Can I know what another person is thinking or feeling? If so, how? :: essays papers

Can I know what some new(prenominal) person is thinking or feeling? If so, how?The problem of new(prenominal) Minds is a true philosophical enigma. It is apt to strike children with no philosophical instruction whatsoever, yet remains intractable to many academics. Broadly speaking, the problem puke be divided into three questions. Firstly, how doI come to gestate that there are minds in the piece other than my own? Secondly, how erect I justify my belief that there are minds in the worldother than my own? Thirdly, what can I state slightly the mental states ofminds other than my own?. The question we are dealing with here golargely into the third category, although of course issues relating to theother two will to a fault be involved. Firstly, it is imperative to assert that, in looking for knowledge, weare non aiming for logical certainties - we are not aiming to show thatany propositions about other minds can be demonstrated with absolutecertainty equivalent to that of numerical truths. Philosophy eversince Descartes has tended to be defined by scepticism any it aims toproduce sceptical theories or it aims to refute them. And sceptics tendtowards extremity in their doubts. It must be stated here and now thatthere are not, and never can be, any theories that prove demonstrativelythat other minds exist, or that I know others mental states. This is notwhat should be aimed at in attempting to solve the problem. As Austin putsit To suppose that the question How do I know that Tom is angry? ismeant to mean How do I meditate Toms feelings? is simply barking upthe wrong gum-tree. Most philosophers agree that their theories only contribute a greater orlesser amount of probability onto statements about other minds (althoughthere are exceptions, e.g. Peter Strawsons attempt to arguetranscendentally for the existence of other minds through our ownself-consciousness). There have been a number of different attempts to dothis. J.S. Mill, who produced the first known formulation of the OtherMinds problem, used the so-called Argument from Analogy both to explainhow we come to believe in other minds and to justify this belief. Briefly,the argument holds that I am directly mindful of mental states in myself,and I am aware of the behaviour of mine that results from and is caused bythese mental states. As I can observe same physical behaviour inothers, I draw the analogy that it is caused by the same (or at leastsimilar) mental states to my own.