Solipsism

Solipsism (Latin: solus, alone + ipse, self) is the philosophical idea that “My mind is the only thing that exists”. Solipsism is an epistemological or metaphysical position that knowledge of anything outside the mind is unjustified. The external world and other minds cannot be known and might not exist. In the history of philosophy, solipsism has served as a skeptical hypothesis, and is considered impossible to refute.

Explanation

Main article: Problem of other minds

Denial of the materialist viewpoint, in itself, is not enough to be a Solipsist. Possibly the most controversial feature of the solipsistic world view is the denial of the existence of other minds. We can never directly know another’s mental state. Qualia, or personal experience, is private. Another person’s experience can be known only by analogy.

Philosophers try to build knowledge on more than an inference or analogy. The failure of Descartes’ epistemological enterprise brought to popularity the idea that all certain knowledge may end at “I think therefore I am”.[1]

The problem of solipsism also merits close examination because it is based upon three widely held philosophical presuppositions, which are themselves fundamental and wide-ranging in importance. These are:

1. That my most certain knowledge is the contents of my own mind – my thoughts, experiences, affects, etc.
2. That there is no conceptual or logically necessary link between the mental and the physical – between, say, the occurrence of certain conscious experiences or mental states and the ‘possession’ and behavioral dispositions of a ‘body’ of a particular kind (see the Brain in a vat);
3. That the experiences of a given person are necessarily private to that person.

Solipsism, like other skeptical hypotheses, is likely impossible to refute. Like-wise the core assertion of materialism, that there is an external universe is also impossible to refute. Although some recent work in physics (EPR experiments) is suggestive, it is likely that solipsism and materialism are impossible to differentiate empirically.

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