Austin's analysis of the problem of other minds

[Questioninggeller]

I have to write a paper critically examing Austin's analysis of the problem of other minds.... I was wondering what key points I should touch and what advice anyone could offer me.

Thanks for any help. :)

[c4ts]

Who is Austin and what does he want with my mind, anyway?

[Questioninggeller]

Can I know what another person is thinking or feeling? If so, how?
The problem of Other Minds is a true philosophical enigma. It is apt to strike children with no philosophical education whatsoever, yet remains intractable to many academics. Broadly speaking, the problem can be divided into three questions. Firstly, how do I come to believe that there are minds in the world other than my own? Secondly, how can I justify my belief that there are minds in the world other than my own? Thirdly, what can I state about the mental states of minds other than my own?. The question we are dealing with here falls largely into the third category, although of course issues relating to the other two will also be involved.

The argument from analogy, also employed by Bertrand Russell in a slightly simplified form, is subject to a devastating criticism. Unlike most analogies, in the case of other minds, there is no conceivable way of verifying the conclusion we make. We have no way of discovering whether someone else is angry or not, and our position means that this is a necessary disadvantage. The only way to have someone else’s experiences would to become that person, and in doing that, I would no longer be myself and I would no longer be having someone else’s experiences. Thus it is impossible to conceive of any set of experimental circumstances under which I would be able to ascertain whether or not the human who is expressing anger-behaviour really is angry or not. And as Norman Malcolm has pointed out, as there are no conceivable criteria I could use to determine whether someone is angry or not, simply claiming that they are angry is a meaningless statement.


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[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Thus it is impossible to conceive of any set of experimental circumstances under which I would be able to ascertain whether or not the human who is expressing anger-behaviour really is angry or not.
Perhaps you could explore the question of why we should assume that "really is angry" is any different from "expressing anger behavior."

Now, it's easy to trivialize this. For example, one could point out that an actor is expressing anger behavior, but presumably isn't really angry. So, you have to broaden "expressing anger behavior" to include some deeper behavioral correlates, such as brain activity and hormonal levels. Once you include all the physical correlates of behavior, both external and internal, the question of whether this describes the entire anger thing becomes interesting.

In other words, is the quale of anger anything more than the physical correlates? The question obviously assumes that it is.

Uh oh.

~~ Paul

[Michael Redman]

I had a Property Law professor who spent the year talking about Austinian Positivism and the reptilian brain. That was fine with me, as I had no interest in actually learning about property law (unfortunately, I learned nothing about Austin, either). Now I work for a mortgage company and I have no idea what's going on. This seems like quite an elaborate length to go to punish me for some karmic infraction of my youth.

How about if you ask the other if they are angry? You may have a question as to the reliability of the data, but, assuming that the data is accurate, you then ascertain the answer, right? Too much to assume?