Further Development of the System: Other Minds

Abstract

The next move in developing our system will be to sketch out a way of translating statements about other minds into the primitive language of the system. This amounts to doing for statements about other minds what was done for statements about material objects in our chapters on phenomenalism, but it may antecedently appear to be more difficult since the language of the system is one in which all the key terms refer to one’s own sensations as opposed to the sensations and feelings of others. As it turns out, this translation is no more difficult from a theoretical point of view but the complexity of analysis becomes even more staggering, and the directions given for the translation of statements about other minds into the system will have to be even more meager. In fact, we will deal only with the statement, “Jones is in pain” and the reader will have to see for himself how to alter the analysis to cope with any of the great number of other statements that could be made about the mental states of other persons.