Wittgenstein on Other Minds

2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-116
Author(s):  
Kailashkanta Naik ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
The Other ◽  
Other Minds ◽  
Private Language ◽  
Private Language Argument ◽  
Novel Approach ◽  
Other Minds Problem ◽  
Problem Of Other Minds

When philosophy of mind goes into every detail in explaining about consciousness and its every aspect, the problem of other minds being its part is not spared. In such context going against the traditional way of giving justification Wittgenstein novel approach to other minds is remarkable and is close to the phenomenological understanding. The analysis of the sensation of pain as one of its important factors in solving the other minds problem is unique and it is this that proves how Wittgenstein dissolves the problem rather than giving a solution. This article focuses Wittgenstein’s two important factors: Private Language Argument and the concept of the sensation of pain in dissolving the issue. And in this I have made an attempt to show how his novelty in approaching this problem gains importance even today.

THREE PROBLEMS OF OTHER MINDS

Think ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (51) ◽  
pp. 63-75
Author(s):  
Chad Engelland
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
Other Minds ◽  
Traditional Problem ◽  
The World ◽  
Problem Of Other Minds ◽  
Conceptual Problems ◽  
Everyday Experiences

The traditional problem of other minds is epistemological. What justification can be given for thinking that the world is populated with other minds? More recently, some philosophers have argued for a second problem of other minds that is conceptual. How can we conceive of the point of view of another mind in relation to our own? This article retraces the logic of the epistemological and conceptual problems, and it argues for a third problem of other minds. This is the phenomenological problem which concerns the philosophical (rather than psychological) question of experience. How is another mind experienced as another mind? The article offers dialectical and motivational justification for regarding these as three distinct problems. First, it argues that while the phenomenological problem cannot be reduced to the other problems, it is logically presupposed by them. Second, the article examines how the three problems are motivated by everyday experiences in three distinct ways.

scholarly journals Two Epistemological Arguments against Two Semantic Dispositionalisms

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Guardo
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
The Other ◽  
Private Language

Even though he is not very explicit about it, in Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language Kripke discusses two different, albeit related, skeptical theses – the first one in the philosophy of mind, the second one in the metaphysics of language. Usually, what Kripke says about one thesis can be easily applied to the other one, too; however, things are not always that simple. In this paper, I discuss the case of the so-called “Normativity Argument” against semantic dispositionalism (which I take to be epistemological in nature) and argue that it is much stronger as an argument in the philosophy of mind than when it is construed as an argument in the metaphysics of language.

Can Robots Be Conscious?

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
Arthur S. Reber
Keyword(s):  
Thought Experiment ◽  
The Other ◽  
Philosophical Argument ◽  
Other Minds ◽  
Chinese Room ◽  
Other Minds Problem

The long-standing philosophical argument generally known as “hardware independent functionalism” is presented. This position maintains that consciousness is at its heart computational and any artifact that carried out all the causal functions of a mind would become conscious. This position is critiqued and shown to be hopelessly flawed. There is a long discussion on the “other minds” problem (i.e., “How do we know whether another entity, organism, person is in fact conscious?”). Included is an equally long review of Tom Nagel’s famous question (“What’s it like to be a bat?”) applied to robots and this is followed up with a review of John Searle’s “Chinese Room”—a thought experiment, now over 35 years old, which lays bare the futility of the functionalist’s position. It is acknowledged that there is a firm, almost compelling tendency to endow artifacts like human-appearing robots with sentience, and the reasons for this are discussed. The chapter ends with a summary.

Between Two Solitudes: Self-Deception, Consciousness and the Other Mind

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Barbour
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Other Minds ◽  
Problem Of Other Minds

This chapter takes up a number of issues around the question of secrecy and deception that have vexed recent analytic philosophers, and shows how Derrida might contribute to the debates. In particular, if focuses on ‘the problem of other minds’, and takes Derrida’s reading of Gadamer as a way into that problem.

Die ethische Bedeutung des Skeptizismus

2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bernhard Stricker
Keyword(s):  
Crucial Role ◽  
The Other ◽  
Other Minds ◽  
Ethical Dimension ◽  
Stanley Cavell ◽  
Theoretical Relationship ◽  
The World ◽  
Respective Treatment ◽  
Problem Of Other Minds

The paper undertakes a comparison of the philosophies of Stanley Cavell and Emmanuel L_vinas, focusing on their interpretation of skepticism and the crucial role of the problem of the other or other minds in the works of both. The comparison proceeds in three major steps: first, differences in their respective interpretations of Descartes’ stance on the problem of other minds are discussed. In the second section, Cavell’s examination of the intelligibility of someone else’s pain and L_vinas’ questioning of the sense of suffering are juxtaposed. Finally, the author analyzes their respective treatment of skepticism. This results in the opening of an ethical dimension which grounds the dominating theoretical relationship towards the world and the other human being in epistemology and ontology. The periodical return and irrefutability of skepticism can thus be regarded not only as evidence of the inevitable limitation of knowledge, but as a consequence of the necessarily social or intersubjective structure of subjectivity itself.

The Principle of Conservatism in Cognitive Ethology

2001 ◽  
Vol 49 ◽  
pp. 225-238 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elliott Sober
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Identity Theory ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Turing Test ◽  
Other Minds ◽  
Cognitive Ethology ◽  
University Courses ◽  
Problem Of Other Minds ◽  
The Mind

Philosophy of mind is, and for a long while has been, 99% metaphysics and 1% epistemology. Attention is lavished on the question of the nature of mind, but questions concerning how we know about minds are discussed much less thoroughly. University courses in philosophy of mind routinely devote a lot of time to dualism, logical behaviourism, the mind/brain identity theory, and functionalism. But what gets said about the kinds of evidence that help one determine what mental states, if any, an individual occupies? Well, Skinner's puritanical disdain for postulating mental states gets raked over the coals, the problem of other minds gets solved by a perfunctory invocation of the principle of inference to the best explanation, and the Turing test gets discussed, mainly in order to emphasize that it can lead to mistaken answers.

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