Self And Other Flashcards
(12 cards)
Essay Structure
Philosophical Issue, Ethical and Existential implications, Thesis statement.
Position 1: Subjectivity, Rene Descartes, Solipsism, Existential Implications, Challenges to debunk Solipsism, Limitations to Solipsism.
Position 2: Intersubjectivity, Ethical implications, Ludwig Wittgenstein, private language argument, James Ogude, Ubuntu, limitations to Wittgenstein.
Compare and Contrast, explain why Position 2 is more plausible.
Philosophical Issue
How is the self formed? Subjective or Intersubjectively?
Implications
Subjectivity: Ethical implications, disappearance of human rights (make the link to solipsism), existential implications, loneliness and lack of connection that one feels (make the link so solipsism)
Intersubjectivity: It forms the essence of empathy, moral responsibility and ethical interactions. Since the self is constituted by the world around us, helping the “other” is the same as ourselves.
Subjectivity
The self is separate and unaffected by the other. Thus, it can be understood through egocentric introspection. In fact, a philosopher that shares this similar view is Rene Descartes
Rene Descartes
Three waves of doubt which demonstrated why the physical world should be doubted:
1) Perceptual illusion.
2) The dream problem.
3) A deceiving god.
As a result of this, he put forward “cogito ergo sum”; which argues that the very act of thinking is proof of one’s existence. He can doubt everything around him but he cannot doubt the fact that he is thinking. Descartes proved the existence of the individual, but in doing so, he argued everyone else out of existence; by having the self separate and unaffected by the other, there will be instances where the one can only be understood by himself; leading to isolation. This unfortunate consequence of “cogito ergo sum” is solipsism. Solipsism links to subjectivity because…
Challenges to debunk solipsism
It still remains a challenge to debunk solipsism as any explanation that anyone could given can easily be spun into the fabrication of consciousness. For example, let’s say I “come up” with a way to debunk solipsism, I can’t prove that this is not an attempt to keep me away from the “actual truth”.
Limitations to Solispsism
Just because we can’t refute an argument doens’t necessarily mean that it is true for example, consider the statement “there exists unicorns in the universe”; by our current technology, this statement is unprovable — we can’t physically check every corner of the universe, however, this statement isn’t true either, since we haven’t proved the existence of unicorns. The same principle applies to solipsism, if it were to be true, it would be detrimental to our works in epistemology; since we can’t prove solipsism false yet, it is more plausible to consider the position of intersubjectivity simply because it avoids all of these negative implications that solipsism brings.
Intersubjectivity
Thankfully, there’s still hope that the friends you’ve made so far are real — intersubjectivity affirms the experiences of “the other”, it stands in direct opposition to solipsism’s egocentric world view (if the self is affected by the other; the other must exist in order for the self to exist).
Wittgenstein
He wrote a book called “philosophical investigations”, in which he laws an attack on the private language argument (there is language which can only be understood by the person who uses it). If the private language argument holds true, as a consequence, subjectivity must also hold true…
Wittgenstein challenges the private language argument stating that if a language can’t be understood by anyone but its user, it would necessarily can’t be understood to the user as well. Because no meanings could be established for its signs, if languages were only private, meaningful communication would be impossible. Thus, Wittgenstein concluded that it is through language, not egocentric introspection that we can understand existence and personal identity.
James Ogude, ubuntu
He believes the solipsistic way of seeing the world can lead to selfishness and a lack of community. In fact, the African communitarian concept of “ubuntu” is perhaps a better way of understanding the world, through arguing that one’s identity is relational. It’s a way of living that begins with the premise that “I am” only because “we are”.
Limitations to Wittgenstein
The language argument does have its limitations, for example, Wittgenstein’s remarks on private language are still being argued upon, since it is not entirely clear if he meant it is empirically impossible to have a private language or that the idea of a private language is simply incoherent.
Compare and Contrast
Compare and Contrast, Solipsism is very hard to prove right or wrong, while Wittgenstein’s language argument is still argued upon, hence there still remains difficulty in proving either one of them correct. However, the position of Intersubjectivity is considered to be more plausible due to it avoiding the negative implications of solipsism and establishing positive implications in ethics, empathy and community.
