Our Knowledge of Other Minds

t )~ ' T IS with some trepidation that I am raising again this old problem, for it may well be said that nothing new could possibly be written on 7 it. On the other hand it can scarcely be 7 , , maintained that what has been written has s''==i i left the problem in a satisfactory state. Moreover, it seems to me that some work which has been done recently on the nature of theoretical physics can be used to dispose of most of the difficulties, and it is partly in the hope of drawing attention to that work and its bearings on psychology that I am writing this paper. The problem to be discussed is not the genetic question "how does my mind come to know other minds", but the logical question "what ground have I for believing in the existence of other minds". Of the traditional answers to this question I think the following two are the most important: I. My knowledge of other minds is based on analogy and induction. I have experience of my own mind, the behaviour of my own body and the behaviour of other bodies. From the analogy between the behaviour of my body and the behaviour of other bodies and from the knowledge that my mind controls (in some sense) my body I proceed to the inductive conclusion that other bodies are controlled by other minds analogous to my mind. Consider now the following propositions: (a) Any conclusion arrived at by analogy and induction is at best only probable.