The problem of other minds: A debate between Schrödinger and Carnap

Author: Michel Bitbol

Source: Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, Volume 3, Number 1, 2004 , pp. 115-123(9)

Publisher: Springer

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Abstract:

This paper reviews the debate between Carnap and Schrödinger about Hypothesis P (It is not only I who have perceptions and thoughts; other human beings have them too)–a hypothesis that underlies the possibility of doing science. For Schrödinger this hypothesis is not scientifically testable; for Carnap it is. But Schrödinger and Carnap concede too much to each other and miss an alternative understanding: science does not depend on an explicit hypothesis concerning what other human beings see and think; it is simply a practice of communication which anticipates or presupposes the perfect interchangeability of positions amongst the members of the linguistic community. The mentalistic vocabulary of folk-psychology, used by Carnap and Schrödinger, does not take first but last place in this perspective; because it does nothing but express after the event the confidence to which the disputants bear witness regarding a generally successful practice of communication.

Keywords: Carnap; methodological solipsism; P-hypothesis; Schrödinger; science

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/B:PHEN.0000041896.22717.d6

Affiliations: 1: CNRS-IHPST, 13 rue du Four, 75006 Paris, France., Email: Michel.BITBOL@wanadoo.fr

Publication date: 2004-01-01