Can you give me some really good argument (thoughtful, well founded and relevant) for and against solipsism? Please, focus on arguments against!
I might as well clarify now that I’m not a solipsist (so we don’t need to have that discussion) and I’m not interested in discussing people who are solipsists and the psychological state of those who believe that the world is solipsistic.
What I have in mind here is to examine how well reasoned argument that can be generated in this topic. It has historically been equated with something obvious that the world can not be solipsistic, ie the the metaphysical solispsim isn’t true, but how do you prove it?
The question can also be formulated: How do you prove that the world is not the same as, or only, your own phenomenological experience (experience) and nothing else?
I hope for a serious discussion with a focus on the ontology and reasoning as such.
Personally, I’ve never quite made my way out of solipsism. For instance, “your own phenomenological experience,” is, I think, coterminous - literally synonymous - with “reality,” and I think the burden of proof is on those who disagree. Further discussion of the matter leads straight to the mind/body problem, which leads straight to the free-will/determinism problem, both of which point directly to the question of God, atheism, the afterlife (or lack thereof), the value of science & knowledge, and the purpose of the universe (and yourself) to exist. You’re basically standing at the apex of science, religion, philosophy and metaphysics with this question.
Hume and Wittgenstein come to mind as having done significant work on the topic after Descartes.
To whom are you trying to disprove solipsism? If you can answer that, you’ve surely refuted it. Argument, language itself, presupposes society.
My world is made up of my experiences. There is an assumption that these experiences are of a world, and that others have their worlds made up of their experiences. This fits well with the experience of life - the world can surprise us, teach us new things. Other people have information we don’t have, can trick or delight us. The things we experience are generally consistent and fairly constant - if we see a house from our window, we’ll probably see it there again tomorrow. If we don’t, we’ll probably hear someone talking about a house having been demolished.
I don’t think there is a cast-iron argument against a solipsism in which we feed our conscious mind these surprises and knowledge. But I don’t think it need affect our actions one jot. It has no pragmatic weight at all; similar to the possibility that the world and all our memories sprang into existence 5 seconds ago. It could be true, but the standard model works just as well, so why bother worrying about it?
Reality is “being here”, that is, the original division subject-object.
In the “being here” there is just a subject, me, and the objects.
If I try to find myself, I find always objects that are not me, because I am the subject of those objects.
Not only I am not my body but I have a body, also, my thoughts, my feelings, are mine but are not me.
I never succeed in objectifying me.
Furthermore, also the objects are not attainable.
Trying to know an object I always meet other objects, never its essence.
The subject and the object are the two unreachable poles of the “being here”. One cannot live without the other.
The subject is here because of the objects: no object no subject.
But also the object is here because of the subject: no subject no object.
Making absolute one of the two poles is an arbitrary pretension without base. Because the only base we have is the original division subject-object. And there we have to be.
Solipsism is the pretention to eliminate the tension making absolute the subject.
Vice versa, believing in the objectiveness in itself it means making absolute the object.
The second is still more diffused but not less pernicious.
In fact, believing absolute one of the two poles the Existence (what I am indeed) loses her faith in herself.
Because the objectiveness annihilates her, but solipsism too makes her void.
It is necessary to continually fight against the temptation to opt for one of the poles.
Our world is open, nothing has been already written for ever.
There is not any subjectivity in itself and there is not any objectiveness in itself.
This is not to say that I think Solipsism is true (because I’m also a Postmodernist) but I believe it makes the most sense epistemologically, and assume the stance ontologically if taking a stance is required.
I agree with Twilight’s summary of the basic premise of why it makes the most sense as the most sufficiently skeptical start-point:
There is simply no direct proof that there is any other phenomenological experience than what you call your own.
The fact that most people instinctively override the self-evidence of this with their social trust in others is no rational argument against Solipsism. Others may tell you about things you do not perceive, but without your perception of it you have literally no proof. And the utility of this instinctual trust similarly fails to get around this fundamental start point of having access to your perception ONLY.
If you remember something, but turn your perception away from it, and then turn it back, this is proof of nothing other than your changing perception involving degrees of consistency that you are able to make sense of.
Generally, to follow through with the consequences of Solipsism, you have to overcome many preconceptions that you come to take for granted over the course of normally understanding the world:
This, for example, is not necessarily true. The existence of other people is only a contradiction to Solipsism if all “true” things said by everyone must be compatible and consistent. To be a Solipsist, you don’t have to think of everyone as a liar, you just don’t have to think of what they say as necessarily having to be compatible and consistent with the only perception that you definitely know to exist.
This works both ways.
Another preconception you have to get over is that of a world that exists independently of you (or anyone). One can neither call it knowledge that perception exists independently of the world (because what would be being perceived?) nor that the world exists independently of perception (because who would know that?). This isn’t proof for Solipsism or against it, it just shows that the normal conception of the world is inconsistent.
So as bobgo says, the subject (self) that perceives and the object (world) that is perceived are inseparable and completely dependent as far as knowledge goes, meaning it makes more sense to think of them as the same thing. There is no dividing line.
