THE IMMORTAL SOLIPSIST

Extract

Philosophers have been known to sometimes conjure up world-views which seem dazzlingly at odds with our everyday take on the world. Among the more, if not most drastic ‘-isms’ to be found in the history of philosophy, then, is the standpoint of solipsism, derived from the Latin words ‘solus’ (alone) and ‘ipse’ (self). What is that supposed to mean? It adopts a position that only acknowledges the existence of one's very own mind and opposes that there is anything beyond the realm of my mind that could be known. What a drastic contradiction to the way we normally view the world, indeed. Allow me to emphasize some implications that would arise were one really to take the solipsist view for granted. The aim is to briefly adumbrate how a solipsist view would cut us off from the social world and from the existential dimension of our own death.