‘How, then, she had asked herself, did one know one thing or another thing about people, sealed as they were?’ So asks Lily Briscoe in To the Lighthouse. It is this question, rather than any concern about pretence or deception, which forms the basis for the philosophical problem of other minds. Responses to this problem have tended to cluster around two solutions: either we know others’ minds through perception; or we know others’ minds through a form of inference. In the (...) first part of this paper I argue that this debate is best understood as concerning the question of whether our knowledge of others’ minds is based on perception or based on evidence. In the second part of the paper I suggest that our ordinary ways of thinking take our knowledge of others’ minds to be both non- evidential and non-perceptual. A satisfactory resolution to the philosophical problem of other minds thus requires us to take seriously the idea that we have a way of knowing about others’ minds which is both non-evidential and non-perceptual. I suggest that our knowledge of others’ minds which is based on their expressions – our expressive knowledge - may fit this bill. (shrink)

Philosophical Investigations, Volume 44, Issue 4, Page 372-402, October 2021.

In this article I want to explore some questions that arise from the work of Stanley Cavell. My purpose is to examine lines of connections between Cavell's readings of Wittgenstein (specifically his notions of 'criteria', 'aspect blindness' and 'primitive reaction', with special reference to the philosophical problem of 'other minds') and Shakespeare, on the one side, and a certain dimension of the ethical, on the other. Although Cavell has rarely offered explicit remarks on the issue of morality, and is normally (...) not considered a moral philosopher, it is my contention that it is possible to elicit what we could call an implied ethics from his philosophical view. This ethical outlook is not to be confused with a theory, but is rather a turn or bent that emerges especially by understanding the place of acknowledgment and ethical responsiveness in our practical life. Key Words: acknowledgment • Cavell • ethics • skepticism • Wittgenstein. (shrink)

While there is a great diversity of treatments of other minds and inter-subjectivity within both analytic and continental philosophy, this article specifies some of the core structural differences between these treatments. Although there is no canonical account of the problem of other minds that can be baldly stated and that is exhaustive of both traditions, the problem(s) of other minds can be loosely defined in family resemblances terms. It seems to have: (1) an epistemological dimension (How do we know that (...) others exist? Can we justifiably claim to know that they do?); (2) an ontological dimension that incorporates issues having to do with personal identity (What is the structure of our world such that inter-subjectivity is possible? What are the fundamental aspects of our relations to others? How do they impact upon our self-identity?); and (3) A conceptual dimension in that it depends on one's answer to the question what is a mind (How does the mind – or the concept of 'mind'– relate to the brain, the body and the world?). While these three issues are co-imbricated, I will claim that analytic engagements with the problem of other minds focus on (1), whereas continental philosophers focus far more on (2). In addition, this article will also point to various other downstream consequences of this, including the preoccupation with embodiment and forms of expressivism that feature heavily in various forms of continental philosophy, and which generally aim to ground our relations with others in a pre-reflective manner of inhabiting the world that is said to be the condition of reflection and knowledge. (shrink)

This paper discusses Wittgenstein's take on the problem of other minds. In opposition to certain widespread views that I collect under the heading of the “No Problem Interpretation,” I argue that Wittgenstein does address some problem of other minds. However, Wittgenstein's problem is not the traditional epistemological problem of other minds; rather, it is more reminiscent of the issue of intersubjectivity as it emerges in the writings of phenomenologists such as Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, and Heidegger. This is one sense in which (...) Wittgenstein's perspective on other minds might be called “phenomenological.” Yet there is another sense as well, in that Wittgenstein's positive views on this issue resemble the views defended by phenomenologists. The key to a proper philosophical grasp of intersubjectivity, on both views, lies in rethinking the mind. If we conceive of minds as essentially embodied we can understand how intersubjectivity is possible. (shrink)

