Dustin Arand's Blog - Posts Tagged "philosophy-solipsism"
Descartes Had it Backwards
“One can ascribe states of consciousness to oneself only if one can ascribe them to others. One can ascribe them to others only if one can identify other subjects of experience. And one cannot identify others if one can identify them only as subjects of experience, possessors of states of consciousness.”
- P.F. Strawson, Individuals
Is the self – the ego – the only thing of which we can be certain? Do we come to know other minds by analogy with our own? Philosopher P.F. Strawson argues the opposite is true.
Assume one had no concept of other minds. Would one need to represent to oneself that one felt pain or fear? Of course not, Strawson argues. One would just FEEL pain or fear and react appropriately. “How can it be right to talk about ascribing in the case of oneself? For surely there can be a question of ascribing only if there is or could be a question of identifying that to which the ascription is made.”
Strawson’s thesis is that the concept of the person is logically prior to the concept of the self, and recent empirical evidence seems to support this claim. Yale researcher Laurie Santos has found that rhesus macaques prefer to steal fruit from her assistants when they can see the assistants aren’t looking. In other words, the macaques appear to understand that others might NOT know things (I’m stealing your fruit) that they do. (see http://www.smithsonianmag.com/…/think...…) Yet we have no evidence that macaques possess a sense of self. Granted, testing for selfhood in other animals is tricky business, but Strawson’s argument, and Santos’ evidence, confirm the common sense judgment that, so far as survival and reproduction go, appropriately reacting to social and ecological cues is a more pressing problem than reflecting on one’s own inner narrative.
But Strawson goes further. If our concept of others’ minds is prior to our concept of our own, then our concept of a person as a combination of both material and mental phenomena is prior to our concept of a disembodied ego. This MUST be the case because our only evidence of others’ mental states consists of the actions of their physical bodies. The idea of a disembodied ego depends on the idea of a private subjective experience, but this depends on the concept of the self, which is itself dependent upon the concept of others. Thus, Descartes had it completely backwards when he held that the existence of his self was the only thing of which he could be certain.
- P.F. Strawson, Individuals
Is the self – the ego – the only thing of which we can be certain? Do we come to know other minds by analogy with our own? Philosopher P.F. Strawson argues the opposite is true.
Assume one had no concept of other minds. Would one need to represent to oneself that one felt pain or fear? Of course not, Strawson argues. One would just FEEL pain or fear and react appropriately. “How can it be right to talk about ascribing in the case of oneself? For surely there can be a question of ascribing only if there is or could be a question of identifying that to which the ascription is made.”
Strawson’s thesis is that the concept of the person is logically prior to the concept of the self, and recent empirical evidence seems to support this claim. Yale researcher Laurie Santos has found that rhesus macaques prefer to steal fruit from her assistants when they can see the assistants aren’t looking. In other words, the macaques appear to understand that others might NOT know things (I’m stealing your fruit) that they do. (see http://www.smithsonianmag.com/…/think...…) Yet we have no evidence that macaques possess a sense of self. Granted, testing for selfhood in other animals is tricky business, but Strawson’s argument, and Santos’ evidence, confirm the common sense judgment that, so far as survival and reproduction go, appropriately reacting to social and ecological cues is a more pressing problem than reflecting on one’s own inner narrative.
But Strawson goes further. If our concept of others’ minds is prior to our concept of our own, then our concept of a person as a combination of both material and mental phenomena is prior to our concept of a disembodied ego. This MUST be the case because our only evidence of others’ mental states consists of the actions of their physical bodies. The idea of a disembodied ego depends on the idea of a private subjective experience, but this depends on the concept of the self, which is itself dependent upon the concept of others. Thus, Descartes had it completely backwards when he held that the existence of his self was the only thing of which he could be certain.
