Learning objective: To understand the threat of solipsism for substance dualists; To evaluate whether substance dualism can solve the ‘problem of other minds’. Solipsism

Recap What is interactionist dualism? Epiphenomenalist dualism? Criticisms of epiphenomenalism - causal redundancy of the mental - argument from introspection - free will and responsibility

Discuss Can we know that there are minds other than our own? We can experience our own minds, from within, but not other people’s. All we have to learn about other people’s minds is how they behave (their bodies!) Why is this a problem for substance dualists? If minds and bodies are independent how can I infer from seeing a body that a mind is attached? They could all just be robots! If that’s true, perhaps my mind is the only mind. This is called solipsism.

Response How would you respond to the threat of solipsism? Create an argument to infer that other bodies have minds. What is Thalia Wheatley’s argument for the case of other minds?

Mill’s argument for other minds from analogy I have a mind I know from experience that mental states cause my behaviour Others have similar bodies to me and behave similarly By analogy, their behaviour has the same cause – mental states Therefore, other people have minds Is this a good argument? Why/why not? What type of argument is this?

Read pages – of Lacewing and complete the following 1.Summarise Mill’s argument for other minds from analogy 2.Why can we object to it based on its induction? 3.Explain the difference between the first and second arguments 4.What difficulties does the argument still face?

1.Summarise Mill’s argument for other minds from analogy I have a mind I know from experience that mental states cause my behaviour Others have similar bodies to me and behave similarly By analogy, their behaviour has the same cause – mental states Therefore, other people have minds 2.Why can we object to it based on its induction? You cannot generalise from a single case (mine) it could be a special case 3.Explain the difference between the first and second arguments argument is reformulated to cite many instances of behaviour rather than just the single case of me and my mind 4.What difficulties does the argument still face? Does it still rely on analogy? (no because it’s not drawing a comparison between my experience and others’, it’s talking about lots of examples of behaviour – it’s making a general claim based on lots of examples) It still could be that my mind is a special case and the cause of other people’s behaviour is different to mine (but, this argument is just trying to justify belief in other minds, not prove it) It relies on mental causation and SD has difficulties here. (but we only need to say that behaviour is caused by mental states and not how.)

How easily can substance dualism solve the ‘problem of other minds’?

Can you…? Explain the threat of solipsism to substance dualism? Explain the argument from analogy for the existence of other minds? (Mill) Evaluate how well substance dualism can solve the ‘problem of other minds’?

Homework Read lacewing ‘on ascribing mental states’ Explain how this raises a challenge to substance dualism’s concept of mind. Due Friday