Other Minds - Hardcover

by John Wisdom (Author)

The central aim of Other Minds is to indicate what it is about one person's knowledge of the mind of another which has led some philosophers to say that such knowledge is impossible, others to say that it is inevitably indirect and others to say that it is no more than knowledge of the reactions of an organism to its environment. The book is also concerned with what has led philosophers to say similar things about other sorts of knowledge: knowledge of the future, knowledge of the past, knowledge of the material world as opposed to knowledge of what at the moment appears to be so. Philosophy and Psychoanalysis treats of ethical and aesthetic judgement, probability, degrees of logical connection and other matters. But it has three main aims. The first is a better understanding of what is wanted by the philosopher who raises questions as to the nature of this or that sort of knowledge. The second is a better recognition of the power of thought to give us the knowledge we want, not only when we are asking questions as to what is or is not possible but also when we are concerned with what in fact is so. The third aim is a better recognition of our power to form new concepts, new habits of thought, when those we have already are inadequate.