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Single Idea 6416

[filed under theme 15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 4. Other Minds / c. Knowing other minds ]

Full Idea

Russell gives an argument that other minds exist, because if one is entitled to believe this, then one can rely on the testimony of others, which, jointly with one's own experience, will give powerful support to the view that there a real spatial world.

Gist of Idea

Other minds seem to exist, because their testimony supports realism about the world

Source

report of Bertrand Russell (Our Knowledge of the External World [1914], 3) by A.C. Grayling - Russell Ch.2

Book Ref

Grayling,A.C.: 'Russell' [OUP 1996], p.45

A Reaction

I rather like this argument. It is quite close to Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument, which also seems to refute scepticism about other minds. I think Russell's line, using testimony, knowledge and realism, may be better than Wittgenstein's.

The 22 ideas with the same theme [how we might know of other minds]:

3850 We discovers others as well as ourselves in the Cogito [Sartre on Descartes]
12551 We are satisfied that other men have minds, from their words and actions [Locke]
3948 Experience tells me that other minds exist independently from my own [Berkeley]
6736 I know other minds by ideas which are referred by me to other agents, as their effects [Berkeley]
21228 Husserl's monads (egos) communicate, through acts of empathy. [Husserl, by Velarde-Mayol]
22221 We know another's mind via bodily expression, while also knowing it is inaccessible [Husserl, by Bernet]
6416 Other minds seem to exist, because their testimony supports realism about the world [Russell, by Grayling]
5364 It is hard not to believe that speaking humans are expressing thoughts, just as we do ourselves [Russell]
22222 Dasein finds itself already amongst others [Heidegger, by Caputo]
8136 If we work and play with other people, they are bound to be 'Dasein', intelligent agents [Heidegger, by Cooper,DE]
19273 I don't have the opinion that people have minds; I just treat them as such [Wittgenstein]
5328 Originally I combined a mentalistic view of introspection with a behaviouristic view of other minds [Ayer]
5330 Physicalism undercuts the other mind problem, by equating experience with 'public' brain events [Ayer]
2613 The theory of other minds has no rival [Ayer]
5167 The argument from analogy fails, so the best account of other minds is behaviouristic [Ayer]
5178 A conscious object is by definition one that behaves in a certain way, so behaviour proves consciousness [Ayer]
10346 Knowing other minds rests on knowing both one's own mind and the external world [Davidson, by Dummett]
3463 We don't have a "theory" that other people have minds [Searle]
7873 Young children can see that other individuals sometimes have false beliefs [Papineau]
7874 Do we understand other minds by simulation-theory, or by theory-theory? [Papineau]
24005 We know other's emotions by explanation, contagion, empathy, imagination, or sympathy [Goldie]
24006 Empathy and imagining don't ensure sympathy, and sympathy doesn't need them [Goldie]