Mind

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ugh our own self-
consciousness). There have been a number of different attempts to do this.
J.S. Mill, who produced the first known formulation of the Other Minds
problem, used the so-called ‘Argument from Analogy’ both to explain how we
come to believe in other minds and to justify this belief. Briefly, the
argument holds that I am directly aware of mental states in myself, and I
am aware of the behaviour of mine that results from and is caused by these
mental states. As I can observe similar physical behaviour in others, I
draw the analogy that it is caused by the same (or at least similar)
mental states to my own. As in all arguments from analogy, I assume that
because x is similar to y in some respects, it will be similar in others.
So as I know how I behave if I am feeling, say, angry, I assume in someone
else’s case that his behaviour is an indication of the mental state I call
‘anger’. My opinion in this respect is aided by the fact that most humans’
behaviour when they claim to be angry is broadly similar.

The argument from analogy, also employed by Bertrand Russell in a slightly
simplified form, is subject to a devastating criticism. Unlike most
analogies, in the case of other minds, there is no conceivable way of
verifying the conclusion we make. We have no way of discovering whether
someone else is angry or not, and our position means that this is a
necessary disadvantage. The only way to have someone else’s experiences
would to become that person, and in doing that, I would no longer be
myself and I would no longer be having someone else’s experiences. Thus it
is impossible to conceive of any set of experimental circumstances under
which I would be able to ascertain whether or not the human who is
expressing anger-behaviour really is angry or not. And as Norman Malcolm
has pointed out, as there are no conceivable criteria I could use to
determine whether someone is angry or not,...