Problem of other minds

For the contemporary music organization, see Other Minds (organization).

The problem of other minds is a philosophical problem traditionally stated as the following epistemological question: "Given that I can only observe the behavior of others, how can I know that others have minds?"^[1] 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 neurons,^[2] a theory of mind mechanism,^[3] or a tacit theory.^[4] 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.^[5] 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:^[6] "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, 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 realism', 'non-solipsism', 'non-fragmentation', and 'one world'.^[7] 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.^[8] Caspar Hare has argued for similar ideas with the concept of egocentric presentism, in which other persons can be conscious, but their experiences are simply not present in the way one's own current experience is.^[9][10] 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.^[11]

See also

• 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

References

1. Hyslop, Alec (14 January 2014). Zalta, Edward N.; Nodelman, Uri (eds.). "Other minds". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University. ISSN 1095-5054. Retrieved 26 May 2015.
2. Colle, Livia; Becchio, Cristina; Bara, Bruno (2008). "The Non-Problem of the Other Minds: A Neurodevelopmental Perspective on Shared Intentionality". Human Development. 51 (5/6): 336–348. doi:10.1159/000170896. JSTOR 26764876. S2CID 143370747. Retrieved 29 April 2021.
3. Leslie, Alan; Friedman, Ori; German, Tim (2004). "Core mechanisms in 'theory of mind'". Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 8 (12): 528–533. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2004.10.001. PMID 15556021. S2CID 17591514.
4. Gopnik, Alison; Wellman, Henry (2012). "Reconstructing constructivism: causal models, Bayesian learning mechanisms, and the theory theory". Psychological Bulletin. 138 (6): 1085–1108. doi:10.1037/a0028044. PMC 3422420. PMID 22582739.
5. Thornton, Stephen. "Solipsism and the Problem of Other Minds". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. ISSN 2161-0002. Retrieved 2 June 2021.
6. '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.
7. List, Christian (2023). "A quadrilemma for theories of consciousness". The Philosophical Quarterly. Retrieved 17 February 2025.
8. List, Christian (2023). "The many-worlds theory of consciousness". The Philosophical Quarterly. Retrieved 17 February 2025.
9. Hare, Caspar (July 2007). "Self-Bias, Time-Bias, and the Metaphysics of Self and Time" (PDF). The Journal of Philosophy. 104 (7): 350–373. doi:10.5840/jphil2007104717.
10. Hare, Caspar (2009). On Myself, and Other, Less Important Subjects. Princeton University Press. ISBN 9780691135311.
11. Hare, Caspar (September 2010). "Realism About Tense and Perspective" (PDF). Philosophy Compass. 5 (9): 760–769. doi:10.1111/j.1747-9991.2010.00325.x. hdl:1721.1/115229.

Further reading

• Godfrey-Smith, Peter (2016). Other minds: the octopus, the sea, and the deep origins of consciousness. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. ISBN 9780374227760. OCLC 957696590.
• Inami, Masahiro (August 2001). "The problem of other minds in the Buddhist epistemological tradition". Journal of Indian Philosophy. 29 (4): 465–483. doi:10.1023/A:1013151011789. JSTOR 23496930. S2CID 169112249.
• Avramides, Anita (2001). Other minds. The problems of philosophy. London; New York: Routledge. doi:10.4324/9780203870174. ISBN 0415033365. OCLC 44613007. S2CID 240744968.
• Dennett, Daniel C. (2017) [1978]. Brainstorms: philosophical essays on mind and psychology. A Bradford book (40th anniversary ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. doi:10.7551/mitpress/11146.001.0001. ISBN 9780262534383. OCLC 988171852.
• Buford, Thomas O., ed. (1970). Essays on other minds. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 0252001230. OCLC 133061.
• Plantinga, Alvin (1967). God and other minds: a study of the rational justification of belief in God. Contemporary philosophy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. OCLC 383698.
• Wisdom, John (1966) [1952]. Other minds (2nd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell. OCLC 1076880.

External links

• Problem of other minds at PhilPapers
• Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). "Other minds". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• Problem of other minds at the Indiana Philosophy Ontology Project
• "Problem of other minds". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.