Since the publication of the Philosophical Investigations in 1953, Wittgenstein''s later philosophy of mind has been the subject of numerous books and articles. Although most commentators agree that Wittgenstein was neither a behaviorist nor a Cartesian dualist, many continue to ascribe to him a position that strongly resembles one of the alternatives. In contrast, this paper argues that Wittgenstein was strongly opposed to behaviorism and Cartesianism, and that he was concerned to show that these positions implicitly share a problematic assumption. (...) This assumption is a seemingly innocent idea that subjectivity, or mind, is some kind of object or thing. The paper provides a detailed survey of Wittgenstein''s critique of Cartesianism and behaviorism, as well as an outline of Wittgenstein''s alternative account of subjectivity. (shrink)

In their most recent book, Evolving Enactivism: Basic Minds Meet Content (MIT 2017), Dan Hutto and Eric Myin claim to give a complete and gapless naturalistic account of cognition, but it comes with a kink. The kink being that content-involving cognition has special properties found nowhere else in nature, making it the case that minds capable of contentful thought differ in kind, in this key respect, from more basic minds. Contra Hutto and Myin, I argue that content-involving practices are themselves (...) simply a further extension of action and do not therefore warrant being called ‘different in kind’ or ‘kinky’. With the help of Ludwig Wittgenstein and John V. Canfield, I show that Enactivism meets the challenge of explaining higher-level cognition; and, contra continuity sceptics, offer ‘a philosophically cogent and empirically respectable account’ of how human minds can emerge from nonhuman minds. (shrink)

In their most recent book, Evolving Enactivism: Basic Minds Meet Content (MIT 2017), Dan Hutto and Eric Myin claim to give a complete and gapless naturalistic account of cognition, but it comes with a kink. The kink being that content-involving cognition has special properties found nowhere else in nature, making it the case that minds capable of contentful thought differ in kind, in this key respect, from more basic minds. Contra Hutto and Myin, I argue that content-involving practices are themselves (...) simply a further extension of action and do not therefore warrant being called ‘different in kind’ or ‘kinky’. With the help of Ludwig Wittgenstein and John V. Canfield, I show that Enactivism meets the challenge of explaining higher-level cognition; and, contra continuity sceptics, offer ‘a philosophically cogent and empirically respectable account’ of how human minds can emerge from nonhuman minds. (shrink)

While Cavell is well known for his reinterpretation of the later Wittgenstein, he has never really engaged himself with post-Investigations writings like On Certainty. This collection may, however, seem to undermine the profoundly anti-dogmatic reading of Wittgenstein that Cavell has developed. In addition to apparently arguing against what Cavell calls ‘the truth of skepticism’ – a phrase contested by other Wittgensteinians – On Certainty may seem to justify the rejection of whoever dares to question one’s basic presuppositions. According to On (...) Certainty, or so it seems, the only right response to someone with different certainties is a reproach like ‘Fool!’ or ‘Heretic!’. This article aims to show that On Certainty need not be taken to prove Cavell wrong. It explains that Wittgenstein, in line with the first two parts of The Claim of Reason, does not reject scepticism out of hand but rather questions the sceptic’s self-understanding. Using arguments from Part Three of The Claim, the article moreover argues that a confrontation with divergence calls for self-examination rather than self-righteousness. Precisely because Wittgenstein acknowledges ‘the groundlessness of our believing’ or, in Cavellian terms, ‘the truth of skepticism’, he is not the authoritarian thinker that some have taken him to be. (shrink)

Analytic philosophers have a tendency to forget that they are human beings, and one of the reasons that P. F. Strawson’s 1962 essay, “Freedom and Resentment”, has been so influential is that it promises to bring discussions of moral responsibility back down to earth. Strawson encouraged us to “keep before our minds...what it is actually like to be involved in ordinary interpersonal relationships”, which is, after all, the context in which questions about responsibility arise in the first place. In this (...) essay I explore what we can learn about ordinary interpersonal relationships from three works of literature – Shakespeare’s King Lear, Jane Austen’s Persuasion, and Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair. My intention is to try to heed Strawson’s advice without imposing upon the data any particular theoretical agenda, and my hope is that the data collected will prove useful for future theorizing about responsibility. (shrink)