Intentionality Analysis and the Problem of Self and Other

Dennett recounts an alarm clock dream which he experienced as taking a long time even though the alarm presumably sounded for only a short time. His explanation of this paradoxical behavior of time in dreams is that there actually is no dream experience but that unexperienced dreams are composed directly into memory banks and are subsequently played back on awakening. I critique Dennett's theory of dreams in Heideggerian terms on the grounds that he takes temporality in a common-sense superficial way. I review Heidegger's theory of time and using Dennett's own dream show that “temporality temporalizes itself' in dreams too as a free production of dreaming Dasein. Dream time is what dreaming temporality produces whatever the clocks of waking show, and is entirely consistent with authentic dream experience. An appreciation of the process of dreaming temporality temporalizing itself supports Heidegger's concept of temporality as an a priori of Dasein's Being.     

Hume on the Problem of Other Minds

Hume is not often cited as a philosopher who posited a solution to the Problem of Other Minds. He instead seems to assume the belief in other minds in his moral philosophy without justification. However, Hume needs to explain how we experience and respond to others’ affections, and hence generate moral sentiments, given how central the latter are to his moral theory. Two recent interpretations of Hume’s solution to the Problem are the Wittgensteinian Interpretation, and the Simulation Theory Interpretation. Both focus on the concept of sympathy as a solution to the Problem, claiming that, for Hume, sympathy produces the belief in other minds. This paper critically examines these two interpretations and offers an alternative called ‘the Analogical Argument Interpretation’, which reconstructs Hume’s version of an analogical argument carried out not by our rational faculty of mind but by custom and imagination. On this interpretation, Hume does not think that sympathy generates the belief in other minds, but rather, sympathy presupposes that belief.     

The Problem of Other Minds

This paper reimagines the traditional problem of other minds. On a Cartesian view, the problem involves humans’ inability to perceive other persons’ minds. Similarly, Gilbert Ryle claims that we cannot directly access another’s mind. The paper’s rethinking of the problem of other minds moves beyond these questions of perceptibility and accessibility. It asks whether there are certain groups of people whose minds are systematically misinterpreted, or even denied mentality. It argues that there are. This claim builds off recent work in philosophy and social psychology on epistemic injustice and the role of social categories in mental state attribution. The paper proposes the Problem of the Other’s Mind: the phenomenon of a (relatively) socially privileged person’s inability or lack of desire to understand the mind of a (relatively) socially underprivileged person.     

Existential Phenomenology and the Conceptual Problem of Other Minds

We ordinarily think that self and other coexist as subjects with mutually exclusive mental lives. The conceptual problem of other minds challenges this common thought by raising doubts that coexistence and mutual exclusivity come together in a coherent idea of others. Existential phenomenology is usually taken to be exempt from skeptical worries of this sort because it conceives of subjects as situated or embodied, offering an inclusive account of coexistence. I submit that this well‐entrenched view faces a serious dilemma: either the ordinary distinction between self and other has to be given up, or accounts of situated and embodied coexistence presuppose a non‐phenomenological solution to (a close relative of) the conceptual problem of other minds. I then propose a way out for existential phenomenology by sketching a Sartre‐inspired phenomenological response to the problem.     

The Epistemological Problem of Other Minds and the Knowledge Asymmetry

The traditional epistemological problem of other minds seeks to answer the following question: how can we know someone else's mental states? The problem is often taken to be generated by a fundamental asymmetry in the means of knowledge. In my own case, I can know directly what I think and feel. This sort of self‐knowledge is epistemically direct in the sense of being non‐inferential and non‐observational. My knowledge of other minds, however, is thought to lack these epistemic features. So what is the basic source of my knowledge of other minds if I know my mind in such a way that I cannot know the minds of others? The aim of this paper is to clarify and assess the pivotal role that the asymmetry in respect of knowledge plays within a broadly inferentialist approach to the epistemological problem of other minds. The received dogma has always been to endorse the asymmetry for conceptual reasons and to insist that the idea of knowing someone else's mental life in the same way as one knows one's own mind is a complete non‐starter. Against this, I aim to show that it is at best a contingent matter that creatures such as us cannot know other minds just as we know a good deal of our own minds and also that the idea of having someone else's mind in one's own introspective reach is not obviously self‐contradictory. So the dogma needs to be revisited. As a result, the dialectical position of those inferentialists who believe that we know about someone else's mentality in virtue of an analogical inference will be reinforced.     

