Single Idea 3148

[catalogued under 15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 3. Privacy]

Full Idea

The privacy that is a serious issue for the dualist is a peculiarly epistemic privacy that not even telepathy or brain fusions would seem to overcome.

Clarification

'Epistemic' privacy concerns what we can know, rather than how it is

Gist of Idea

Dualist privacy is seen as too deep for even telepathy to reach

Source

Georges Rey (Contemporary Philosophy of Mind [1997], 2.5.4)

Book Reference

Rey,Georges: 'Contemporary Philosophy of Mind' [Blackwell 1997], p.55


A Reaction

This is a key idea in the traditional defence of dualism. I'm inclined to think that we are faced with deep privacy not because the mind is so hidden, but because the observer is trapped in NOT being the thing observed. In that sense, rocks are private.