Other minds, other people, and human opacity

This paper explains the absence of the problem of other minds in ancient philosophy and links its rise in early modern philosophy with the distinction between primary and secondary qualities and the consequent veil of ideas. The futile struggles of early modern philosophers with the problems is deli...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ratio (Oxford) 2023-06, Vol.36 (2), p.87-98
Main Author: Hacker, Peter M. S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
constitutional indeterminacy of the mental
introspection
Knowledge
Modernism
opacity of the mental
other minds
Philosophy of mind
self‐knowledge
Subjectivity
the mind
Wittgenstein
Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1889-1951)
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Summary:This paper explains the absence of the problem of other minds in ancient philosophy and links its rise in early modern philosophy with the distinction between primary and secondary qualities and the consequent veil of ideas. The futile struggles of early modern philosophers with the problems is delineated. So too are the incoherent theories of modern neuroscientists and psychologists. The sources of the manifold confusions are pinned down to use and misuse of the concept of mind, to misunderstandings about the nature of the human ability to say how things are subjectively with oneself, to misconstruals of the nature of introspection and self‐knowledge, and to the misguided picture of the “inner” and the “outer”. Philosophical misunderstandings about knowledge of other minds has masked the genuine limitations on our knowledge and understanding of our fellow human beings. Some of these rest on ignorance, others on the constitutional indeterminacy of the mental.
ISSN:0034-0006
1467-9329
DOI:10.1111/rati.12362