Has Strawson Refuted Scepticism about Other Minds? (original) (raw)

Professor P. F. Strawson is sometimes credited with having refuted scepticism with regard to knowledge of other minds. The thesis of this paper is that, in so far as the refutation of this sort of scepticism is its aim, Strawson's argument fails. The sceptic's claim is that one can ascribe states of consciousness only to oneself. Strawson's reply is that 'One can ascribe states of consciousness to oneself only if one can ascribe them to others' (96). 1 His point here is a purely logical one: the idea of a predicate is correlative with that of a range of distinguishable individuals of which the predicate can be significantly, though not necessarily truly, affirmed (o.5n). What distinguishes a predicate from a proper name is precisely that it can, in principle, be applied to a plurality of individuals. But, Strawson argues, 'there is no sense' in talking about ascribing a certain predicate to a plurality of individuals 'unless there is in principle some way of telling' which individuals possess that predicate (102). And there would be no way of telling which individuals possessed that predicate unless there were some way of identifying different subjects of such predicates. Now, states of consciousness are what Strawson calls 'private particulars' (31), which means that they are not observable. Individuals which possessed only private particulars could not be identified, since there would be no public way of identifying such individuals. If private particulars are to be ascribed at all, even to oneself, it must be possible to ascribe them to others as well. If they are to be ascribed to others, it must be possible to ascribe them on the basis of public ways of telling. If we are to ascribe them on the basis of public ways of telling, they must be ascribed to individuals which possess public (corporeal or behavioural) characteristics as well. Some of the public characteristics of such individuals must constitute 'logically adequate criteria' for the ascription of at least some private particulars (102). Therefore, Strawson concludes, it is false that one can ascribe states of consciousness only to oneself. Suppose that we grant, for the sake of argument, that, as a necessary condition of the ascription of states of consciousness to oneself, at least 1 The numbers in parentheses, in this and succeeding references, denote pages