Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T15:23:09.381Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Concepts of the Sceptic: Transcendental Arguments and Other Minds

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

G. W. Smith
G. W. Smith
Affiliation:
University of Lancaster
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Strawson's attempt to refute scepticism about the existence of other minds has itself been a popular target of sceptical criticism. But the very persistence of the attacks suggests that no clinching rebuttal has yet been produced. One of the earliest and still one of the most effective responses to Strawson is Ayer's celebrated paper ‘The Concept of a Person’, in which he reasserts the position of classical empiricist scepticism on the existence of other minds. By reinterpreting and partly reconstructing Strawson's arguments I shall try to show that the sceptical position represented by Ayer is indeed incoherent, as Strawson maintains, and I shall suggest why a conclusive rebuttal of Strawson's anti-sceptical arguments has not been and is unlikely to be produced.

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 49 , Issue 188 , April 1974 , pp. 149 - 168
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1974

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Strawson, P. F., Individuals (London, Methuen, 1959).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Ayer, A. J., The Concept of a Person and Other Essays (London, Macmillan, 1964).Google Scholar

3 Stroud, B., ‘Transcendental Arguments’, Journal of Philosophy, LXV, No. 9, 1968.Google Scholar

4 See e.g. Körner, S., ‘The Impossibility of Transcendental Deduction’, The Monist, 51, 1967, pp. 317–331CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Griffiths, A. Phillips and Macintosh, J. J., Symposium: ‘Transcendental Arguments’, The Aristotelian Society, Supp. Vol. XLIII, 1969, pp. 165–181CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Berriman, W. A., ‘Strawson's Individuals as Descriptive Metaphysics’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, XLV, 1967, pp. 276–292CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wilkerson, T. E., ‘Transcendental Arguments’, Philosophical Quarterly, 20, 1970, pp. 200–212CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Harrison, R., ‘Strawson on Outer Objects’, Philosophical Quarterly, 20, 1970, pp. 213–221CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Phillips, R. L., ‘Descriptive versus Revisionary Metaphysics and the Mind-Body Problem’, Philosophy, 42, 1967, pp. 105–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 I owe this point to Professor F. N. Sibley.

6 See Ward, K., ‘The Ascription of Experiences’, Mind, LXXIX, 1970, pp. 415–420CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for a similar criticism.

7 Cf. Shoemaker, S. S., ‘Self-reference and Self-awareness’, Journal of Philosophy, LXV, 1968, pp. 555–567.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Strawson, P. F., The Bounds of Sense: An Essay on Kant's ‘Critique of Pure Reason’, (London, Methuen, 1966).Google Scholar

9 Cf. Woods, M., ‘Reference and Self-Identification’, Journal of Philosophy, Vol. LXV, 1968, pp. 568–578.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

10 Cf. Smart, B., ‘Can disembodied persons be spatially located?’, Analysis, 31, 1970–1971, pp. 133–138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar