believe that ‘there is no good reason to think that we could not, with a little ingenuity, think up some non-theistic statements which would serve, if true, to put some theistic conclusions beyond reason-able doubt’.

Immediate knowledge of other minds

Immediate knowledge of other minds

Has Strawson Refuted Scepticism about Other Minds?

Professor P. F. Strawson is sometimes credited with having refuted scepticism with regard to knowledge of other minds. The thesis of this paper is that, in so far as the refutation of this sort of scepticism is its aim, Strawson's argument fails. The sceptic's claim is that one can ascribe states of consciousness only to oneself. Strawson's reply is that 'One can ascribe states of consciousness to oneself only if one can ascribe them to others' (96).1 His point here is

Inference and the Logical "Ought"

This paper is the beginning of an explication of the normative-descriptive or ought-is distinction by way of the notion that our knowledge of other minds is the result of our imposition of constraints on the interpretation of events as actions by agents. My hope is that a general theory of rationality and the normative can be derived from an examination of the constraints it is rational to impose on agent-interpretation, i.e., of the fundamental knowledge we have of persons as persons. My attempt at an explication of the ought-is distinction takes the following form: I want to find an absolutely general way of determining when ought-sentences are true. Since the extensions of the account given below to interesting cases of ought-sentences such as moral and prudential cases depend on relatively complicated constraints on agent-interpretation,l this paper will deal only with the simplest case of ought-sentences, the ought. logic is thought of as a normative science of belief, it yields one of the simplest cases of the normative-descriptive dichotomy. By the I understand what might be called consequences of the canons of obedience to the laws of thought. An instance of such an occurs in If you believe that frogs are green, you ought to believe that anything that's not green is not a frog. The is, as it were, the minimal rational ought, the one that prescribes closure of belief under logical consequence and proscribes inconsistency of belief. It should be pointed out that the principles of the often come into conflict with other canons of rationality, just as principles of moral oughts come into conflict with each other. The example above is surely true even if

God and other Minds

In my judgment Professor Plantinga's book' is the most important contribution to the philosophy of religion that has appeared in several decades. The book has three main parts: I. Natural Theology-a consideration of the cosmological, ontological, and teleological arguments; II. Natural Atheology-a consideration of the problem of evil, verificationism, and other attacks against theism; III. God and Other Minds-a consideration of the problem of our knowledge of other minds and the bearing of this problem on the question of the reasonableness of theistic belief. The central question of the book is whether belief in the existence of the theistic God is rational. Plantinga considers in Part I the arguments by which natural theology endeavors to establish that theistic belief is rationally justified. He concludes that these arguments are unsuccessful and, therefore, fail to provide rational grounds for theistic belief. In Part II Plantinga investigates the major arguments employed to show that we have good reasons for believing that God does not exist. His conclusion is that these arguments, like the arguments of natural theology, are unsuccessful. Plantinga's conclusions about natural theology and atheology are not novel. Other philosophers have reached the same conclusions. But few, in my judgment, have argued for these conclusions with anything like the thoroughness, clarity, and skill that Plantinga brings to the subject. The novelty in Plantinga's study of the rationality of theistic belief is unfolded in Part III. Instead of concluding that agnosticism is the rational view to adopt concerning the existence of the theistic

The problem of other minds

That there are sensations of pain, that pain occurs, that people have pains is a matter of fact. We know that we ourselves have pains and we know that others have pains. No speculation about the nature of sensations can be convincing, in the last analysis, if it is incompatible with this fact. This is not to say, of course, that it may not be interesting to restrict ourselves to possible internal inconsistencies or other similar weaknesses of such a view. Also, pains are felt and exist only in being felt; this is not a fact but a piece of grammar. Still, pains are felt, that is, people have pains; and this is a fact, the very same fact with which we began. These are simple, but important, matters. I wish to consider them more closely, with a view to canvassing the most prominent philosophical alternatives regarding our knowledge of other minds. For one thing, the items mentioned rule out solipsism; not because solipsism is a false or untenable belief but because it would disallow all possible beliefs we may hold regarding the sensations felt by others which are otherwise eligible within the game of facts sanctioned by our grammar. If solipsism were regarded as a belief, in the same sense in which I may believe you are in pain now, it would be upset by the fact of your pain. This would be too easy a victory; also, it would commit the solipsist to holding that it is not meaningless to speak of another's pain. If, on the other hand, solipsism is a philosophical thesis of another sort any other sort but a belief about the facts it would be irrelevant to insist that, as a matter of fact, people do have pains ; still, it would be crushing to insist that, as a matter of grammar, people may have pains and, in fact, do. What is baffling about solipsism is what it may be sup posed to have established. Having discarded a portion of our grammar and, therefore, all hope of investigating an entire sector of otherwise eligible factual questions, the solipsist disingenuously asks us to show him where he is mistaken. If he allowed the investigation, his beliefs would soon be shown to be mistaken ; but by a grammatical innovation alone, he disqualifies certain possible factual beliefs that we know perfectly well

Criteria, Analogy, and Knowledge of Other Minds

Criteria, Analogy, and Knowledge of Other Minds

Knowledge of Other Minds

Knowledge of Other Minds

One's Knowledge of Other Minds

Let us see how there comes to be a problem about one’s knowledge of other minds. Consider the following propositions: (1) When someone, other than myself, says that he is thinking about a philosophical problem, or that he has a headache, or that he has seen a ghost, what he is saying about himself is the same as what I should be saying about myself if I were to say that I was thinking about a philosophical problem, or that I had a headache, or that I had seen a ghost. (2) When I say of someone other than myself that he is thinking about a philosophical problem, or that he has a headache, or that he has seen a ghost, what I am saying about him is the same as what I should be saying about myself if I were to say that I was thinking about a philosophical problem, or that I had a headache, or that I had seen a ghost. (3) When I say that I am thinking about a philosophical problem, or that I have a headache, or that I have seen a ghost, my statement is not equivalent to any statement, or set of statements, however complicated, about my overt behaviour.

Julius Weinberg. Our knowledge of other minds. The philosophical review, vol. 55 (1946), pp. 555–563.

Julius Weinberg. Our knowledge of other minds. The philosophical review, vol. 55 (1946), pp. 555–563.

Our Knowledge of Other Minds

Our Knowledge of Other Minds

Our Knowledge of Other Minds

It is with some trepidation that I am raising again this old problem, for it may well be said that nothing new could possibly be written on it. On the other hand it can scarcely be maintained that what has been written has left the problem in a satisfactory state. Moreover, it seems to me that some work which has been done recently on the nature of theoretical physics can be used to dispose of most of the difficulties, and it is partly in the hope of drawing attention to that work and its bearings on psychology that I am writing this paper.

Our Evidence for the Existence of Other Minds

Inordinary life everyone assumes that he has a great deal of knowledge about other minds or persons. This assumption has naturally aroused the curiosity of philosophers; though perhaps they have not been as curious about it as they ought to have been, for they have devoted many volumes to our consciousness of the material world, but very few to our consciousness of one another. It was thought at one time that each of us derives his knowledge of other minds from the observation of other human organisms. I observe (it was said) that there are a number of bodies which resemble my own fairly closely in their shape, size, and manner of movement; I conclude by analogy that each of these bodies is animated by a