Editing Problem of other minds

{{Short description|Type of epistemological problem}}
{{For|the contemporary music organization|Other Minds (organization)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2024}}

The '''problem of other minds''' is a [[Philosophy|philosophical]] problem traditionally stated as the following [[Epistemology|epistemological]] question: "Given that I can only observe the [[behavior]] of others, how can I know that others have [[mind]]s?"<ref>{{cite web|url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/other-minds/|first=Alec|last=Hyslop|title=Other minds|editor1-last=Zalta|editor1-first=Edward N.|editor2-last=Nodelman|editor2-first=Uri|website=[[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]|publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University|issn=1095-5054|date=14 January 2014|access-date=May 26, 2015}}</ref> The problem is that [[knowledge]] of other minds is always indirect. The problem of other minds does not negatively impact [[social interactions]] due to people having a "[[theory of mind]]" – the ability to spontaneously infer the mental states of others – supported by innate [[mirror neuron]]s,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Colle |first1=Livia |last2=Becchio |first2=Cristina |last3=Bara |first3=Bruno |date=2008 |title=The Non-Problem of the Other Minds: A Neurodevelopmental Perspective on Shared Intentionality |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26764876 |journal=Human Development |volume=51 |issue=5/6 |pages=336–348 |doi=10.1159/000170896 |jstor=26764876 |access-date=29 April 2021 |s2cid=143370747|url-access=subscription }}</ref> a theory of mind mechanism,<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Leslie |first1=Alan |last2=Friedman |first2=Ori |last3=German |first3=Tim |title=Core mechanisms in 'theory of mind'. |journal=Trends in Cognitive Sciences |date=2004 |volume=8 |issue=12 |pages=528–533 |doi=10.1016/j.tics.2004.10.001 |pmid=15556021 |s2cid=17591514 }}</ref> or a tacit theory.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Gopnik |first1=Alison |author-link=Alison Gopnik |last2=Wellman |first2=Henry |author2-link=Henry Wellman |title=Reconstructing constructivism: causal models, Bayesian learning mechanisms, and the theory theory |journal=Psychological Bulletin |date=2012 |volume=138 |issue=6 |pages=1085–1108 |doi=10.1037/a0028044 |pmid=22582739 |pmc=3422420 }}</ref>  There has also been an increase in evidence that behavior results from [[cognition]] which in turn requires consciousness and the [[brain]].

It is a problem of the philosophical idea known as [[solipsism]]: the notion that for any person only one's own mind is known to exist. The problem of other minds maintains that no matter how sophisticated someone's behavior is, that does not reasonably guarantee that someone has the presence of thought occurring within them as when oneself engages in behavior.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Thornton |first=Stephen |encyclopedia=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |title=Solipsism and the Problem of Other Minds |url=https://iep.utm.edu/solipsis/ |issn=2161-0002 |accessdate=2021-06-02 }}</ref> [[Phenomenology (psychology)|Phenomenology]] studies the subjective experience of human life resulting from consciousness. The specific subject within phenomenology studying other minds is [[intersubjectivity]].

In 1953, [[Karl Popper]] suggested that a test for the other minds problem is whether one would seriously argue with the other person or machine:<ref>'Language and the body-mind problem: a restatement of interactionism', Proceedings of the 11th International Congress of Philosophy, 7, 1953, reprinted in 'Conjectures and refutations', 1963 ISBN 978-0-415-28594-0.</ref> "This, I think, would solve the problem of 'other minds'....In arguing with other people (a thing which we have learnt from other people), for example about other minds, we cannot but attribute to them intentions, and this means mental states. We do not argue with a thermometer."

Philosophers such as [[Christian List]] have argued that there exists a connection between the problem of other minds and Benj Hellie's [[vertiginous question]]<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hellie |first1=Benj |last2= |first2= |date=2013 |title=Against Egalitarianism |url=https://philpapers.org/rec/HELCFC |journal=Analysis |volume=73 |issue= |publisher= |pages=304–320 |doi=10.1093/analys/ans101 |access-date=}}</ref>, i.e. why people exist as themselves and not as someone else. List argues that there exists a "quadrilemma" for metaphysical consciousness theories where at least one of the following must be false: 'first-person [[Philosophical realism|realism]]', 'non-solipsism', 'non-fragmentation', and 'one world'.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://philarchive.org/rec/LISAQF |title=A quadrilemma for theories of consciousness |last=List |first=Christian |date=2023 |website= |publisher=The Philosophical Quarterly |access-date=17 February 2025 |quote=}}</ref> List proposes a philosophical model he calls the "many-worlds theory of consciousness" in order to reconcile the subjective nature of consciousness without lapsing into solipsism.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://philarchive.org/rec/LISTMT-2 |title=The many-worlds theory of consciousness |last=List |first=Christian |date=2023 |website= |publisher=The Philosophical Quarterly |access-date=17 February 2025 |quote=}}</ref> 

