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Strawson's Transcendental Deduction of Other Minds
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
Extract
It is only because the solution is possible that the problem exists. So with all transcendental arguments (p. 30).
Although P. F. Strawson mentions transcendental arguments only once in Individuals, there is no doubt as to his commitment to transcendental method. This paper will offer a critique of such a method, as it functions in a single context. Strawson gives a transcendental argument to refute scepticism with regard to other minds. We are all familiar with the gist of this argument. The sceptic holds that one can ascribe states of consciousness only to oneself. This assertion obviously implies that one can ascribe states of consciousness to oneself. But, Strawson argues, “One can ascribe states of consciousness to oneself only if one can ascribe them to others” (p. 96). In other words, the second assertion implies a third, that one can ascribe states of consciousness to others. The third assertion, though implied by the sceptic's initial assertion, contradicts it. Thus scepticism is shown by transcendental argument to imply its own denial. According to Strawson, the very statement of a sceptical position always presupposes concepts sufficient for its solution. “It is only because the solution is possible that the problem exists.”
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary Volume , Volume 1 , Issue 2: New Essays in the Philosophy of Mind , 1975 , pp. 159 - 169
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Authors 1975
References
1 The numbers in parentheses, in this and succeeding references, denote pages in Strawson, P. F., Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics (New York: Doubleday, 1963)Google Scholar. Citations of other works will be placed in the footnotes.
2 We shall not raise the question whether the sceptical position might be stated in a form which would not lend itself to Strawson's transcendental deduction. Strawson himself does not seem to deny such a possibility (pp. 105-1 06).
3 This reconstruction remains true to Strawson 's talk of ascribing “predicates” to “individuals” and of individuals as “possessing” predicates. This way of speaking, which mixes the logical order of subjects and predicates with the ontological order of individuals and characteristics, is reproduced here despite my own scruples.
4 Ayer, A.J., The Concept of a Person (New York: St. Martin's, 1963), pp. 100·101CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
5 Malcolm, Norman, “Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations,” The Philosophical Review, LXIII, No.4 (October 1954)Google Scholar.
6 The reader may want to object at this point that we are being unfair to Strawson when we speak of depression as a state of consciousness. Such an attempted rescue only pushes Strawson off the edge: It shows that the plausibility of his statement rests on an ambiguity in his position. Does Strawson really hold that we can observe states of consciousness or not? If he says that we can, then he is guilty of the alleged contradiction. But if he says that we cannot, then he fails in his attempt to block the “logical wedge” between behaviour (which is observable) and states of consciousness (which are not), and he is left without the supplementary argument which is necessary to complete the task his transcendental deduction begins.
7 Kant, Immanuel, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Smith, Norman Kemp (New York: St. Martin's, 1961), A 84, p. 120Google Scholar. See the gloss in Wolff, Robert Paul, Kant's Theory of Mental Activity (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963), p. 89Google Scholar.
8 Ayer, op. cit., pp. 98-99.