One more thing that people have trouble with is the idea of the self in Solipsism. They think of the self as a locus of control, so if things happen outside of your control, there must be an agent or some source or other from which uncontrollable things originate. If you expand the conception of the self beyond this conventional definition, this is no longer a problem. A good reason to do so is that even things within the “conventional self” are not under one’s direct control, and perception is one’s own, rather than directly of things that are not you. Even a materialist knows of perceptions as things that occur within the brain and not outside of the self.
As for arguments against it, there aren’t really any. All I can think of is that rather than being loyal to all that you definitely know from your own phenomenological experience as a starting point, one must assume that on its own it is illusion and that greater truth lies in a collective set of both direct and indirect perceptions. A philosophy of utility would be compatible with this, as long as one places utility (and/or social congruence) above the source of your knowledge of existence at all.
By this argument one could argue that much of what other people experience as you isn’t you. All the stuff you are not aware you are doing and then things like your dreams, etc.
You cannot prove that a solipsist is wrong, but if a solipsist makes an argument supposedly demonstrating that they are the only thing in existence, that argument may have weak points. But a solipsist that simply believes they are the only existant thing cannot be proven wrong.
I have no interest in defending solipsism. All I am saying is that others cannot disprove it to the person who believes it because they can take anything as simply a part of themselves, including the argument, sort of like having a lucid dream, for them. If they try to prove they are all that exists, they get into a mess - and why would they anyway?
I agree, but even the solipsist runs into the issue of definitions of concepts at the very root of the notion (or any notion).
And the OPer asked for arguments against.
The very definition of existence is a very prime one.
I’m sure I don’t follow why; if there are other people (‘people’ in the meaningful sense, rather than dreamt puppets), there are other experiences besides your own. In what way is that not a contradiction to the solipsist.
Of course. I have little problem with choices of pragmatically empty options, besides the time it takes to realise them as such
And yes, he asked for arguments against, but I said in response somewhere above, the arguments against need to fit the arguments for. If we get one that is for solipsism - which is a really odd activity for a solipsist to engage in so it will likely come from a curious non-solipsist - then the arguments are, in a sense, created in response.
Isn’t this, though, an argument against Occam’s Razor? That it is OK to posit more entities if it works just as well. IOW the standard model has subject object perception, all these entities. Haven’t you opened a door?
Further how do you know that solipsism doesn’t work better?
Perhaps it feels just great, all the time.
(a message from one part of you to another part of you, with love )
Solipsism is childish. It’s the sort of thing a 10-year-old, on being explained the concept, would say, Of course! But it doesn’t increase our knowledge, and can’t be scientifically refuted. Therefore, in scientific terms, it is meaningless. It is very similar to those creationists who say the world was created in 4004 BC, and when confronted with the evidence of millions of years of geology and evolution, claim that god created all that “evidence”, in 4004 BC, just to deceive us (or test us, whatever).
If one can disprove God using science, then one can, not disprove, but negate that by saying that God created science to look that way. I realize many people try to reconcile God and science in a more harmonios way, but for those that say God is completely beyond science, I think they would have to actually believe in Him to make such an argument.
But I don’t experience those experiences, I experience this experience. Also, this is a bit tautological. The whole question is about the concept of “other” - other people & other experiences are identical in present context (yes, people prove the existence of people).
The question is simply: is the other (the not-me) “real”? To answer this you have to answer the mind/body problem. To answer the mind/body problem you have to address the mechanics of the universe itself, and hence the free-will/determinism problem (and moreover its relation to the measurement problem and quantum theory, if we count that as science). (I do believe I’m just repeating my first post at this point, and do note how well it has already predicted how the conversation would go.)
Eventually you get to the idea that you are God and/or that the whole universe is you; you check the science and it seems to be saying the same thing, you check “new age” religion and it’s basically saying the same thing too. Then you look into Taoism and Buddhism and you realize they’re saying the same thing. Then you think about what “the Kingdom of Heaven is within you” might actually mean. Throw in the law of attraction for good measure, all of a sudden you’re staring “reality” in the face, and it’s you.
“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.”
I don’t understand the need for “matching arguments”.
Oh, I’m not great at imagining what someone else “might” argue and anything said at all gives opportunity for such.
The fundamental premise of the solipsist is that his consciousness if the only “true existence” and everything else is merely imagination. But if "existence is defined as anything that has affect, then there is nothing that can be pointed to (mentally or otherwise) that does not “truly exist”. In fact, his consciousness would be the more difficult thing to justify as existing (although it obviously does exist).
So the issue becomes one of attempting to define “nonexistence”. Obviously it is whatever does not have affect, but the simpler mind generally says, “but my imagination has affect, my dreams, and fantasies. So do they exist?” Of course they do exist as what they are, mental representations of constructs, but the items within such imagining usually do not represent anything that does exist. A symbol or representation can exist, that doesn’t mean that what it represents exists.
I don’t really know what argument a solipsist would give other than that, but they are typically liberally imaginative so I’m sure they’ll think of something.
I can understand such arguments. They are easily resolved for anyone who actually wanted the resolution. They don’t of course, so the arguments persist. It is all socio-political.
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