Solving the (Real) Other Minds Problem

People care about others’ thoughts, feelings, and intentions but can have considerable difficulty reading others’ minds accurately. Recent advances in understanding how people make such inferences provide significant insight into when people are likely to be reasonably accurate mind readers and when they are not. People tend to reason about others’ mental states by starting with their own and only subsequently adjusting that egocentric default to accommodate differences between themselves and others. Such adjustments tend to be insufficient, rendering final estimates egocentrically biased. When more information about others is available, people tend to rely on existing stereotypes or other expectations to intuit others’ mental states. Systematic errors resulting either from excessive egocentrism or inaccurate expectations can lead to miscommunication, misunderstanding, and social conflict, but these biases also suggest useful strategies for improving mind reading in everyday life.     

关于经验基础问题及其他质疑的回应

批判的语境经验主义在经验内容上关注构成证据相关性的基础,它通过共同体的批评性互动来建构一种动态而可靠的语境及其规范。朗基诺指出理性和社会二分是对知识概念的误解导致的,而批判的语境经验主义规范来自科学自身的形象。与认知科学中的生成主义进路比较看,批判的语境经验主义主要思考科学探究的过程,它关乎作为公共知识的科学。批判的语境经验主义和实践实在论都拒绝上帝之眼的可能,但在形而上学和规范性问题上两者依然存在差别。     

Comparative Perspectives on Solutions for the Problem of Other Minds

This paper aims to establish a dialogue between contemporary research on the problem of other minds and classical Chinese philosophical theories. It first explores the idea, inspired by the recent discovery of the mirror neuron mechanism, that a direct exchange of experience may occur between the observer and the observed. Next, it analyzes the ways in which the ancient Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi and Confucian thinkers reflected on the problem of other minds, which are quite similar to the idea inspired by the latest research on mirror neurons. In these thinkers’ views, knowledge of other minds is the result of mental activity and what it provides is, to a large extent, something related not to epistemology but rather to a situational understanding of other minds from the perspective of value theory. The author points out that this solution takes two aspects, humans’ innate nature and human experience, into consideration simultaneously. In terms of humans’ innate nature, the body of a human being is a body that represents the unity of man and nature, and it has something in common with the natural world, which lays a foundation for the perception of other minds. In terms of human experience, human beings have such actual needs as emotions, pursuits, and desires, and their behaviors need to conform to certain norms. It is in a body of this kind that the mind of human beings can be formed and enjoy the potential to develop. Effective interpersonal communication can thus be achieved.     

Psyche And Soma: Physicians and Metaphysicians on the Mind-Body Problem from Antiquity to Enlightenment

Book Information Psyche And Soma: Physicians and Metaphysicians on the Mind-Body Problem from Antiquity to Enlightenment. Psyche And Soma: Physicians and Metaphysicians on the Mind-Body Problem from Antiquity to Enlightenment John P. Wright Paul Potter Oxford Clarendon Press 2000 xii + 298, Hardback £45.00 Edited by John P. Wright; Paul Potter. Clarendon Press. Oxford. Pp. xii + 298,. Hardback:£45.00,     

Heresies of the Heart and the Problem of the Other: A Psychoanalytic and Theological Perspective

In this article, I unmoor the concept of heresy from its religious, technical roots, using the metaphor heresies of the heart to depict the psychological and theological dynamics of the human proclivity to rely on the idea of Truth to alienate, depersonalize, and coerce other human beings. Using the concepts of the personal mode of existence and emotional intelligence, I define heresies of the heart as comprising (a) those emotional attitudes that involve the transformation of insecurity and anxiety into hostility and hatred toward the Other, (b) recognition and treatment of the Other as less than a person, and (c) unquestionable beliefs regarding one’s truth and the certainty of one’s innocence. Theologically, heresies of the heart signify the presence of idolatry, which is a type of bad faith that involves the use of a contingent object to contain anxiety by transforming it into hostility toward the Other.     

The Problem of Other Minds: Wittgenstein's Phenomenological Perspective

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.     

