An argument against Solipsism

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  1. Solipsism claims that there is only one mind
  2. There is a conscious mind for any change (this is argued in here: An argument for mind)
  3. There are changes which are not due to my conscious mind
  4. Therefore there is at least one more conscious mind
  5. Therefore Solipsism is wrong
 
I guess my response would be to point one, it only suggests only one’s own mind can be known for certain to exist, essentially “I think therefore I am”.

Point 2 I don’t think is demonstrated at all but I replied in your other thread to try and keep things contained.
 
Dan123 said:
I guess my response would be to point one, it only suggests only one’s own mind can be known for certain to exist, essentially “I think therefore I am”.

Point 2 I don’t think is demonstrated at all but I replied in your other thread to try and keep things contained.
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That is existence of change which fundamentally points to existence of one mind. That it the point I am making. An animal has mind too but it doesn’t think.
 
On the other hand, you could just lob a rock at anyone who claims to be a solipsist, and when they say “ouch!”, you could respond, “see? you didn’t throw that rock, but you sure did feel it, didn’t you? Therefore, I exist, independently of you. QED.”
 
Gorgias said:
On the other hand, you could just lob a rock at anyone who claims to be a solipsist, and when they say “ouch!”, you could respond, “see? you didn’t throw that rock, but you sure did feel it, didn’t you? Therefore, I exist, independently of you. QED.”
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Yes, but you need to show that a conscious mind is needed for any change, throwing the rock.
 
Gorgias said:
On the other hand, you could just lob a rock at anyone who claims to be a solipsist, and when they say “ouch!”, you could respond, “see? you didn’t throw that rock, but you sure did feel it, didn’t you? Therefore, I exist, independently of you. QED.”
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Again a solipsist doesn’t necessarily believe they are the only mind, just that only their own mind is certain to them. And your example doesn’t work regardless because they could simply have imagined the rock hitting them.
 
Dan123 said:
And your example doesn’t work regardless because they could simply have imagined the rock hitting them.
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That adds the question of being unable to trust their own senses to the question of whether others exist. 😉
 
It doesn’t really add, that is at the core of things. You have a level of certainty that there is something that is ‘you’ that you cannot have about anything external.
 
Dan123 said:
You have a level of certainty that there is something that is ‘you’ that you cannot have about anything external.
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Except that you can’t have a level of certainty that the ‘you’ that’s you actually felt a rock hit its head? You’re starting to not make sense… 😉
 
@STT linked to the definition.
the philosophical idea that only one’s mind is sure to exist. As an epistemological position, solipsism holds that knowledge of anything outside one’s own mind is unsure; the external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist outside the mind.
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So one would intrinsically be less certain the rock exists than the mind. It doesn’t mean you aren’t convinced the rock exists, or that it hit you, but people hallucinate things all the time, I don’t think anyone can hallucinate their own existence.
 
Solipsism is the most extreme form of subjectivism; the path to which is modernism
 
Maximian said:
Solipsism is the most extreme form of subjectivism; the path to which is modernism
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Solipsism is the complete opposite of subjectivism. Solipsism is simply concerned with what can be known to be true, without regard for what I may personally believe to be true. In a very real sense, it’s simply agnosticism followed to its logical conclusion. Traditionally an agnostic believes that there’s simply no way to know for certain whether or not God exists. The solipsist simply takes this reasoning one step further and recognizes the fact that there’s no way to know whether anything at all exists other than the mind itself.

The solipsist simply accepts what must be true…that the existence of anything outside of the self must be taken on faith.
 
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lelinator said:
The solipsist simply takes this reasoning one step further and recognizes the fact that there’s no way to know whether anything at all exists other than the mind itself.
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No… it’s more than that: the assertion is that “whether or not anything at all exists other than his own mind itself”. As you say, “the existence of anything outside of the self”… and therefore, as @Maimian asserts, it’s a particular sort of subjectivism.
 
Gorgias said:
As you say, “the existence of anything outside of the self”… and therefore, as @Maimian asserts, it’s a particular sort of subjectivism.
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Could you please do me the favor of explaining how you consider solipsism to be a “particular” sort of subjectivism.
 
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lelinator said:
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Gorgias:
As you say, “the existence of anything outside of the self”… and therefore, as @Maimian asserts, it’s a particular sort of subjectivism.
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Could you please do me the favor of explaining how you consider solipsism to be a “particular” sort of subjectivism.
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Sure!

Subjectivism posits that there’s no objective truth.

Solipsism suggests that only knowledge of self that’s knowable, but the rest of the universe might be a subjective illusion which the solipsist constructs. Therefore, it’s a type of subjectivism.
 
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