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Question I'm currently studying the indirect approach to philosophical scepticism, and I'm struggling as to how you can say anything useful in this particular area of philosophy without dragging yourself into solipsism? For example, the philosophical sceptic may argue 'How can we know there are other people that have minds?'. It seems impossible to go anywhere with this point - what conclusion could you possibly arrive from it? I find it very difficult to understand because of two conflicting notions - whilst it seems impossible to prove that there are people that have minds, it would seem an absurd and ridiculous life to lead assuming that there are no other minds except my own. So what is one to do?

Accepted:
January 18, 2006

Comments

You say that 'it is impossible to prove that there are people that have minds'. But doesn't it depend on what standards of proof are required? If you insist on methods of proof that are 'demon-proof' (that is, are guaranteed to deliver truths in every possible scenario, including ones in which an evil demon is manipulating the evidence), then indeed you won't be able to prove that there are other minds (or that sun will rise tomorrow, or that there is a computer in front of you). But why ever set the standards of proof so high? There are plenty of methods of proof that are a very good guide to truth in the real world without being completely demon-proof. Isn't this enough for them to count as sources of knowledge? Of course, even if this much is agreed, plenty of awkward questions remain. Exactly how good do methods of proof need to be to yield knowledge? How can we find out which methods of proof satisfy those standards? And so on. But a first response to the threat of scepticism is surely to question the knee-jerk assumption that you don't know whenever your methods of proof leave any room for a demon to fool you.

Let's assume that one can't "know" that there are other minds. Does solipsism follow? It may be possible, but remember that from ignorance only ignorance follows. From not knowing whether there are other minds it follows only that we don't know whether or not there are other minds. There may not be, but on the other hand there may. Perhaps the sceptic points out that we must accept our finitude, that while we may go on to develop sciences, theories, truth claims, instiutions of various kinds, etc., we must remember that it's possible that we might be wrong, that things might not be as they seem, that our claims may not be fully grounded. Perhaps our relationship with others and the world isn't best understood in terms of "knowledge." Perhaps that's just the human condition. Keeping this possiblity in the back of one's mind vaccinates against hubris.