Transforming the Problem of the Other: Rethinking Merleau‐Ponty's Itinerary

This essay offers a new understanding of Merleau‐Ponty's notion of the Other, the problem that revolves around it, and its far‐reaching repercussions by shedding light on aspects that usually go unnoticed in the interpretation of his late thought in these regards. I show how Merleau‐Ponty's emerging ontology in his late writings opens anew, in a complex manner, the problem of the Other, transforming it in a way that dismantles, to begin with, traditional epistemological questions regarding the Other, as well as principal difficulties regarding the Other's appearance within the realm of phenomena which have occupied phenomenology from its very beginning. I demonstrate how Merleau‐Ponty's late writings in fact bind the problem of the Other with the question regarding the very limits of phenomenology and the realm of meaning as a whole.     

他心问题的社会认知神经科学研究进路

作为当代心智哲学九大问题之一的他心问题,肇始于Descartes主义对心身关系的认识。问的是:我们能否知道以及怎么知道他人有心,亦即有思想、经验和情感等?对于他心问题的解决方案,20世纪90年代以来,随着现当代科学技术(尤其是神经生物学、认知神经科学和大脑测试技术等)的深入发展,哲学家与心理学家的知识联姻和交叉合作研究,提供了关于他心问题的若干重要成果和实证资料。他心问题不再成为"理论的死角"。当代社会认知神经科学的出现(social cognitive neuroscience,SCN,2000),在科学方法论上更加关注对社会性心智现象的神经机制考量,一系列研究成果都为揭示他心问题提供了科学旁证。这不仅说明了认识他心的可能性,而且表明了通向认识他心方式的多样性,物理学的方法并不是与他心相隔绝。本文尝试从社会认知神经科学的最新研究进展:镜像神经元系统,他知与自知、他心知觉和再认的社会标记、他心社会判断和归因入手来论证他心问题的可释性,为他心问题的论证提供一条多学科交叉研究的新进路。     

The Problem on Predicting the Outcomes of National Football League Games and Other Phenomena of Equivalent Interest

Attempts to successfully predict the point spread of National Football League games are viewed from the perspective of classical measurement theory. The hypothesis under investigation asserted that one factor limiting the valid predictions of the number of points scored by each team during games is the low levels of reliability inherent in the potential predictor variables. Data for all 28 teams of the NFL were collected for each of the 16 weeks of the regularly scheduled 1978-79 and 1979-80 seasons. Specific measures investigated included the number of points scored, the number of points yielded, the number of yards gained, and the number of yards yielded. These variables were then analyzed via Cronbach's alpha coefficient and other methods of assessing reliability. Results indicated that the a priori expectation of limited reliabilities was supported. The study discusses the implications of these results on traditional prediction strategies for both football specifically and psychological research in general, and offers an alternative approach to forecasting pro football games.     

Mirror for the Other: Problem of the Self in Continental Philosophy (from Hegel to Lacan)

This essay intends to explore the genesis of one of the key concepts in continental philosophy of personalism–the concept of the ‘Other. It attempts to use most influential philosophical and psychological contexts to demonstrate how the Self is linked to the Other logically, notionally and conceptually. The present analysis employs two principal approaches to the problem–philosophical and psychological. From the stand point of the former, the key figure of the hereunder discourse is Hegel and his theory, while the later will be represented predominantly by Lacanian ideas. The present article will also discuss major influences of Hegel’s philosophical ideas on the Lacan’s theory.     

Women and Their Physicians

No abstract available for this article.     

The Intensive Other: Deleuze and Levinas on the Ethical Status of the Other

This paper develops a response to the ethical conception of the human Other formulated by Gilles Deleuze in his review of Michel Tournier’s 1967 novel Friday. The central contention here is that although Deleuze develops a compelling notion of intensive ethics in response to Tournier’s novel, that ethics also remains deeply problematic in refusing to ascribe a positive role to the human Other. My wager is that some of these problems can be brought to light by placing Deleuze’s philosophy in dialogue with that of Emmanuel Levinas. As I seek to show, Levinas’s philosophy of alterity not only reveals that Deleuze is mistaken in failing to ascribe a positive ethical role to the human Other, but also begins to point the way toward a more positive conception of ethics that does not oppose the Other to the intensive realm that Deleuze so much values.