How to Be a Philosopher: Or How to Be Almost Certain That Almost Nothing Is Certain by Gary Cox

Author:Gary Cox
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Philosophy, General
ISBN: 9781441144782
Publisher: Continuum
Published: 2010-11-11T05:00:00+00:00

Ironically, it is only when philosophers try to prove that other people exist that doubts about their existence creep in. Sartre says, ‘If I do not conjecture about the Other, then, precisely, I affirm him’ (Being and Nothingness, p. 275). And expressing the same thought as Sartre, Wittgenstein says, ‘My attitude towards him is an attitude towards a soul. I am not of the opinion that he has a soul’ (Philosophical Investigations, iv, p. 178). Wittgenstein and Sartre hit the nail on the head here, as they so often do. Like Mrs Christine Ladd Franklin I can form the philosophical opinion that solipsism is the case while sitting alone in my study cogitating, but I will nonetheless maintain the attitude that other people exist, an attitude that will be revealed the moment my wife barges into my study with a cup of tea and a biscuit and disturbs my self-indulgent train of thought.

Although philosophical sceptics may well be quite right to insist that the existence of other people can’t be proven, that there is no refuting what is known as the problem of other minds, even the philosophical sceptic will find himself continually affirming the existence of other people in the way he behaves and experiences himself as shy, proud, embarrassed, ashamed or in love when other people appear on the scene.

I have now said more than enough about solipsism for you to get the following joke, as well as recognize how bad it is:

Question: Why was the solipsist unhappy? Answer: Because no one would accept his arguments as valid.

Maybe that should be, ‘because there was no one to accept his arguments as valid’ . . . Whatever.

Well, that just about wraps up the doubting exercise that we began way back. I’ve gone through just about every reason for doubting the existence of the external world or parts of it that I can think of. My philosophy students, or what appeared to me to be my philosophy students at the time I believed I was teaching them, have suggested all these possibilities over the years and I’m confident that you managed to think of similar possibilities yourself.

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