Caspar Hare has argued for a weak form of solipsism with the concept of [[egocentric presentism]], in which other persons can be conscious, but their experiences are simply not {{em|present}} in the way one's own current experience is.<ref name="JPhil">{{cite journal|last=Hare|first=Caspar|title=Self-Bias, Time-Bias, and the Metaphysics of Self and Time|journal=The Journal of Philosophy|date=July 2007|volume=104|issue=7|pages=350–373|doi=10.5840/jphil2007104717|url=http://web.mit.edu/~casparh/www/Papers/CJHareSelfBias2.pdf}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Hare|first=Caspar|title=On Myself, and Other, Less Important Subjects|year=2009|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=9780691135311|url=http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8921.html}}</ref> A related concept is [[perspectival realism]], in which things within perceptual awareness have a defining intrinsic property that exists absolutely and not relative to anything,<ref>{{cite journal |last=Hare |first=Caspar |date=September 2010 |title=Realism About Tense and Perspective |url=http://web.mit.edu/~casparh/www/Papers/CJHarePerspectivalRealism.pdf |journal=Philosophy Compass |volume=5 |issue=9 |pages=760–769 |doi=10.1111/j.1747-9991.2010.00325.x |hdl-access=free |hdl=1721.1/115229}}</ref> of which several other philosophers have written reviews.<ref>{{cite journal|last=McDaniel|first=Kris|title=''On Myself, and Other, Less Important Subjects'' by Hare, Caspar - Review|journal=Ethics|date=January 2012|volume=122|issue=2|pages=403–410|url=http://krmcdani.mysite.syr.edu/whymcxmattersmost.pdf|doi=10.1086/663578}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Markosian|first=Ned|title=Are You Special? A Review of Caspar Hare's ''On Myself, and Other, Less Important Subjects''|journal=The Philosophical Review|url=http://myweb.facstaff.wwu.edu/nmarkos/Papers/Hare.Review.pdf|access-date=2015-03-13|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150226073041/http://myweb.facstaff.wwu.edu/nmarkos/Papers/Hare.Review.pdf|archive-date=2015-02-26|url-status=dead}}</ref> Vincent Conitzer has argued for similar ideas on the basis of there being a connection between the [[A series and B series|A-theory of time]] and the nature of the self. He argues that one's current perspective could be "metaphysically privileged" on the basis of arguments for A-theory being stronger as arguments for both A-theory and a metaphysically privileged self, and arguments against A-theory are ineffective against this combined position.<ref>{{cite arXiv|last=Conitzer|first=Vincent|author-link=|date=30 Aug 2020|title=The Personalized A-Theory of Time and Perspective|eprint=2008.13207v1|class=physics.hist-ph}}</ref>

==See also==
{{Div col|colwidth=22em}}
* [[Animal consciousness]]
* [[Binding problem]]
* [[Boltzmann brain]]
* [[Brain in a vat]]
* [[Chinese room]]
* [[Dream argument]]
* [[Ethics of uncertain sentience]]
* [[Explanatory gap]]
* [[Hard problem of consciousness]]
* [[Mind–body problem]]
* [[Open individualism]]
* [[Philosophical skepticism]]
* [[Philosophical zombie]]
* [[Philosophy of mind]]
* [[Psychophysics]]
* [[Qualia]]
* [[Theory of mind]]
* [[Turing test]]
{{Div col end}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
* {{cite book |last=Godfrey-Smith |first=Peter |author-link=Peter Godfrey-Smith |date=2016 |title=[[Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness|Other minds: the octopus, the sea, and the deep origins of consciousness]] |location=New York |publisher=[[Farrar, Straus, and Giroux]] |isbn=9780374227760 |oclc=957696590 }}
* {{cite journal |last=Inami |first=Masahiro |date=August 2001 |title=The problem of other minds in the Buddhist epistemological tradition |journal=[[Journal of Indian Philosophy]] |volume=29 |issue=4 |pages=465–483 |doi=10.1023/A:1013151011789 |jstor=23496930 |s2cid=169112249 }}
* {{cite book |last=Avramides |first=Anita |author-link=Anita Avramides |date=2001 |title=Other minds |series=The problems of philosophy |location=London; New York |publisher=[[Routledge]] |isbn=0415033365 |oclc=44613007 |doi=10.4324/9780203870174 |s2cid=240744968 }}
* {{cite book |last=Dennett |first=Daniel C. |author-link=Daniel Dennett |date=2017 |orig-year=1978 |title=[[Brainstorms|Brainstorms: philosophical essays on mind and psychology]] |edition=40th anniversary |series=A Bradford book |location=Cambridge, MA |publisher=[[MIT Press]] |isbn=9780262534383 |oclc=988171852 |doi=10.7551/mitpress/11146.001.0001 }}
* {{cite book |editor-last=Buford |editor-first=Thomas O. |date=1970 |title=Essays on other minds |location=Urbana, IL |publisher=University of Illinois Press |isbn=0252001230 |oclc=133061 }}
* {{cite book |last=Plantinga |first=Alvin |author-link=Alvin Plantinga |date=1967 |title=[[God and Other Minds|God and other minds: a study of the rational justification of belief in God]] |series=Contemporary philosophy |location=Ithaca, NY |publisher=[[Cornell University Press]] |oclc=383698 }}
* {{cite book |last=Wisdom |first=John |author-link=John Wisdom |date=1966 |orig-year=1952 |title=Other minds |edition=2nd |location=Oxford |publisher=[[Blackwell Publishing|Blackwell]] |oclc=1076880 }}

==External links==
*{{PhilPapers|category|the-problem-of-other-minds}}
*{{cite SEP |url-id=other-minds |title=Other minds}}
*{{InPho|idea|1750}}
*{{cite IEP |url-id=solipsis |title=Problem of other minds}}

{{epistemology}}
{{philosophy of mind}}
{{Consciousness}}

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Problem Of Other Minds}}
[[Category:Concepts in the philosophy of mind|Problem of other minds, theP]]
[[Category:Concepts in epistemology]]
[[Category:Philosophical problems|Other minds]]
[[Category:Solipsism]]


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