How can we know other people other than ourselves exist?

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JuanFlorencio said:
Dear Ben:

You probably will agree with Franz Brentano that to be conscious is always to be conscious of something. Conscience could be understood phenomenologically as the simultaneous emergence of things and the self. Why we cannot be conscious of other consciences? Is it because our conscience is imperfect? No, it is because such thing is impossible. If you were conscious of another conscience you would not be able to distinguish it from yourself.

You say that you are anxious because you cannot be certain about the existence of other consciences. On the one hand, you should take it precisely as a guarantee that other consciences might exist (and you can continue with the meditation using other means; for example, considering how language precedes you). On the other hand, you might be even more anxious if you think that I might have doubts about your existence and your consciousness.

Regards
JuanFlorencio
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I’m not sure what youar saying Juan, forgive me.

Are you trying to say that I can’t know an external world? You say its impossible to be conscious of other people’s consciosness…but then say I can guarantee that other consciences might exist.

Could you clairfy, if you can, please?
 
Ben_Sinner said:
I’m not sure what youar saying Juan, forgive me.

Are you trying to disprove solipsism here?
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I am not fond of solipsism. But I think that the best way to assist you in your way out of it is by forcing you towards a reflection on your personal experience. If you cannot understand what I just wrote, this is an indication to me about the level of your reflection. Please, go back to the message I sent you early in the morning, and let me know your thoughts.

Regards
JuanFlorencio
 
Ben_Sinner said:
I’m not sure what youar saying Juan, forgive me.

Are you trying to say that I can’t know an external world? You say its impossible to be conscious of other people’s consciosness…but then say I can guarantee that other consciences might exist.

Could you clairfy, if you can, please?
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Ben,

If you want to dedicate some of your efforts to Philosophy, you have to learn patience and develop a great love for the details. Before I can respond to you, you have to tell me what is in your mind when you say “external world”. You and Blase have now the same homework. Please, do your best.

JuanFlorencio
 
Ben,

If I write to you from my own perspective I will say: "there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that other “persons” (I am saying a lot with this word Ben, do you realize it?) exist; but if I try to put myself in your position, then I will use expressions like this one: “pay attention, Ben, there might be other consciences”.

Ok?

JuanFlorencio
 
Hi Juan,

Thanks for the information.

and by ‘external world’ I mean a physical reality and not just an intangible projection of my mind…in other words. The couch I’m sitting on is an actual couch different from me that would still be there if I disappeared.
 
Ben_Sinner said:
Hi Juan,

Thanks for the information.

and by ‘external world’ I mean a physical reality and not just an intangible projection of my mind…in other words. The couch I’m sitting on is an actual couch different from me that would still be there if I disappeared.
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Dear Ben:

Surely you can realize (but please confirm) that the words you use existed before you came to know them. Every time you found a new word you had to learn how to use it. It seems to me that lately you have discovered a lot of them, and now you are struggling trying to figure out how to use all of them consistently. My advice would be to start with the words that you master, instead of trying to use big words (like “physical”).

You don’t know what happens to your couch when you are not there! Talk to me about your experience, about the couch when you are seated on it. I think that someone could say that it is external to you, and you know that such “someone” can do that. You can too. You can say that the couch on which you are seated is “external” to you. But you have to tell me what comes to your mind when you use the word “external”. Go ahead!
 
JuanFlorencio said:
Dear Ben:

Surely you can realize (but please confirm) that the words you use existed before you came to know them. Every time you found a new word you had to learn how to use it. It seems to me that lately you have discovered a lot of them, and now you are struggling trying to figure out how to use all of them consistently. My advice would be to start with the words that you master, instead of trying to use big words (like “physical”).

You don’t know what happens to your couch when you are not there! Talk to me about your experience, about the couch when you are seated on it. I think that someone could say that it is external to you, and you know that such “someone” can do that. You can too. You can say that the couch on which you are seated is “external” to you. But you have to tell me what comes to your mind when you use the word “external”. Go ahead!
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I’ll have to reflect more on that. 🙂
 
Linusthe2nd said:
There is no point in trying to explain something to a person who things everything outside the mind is an illusion.
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So basically you’re posting in a thread about solipsism, and the one thing that you don’t want to discuss is solipsism.

Makes sense to me.
 
I have a question regarding the I think. Therefore I am philosophy.

What is meant by this critique of it?: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cogito_ergo_sum

*In addition to the preceding two arguments against the cogito, other arguments have been advanced by Bernard Williams. He claims, for example, that what we are dealing with when we talk of thought, or when we say “I am thinking,” is something conceivable from a third-person perspective; namely objective “thought-events” in the former case, and an objective thinker in the latter.

Williams provides a meticulous and exhaustive examination of this objection. He argues, first, that it is impossible to make sense of “there is thinking” without relativizing it to something. However, this something cannot be Cartesian egos, because it is impossible to differentiate objectively between things just on the basis of the pure content of consciousness.

The obvious problem is that, through introspection, or our experience of consciousness, we have no way of moving to conclude the existence of any third-personal fact, to conceive of which would require something above and beyond just the purely subjective contents of the mind.*

How can ‘I’ be perceived as 3rd party? and what is meant by the last paragraph of the critique?
 
Ben_Sinner said:
In addition to the preceding two arguments against the cogito, other arguments have been advanced by Bernard Williams. He claims, for example, that what we are dealing with when we talk of thought, or when we say “I am thinking,” is something conceivable from a third-person perspective; namely objective “thought-events” in the former case, and an objective thinker in the latter.

What I meant to ask is…how is the thought of “I am thinking” conceivable from a 3rd-person perspective?
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