VI From Subjectivity to Intersubjectivity Philosophy 157 G

The Problem of Other Minds • How can one human mind know that another exists? • Descartes (Meditation II): I judge there to be men when all I see are hats and coats that could conceal an automaton • Naturalistic response: if there is a brain, there is a mind • But what if bodies depend on minds?

Monadology • Leibniz held that human minds are “monads, ” simple substances • Monads are “worlds unto themselves” • Physical objects are harmoniously related perceptions • The perceptions of monads proceed in synchrony with one another, so it is as if there were a common world of objects

Husserl’s Problem • I am a monad, an “Ego” • My world is “constituted” by the activity of the ego • I cannot verify the existence of another ego through a constituting activity of my ego • It seems that I cannot constitute another ego, which would constitute its own world

Phenomenological Solution • We must not try to solve the problem metaphysically ( as did Leibniz) • We must instead look to the synthesizing activities of our own ego • The key is to discover the “sense” “other ego” which the ego intends

The Experienced Other • There is a straightforward way that another mind is given • Another organism is found in my world • This organism is taken as being “governed psychically” by a mind • The other mind experiences the same world as I do

The Noematic Other • If I exclude actuality from my experience, I consider a “reduced” object that I synthesize • The exclusion does not make the object something “private” for me • I am there for the other • This must be explained through a theory of “empathy”

Ownness • The explanation of the other and a public world cannot suppose their existence • So, their existence must be put aside • I merely consider things as being “my own” • But this requires a contrasting conception of an “alter-ego, ” for whom things are not “my own” • How does it make an appearance?

The Reduced World • We must begin with a world which excludes everything mental that is not my own • We have a “Nature” that is the most basic level of noema • Nature contains my body, which I rule • I have kinesthetic sensations of the actions of my body • They reveal that I govern my body

The Pure Ego • Myself and my body are given as united in the reduced world • But I can make a further reduction, by putting aside the “physical world” • I am left with a pure ego, which is the “pole” of my intentional activity • The world is “inside” this ego, so how could the ego be in it?

Constituting Myself • The pure ego is related to the ego found in the world by constituting it • An analogy with the constitution of a “physical” object: most of it is not given • We project more features in space and time • So we project more features on ourselves as given, and we count them as our own

Transcendence • The reduced world is constituted harmoniously by me • That world is other than my self-in-the world (transcendent), but it constituted by myself (immanent): an “immanent transcendency” • We are looking for an absolute transcendency: an ego not at all my own that constitutes its world

Objectivity • The key is to recognize that the sense of the reduced world is that of an objective world • An objective world is an inter-subjective world, accessible to other egos • Each ego constitutes a world in a way that is harmonious with my constituting activity • This is not a metaphysical hypothesis, but rather explains the sense of my world

Access to Other Minds • Nothing belonging to the essence of the other is given in experience (or it would be of my essence) • Instead, it is “appresented” as accompanying a perceived body • An analogy: when an object is viewed from the front, the back is presumed to exist • A disanalogy: the existence of the back can be verified, but that of an ego cannot

Pairing • We pair up the perceived organism and a governing ego • This is not an analogical inference • Instead, it is a mental transfer of sense • An analogy: we make sense of ourselves only by synthesizing a harmonious stream of recollections

Intersubjectivity • My body is located at a central “here” • I take the other body to have its own “here” • I can think of myself in the other body’s “here, ” which is now “there” for me • So I can think of the other body as having a “here” such that my body’s position is a “there” for it

Community of Monads • Monadic egos seem not to be capable of assimilation by reference to the organism • The other monadic ego constitutes its world • I can analogically give sense to that ego as constituting as I constitute • It then constitutes what I perceive • This yields an “objectivating equalization” and a community of monads