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A Confrontation With The Privacy Of The Mind

Decent Essays

Austin Tolentino
Professor Dutton
PHIL 130; 9:20am-10:10am
September 26, 2014

A Confrontation with the Privacy of the Mind In philosopher Thomas Nagel’s “Other Minds” chapter of his book, What Does It All Mean?, the philosophical problem of considering minds belonging to others is posed. The issue mainly revolves around privileged access, which restricts someone’s knowledge of experiences and thoughts to his or her own mind. By critically observing this particular human limitation, a reflection on the standard account of knowledge, “Other Minds”, and class discussions thus far will further explore the implications and possible methods of attempting to resolve this problem in epistemology. Specifically this will address the consideration of others’ experiences, other people’s consciousness, and the seemingly unconscious. While much can be reasoned and argued to scrutinize the foundational source of propositional knowledge by senses, the problem of other minds undertakes the challenge of knowing the senses, thoughts, and experiences of other beings than one’s self. To illustrate this problem in action, a justified true belief (JTB) analysis can be performed on two people’s experiences with seeing an apple. Both can say they believe that the apple is red in color. Moving past the issue brought up by Bertrand Russell with regard to direct realism, the color of the apple is truly red, and both people have the right to know due to their senses. Individually, this JTB analysis

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