The problem of other minds has traditionally been regarded as an epistemological challenge raised by the skeptic. The challenge may be expressed as follows: given that I can only observe the behaviour of others, how can I know that others have minds? The thought behind the question is that no matter how sophisticated someone's behaviour is, behaviour on its own is not sufficient to guarantee the presence of mentality. It remains possible, for example, that other people are actually nothing more than meaty automata. Perhaps the main argument offered against this possibility in the history of philosophy is the argument from analogy; it can be found in the works of J.S. Mill, A. J. Ayer, and Bertrand Russell. This article or section should include material from Episteme Epistemology (from the Greek words episteme=science and logos=word/speech) is the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature, origin and scope of knowledge. ... Skepticism (Commonwealth spelling: Scepticism) can mean: Philosophical skepticism - a philosophical position in which people choose to critically examine whether the knowledge and perceptions that they have are actually true, and whether or not one can ever be said to have absolutely true knowledge; or Scientific skepticism - a scientific, or practical... John Stuart Mill (May 20, 1806 – May 8, 1873), an English philosopher and political economist, was an influential classical liberal thinker of the 19th century. ... Alfred Jules Ayer (October 29, 1910 - June 27, 1989), better known as simply A. J. Ayer (and called Freddie by friends), was a British philosopher. ... Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970), was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, advocate for social reform, and pacifist. ...

More recently, it has come to be appreciated that the epistemological issue is intimately related to metaphysical and conceptual issues. This is best appreciated by considering the examples of type physicalism and philosophical behaviourism. According to the type physicalist, to be in a certain type of mental state is just to be in a certain type of physical (brain) state. So, if we can detect that another individual is in a certain type of physical state, then we can know that they are in a certain type of mental state. Thus, it seems that we can know, in a relatively unproblematic way, that other people are in certain mental states. In this case, the epistemological problem is dissolved by making a claim about the metaphysics of mind. Logical behaviourism, on the other hand, makes a claim about the nature of our mental concepts. This claim is that statements about mental phenomena can be analysed into statements about behaviour and behavioural dispositions. To be in a certain mental state, e.g. pain, is just to behave, or be disposed to behave, in certain ways. Since statements ascribing mental predicates to individuals make claims about nothing over and above their behaviour, they can be verfified to be true or false by observation of behaviour. Thus, the behaviourist closes the conceptual gap between behaviour and mentality which is responsible for the epistemological problem. Metaphysical may refer to: Metaphysics, a branch of philosophy dealing with the ultimate nature of reality; or The Metaphysical poets, a poetic school from seventeenth century England who correspond with baroque period in European literature. ... A concept is an abstract, universal psychical entity that serves to designate a category or class of entities, events or relations. ... Type physicalism (also known as Type Identity Theory, Type-Type theory or just Identity Theory) is the theory, in the philosophy of mind, which asserts that mental events are type-identical to the physical events in the brain with which they are correlated. ... Behaviorism (or behaviourism) is an approach to psychology based on the proposition that behavior is interesting and worthy of scientific research. ... Human brain In animals, the brain (enkephale) (Greek for in the skull), is the control center of the central nervous system, responsible for behavior. ...

Solipsism

Solipists argue that there are indeed no minds but one's own and that attempting to prove the existence of another mind is futile. Proponents of this view argue that the world outside one's own mind cannot be known and indeed might be nonexistent.

Reductionist View

The reductionist viewpoint, supported by John McDowell and others, has tried to tackle the first two propositions 1 and 2 (above), by putting forth certain modes of expression (such as being in pain) as privileged and allowing us direct access to the other's mind. Thus, although they would admit from the problem of pretense, that at no one time can we claim to have access to another's mental state, they are not permanently unavailable to us. Descartes held that non-human animals could be reductively explained as automata — De homines 1622. ... John Henry McDowell (born 1942) is a contemporary philosopher, formerly a fellow of University College, Oxford and now University Professor at the University of Pittsburgh. ...

Soft Materialist Viewpoint

Counter to the reductionist argument would be a more biological theory (and somewhat materialistic viewpoint). Take the eye and the perception of color. The light-sensing cone cells of the retina that respond to the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum designated as "red" are tuned similarly in every person tested, so we might expect all people to experience red in the same way. However, we also know that some people are missing certain (or all of) types of cone cells in the eye; thus giving rise to color blindness and other such visual variances. Similarly, differences in the distribution of brain cells and dendritic connections (among many other potential variances) could give rise to different mental states for the same stimulus. Cross-culturally, when people have a word for red, they agree with other cultures on which wavelengths of light best fit the term "red" (the same wavelengths that primarily excite the cone cells which detect red, and the red/green channel to the brain). Yet even if human eyes and brains may be built in such a way that the same wavelengths stand out for everybody, still it is conceivable that for different individuals these wavelengths could evoke experiences that differ. In particular, one external stimulus may give different experiences to the same individual according to which eye is used. In philosophy, materialism is that form of physicalism which holds that the only thing that can truly be said to exist is matter; that fundamentally, all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions; that matter is the only substance. ... For other uses, see Eye (disambiguation). ... Drawing of the structure of cork as it appeared under the microscope to Robert Hooke from Micrographia which is the origin of the word cell being used to describe the smallest unit of a living organism Cells in culture, stained for keratin (red) and DNA (green) The cell is the... Human eye cross-sectional view. ... Legend γ = Gamma rays HX = Hard X-rays SX = Soft X-Rays EUV = Extreme ultraviolet NUV = Near ultraviolet Visible light NIR = Near infrared MIR = Moderate infrared FIR = Far infrared Radio waves EHF = Extremely high frequency (Microwaves) SHF = Super high frequency (Microwaves) UHF = Ultra high frequency VHF = Very high frequency HF = High... Color blindness in humans is the inability to perceive differences between some or all colors that other people can distinguish. ... This article is about cells in the nervous system. ... Dendrites (from Greek dendron, “tree”) are the branched projections of a neuron that act to conduct the electrical stimulation received from other neural cells to the cell body, or soma, of the neuron from which the dendrites project. ...

Alternatives

Lastly, some people see the very fact that we can discuss the problem of other minds and relate with one another on this existential angst as proof against solipsism. These individuals argue that all minds are fundamentally connected, we all differ in our own universes of thought but the overall universe is constant and binds us together.

Literature

• Wisdom, John, Other Minds (1952)
• Dennett, D.C., Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology (1978)

John Wisdom (1904-1993) was an ordinary language philosopher and philosopher of mind. ... Year 1952 (MCMLII) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Daniel Clement Dennett (born March 28, 1942 in Boston, Massachusetts) is a prominent American philosopher whose research centers on philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and philosophy of biology, particularly as those fields relate to evolutionary biology and cognitive science. ... Brainstorms: Philosophical Essays on Mind and Psychology (MIT Press 1981) is a book by the American philosopher Daniel Dennett. ... Year 1978 (MCMLXXVIII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link displays the 1978 Gregorian calendar). ...

See also

• philosophical skepticism
• color perception
• psychophysics
• qualia
• autism