Many people disagree and reject the idea of solipsism. But is there anything to refute the idea that only I exist ? I exist : what rational grounds are there for believing that anyone else does ? These questions might, for all I know, be addressed to myself - musings rather than requests to actually existing others.
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Do you have a source on "many people hate the idea of solipsism"? There are many arguments against it in the literature, but that doesn't exactly equate to those people 'hating' the idea. There are stock rejections of solipsism, a lot of them focus on how it's self refuting, but again that doesn't exactly show that those people hate the idea or fear it, it shows that they found some internal inconsistencies with the idea and choose to reject it as a result.– Not_HereMay 13, 2018 at 19:13
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Maybe your 'sample' is biased: Those who believe in solipsism don't speak up, since there is no one else to convince anyway, and hence only those that don't subscribe to solipsism would bother to let their views known.– Bram28May 13, 2018 at 19:23
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Let me clarify what I meant by asking that question. Your question right now is "why do many people hate solipsism? Is it because they're scared of it?" and I think that is very poor framing. I'm not sure that many people do hate the idea, and I'm very sure that the majority of the literature on the subject written by people who disagree with the idea but do not 'hate' the idea and are not 'scared' of it. I think that this is really poor framing because 1) what you're saying isn't true in the first place and 2) it's unnecessarily polemic. Maybe people do hate the idea but that needs citations.– Not_HereMay 13, 2018 at 19:24
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1The simple refutation of "the idea that only I [you] exist" is the fact that YOU are writing to US.– Mauro ALLEGRANZAMay 14, 2018 at 6:46
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4Possible duplicate of Are there any philosophical arguments to disprove or weaken solipsism?– ConifoldMay 15, 2018 at 0:19
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3 Answers
Many people hate the idea of solipsism. Why is it so? Is it because they fear it.? Or is it because they just can't understand it?
Well, "hate" doesn't really seem to be the case. Anyway, the problem with solipsism is: why should we think it's true? Moore's argument for the existence of the external world basically deals with this kind of scepticism rather well. Solipsism is rather used for methodological scepticism, as a weakness for other positions, not as a position that we should accept itself.
I personally find nothing wrong with solipsism. Except the fact that. I know that I exist. But the reader cannot be sure. The reader knows that he exist. But I cannot be sure about that.
That's no issue for solipsism at all. If solipsism were true then only I (or respectively you) would exist. What others think therefore couldn't be a concern, as others don't exist.
If my existence as a conscious being is rejected by a solipsist.. I can't agree because I really have consciousness. He rejects that because he is a solipsist. Does this prove that solipsism is wrong?
No, from our point of view any other person can't be right about their solipsism. Either they normally exist or solipsism is true about us. But saying, "I don't exist.", about ourselves is nonsensical. ("I" only necessarily means our phenomenal consciousness here, to be clear.)
As babies we are born dependent on our mothers, primarily and our fathers. You can show practically from the babies perspective they and their mother are one. As they mature and gain independence, the split into the individual becomes more distinct.
A sign of mental illness, is total withdrawal into oneself, cutting off all threats and fears from the outside world, where the individual becomes the source of all truth about the world around them.
Unfortunately taking solipsism as ones reality, though in a philosophical sense we are a construct of our own minds and only through our own bodies and minds do we experience anything in this world, we are not alone.
This is why it is important to distinguish between conjecture, building mind models of reality, and what our biology and interdependence socially means to us which underpins our very existence. This is both the power of philosophy to look at ultimate issues of foundation and awareness, and its weakness, that without being pragmatic about our conclusions, we can become very deluded.
A pint down the pub does wonders to too much delving into maybes.
I believe you are exactly right to think like this. Solipsism is unfalsifiable and this suggest that there is some truth in it. This would be the explanation of its unfalsifiability given in the Perennial philosophy.
More importantly solipsism is undecidable. This suggest there is some truth and some falsity in it. This would be just as the Perennial philosophy proposes.
If Solipsism were decidable then Buddhism would have to be nonsense. Kant called it the 'scandal of philosophy' but it is no scandal outside the Academy. The Perennial philosophy predicts the undecidability of Solipsism and would be implausible if Solipsism could be decided.
But this is not the idea that you, as an individual, are all that exists. It would be that you are comprised of two aspects for one of which Solipsism would be false and for the other it would be true. This is what Heraclitus was getting at when he says 'We are and are-not'. There are these two aspects to consider.
One might say, I think, that finding our that Solipsism is not entirely false is what Yoga, as the art of union with Reality, is all about.