Study Questions on John Hospers’ ‘The Problem of Other Minds’

1. State as clearly as you can the main point Hospers is trying to make in the first two paragraphs of the essay.
2. What answer does Hospers’ give to the question of whether or not one can verify the proposition that another person is in pain? What are his reasons for this answer?
3. Explain clearly why Hospers thinks that it is absurdly implausible to suggest that all one means by ‘You are in pain’ is that you behave in a certain way and respond to lie-detector tests and so-on.
4. Explain the distinction between ‘verify’ and ‘confirm’ that seems to be operating in Hospers’ essay.
5. Hospers suggests possible problems with the notion of confirmation. Explain these problems.
6. Explain, in your own words, the ‘automaton’ scenario that Hospers describes.
7. What is the ‘automaton’ scenario intended to show?
8. Do you think that the ‘automaton’ scenario shows what Hospers thinks it shows? Explain.
9. Explain the ‘argument from analogy’.
10. Explain what Hospers sees as the ‘trouble with’ the argument from analogy.
11. Explain how Hospers characterizes (initially) the upshot of the passage quoted from John Stuart Mill (p. 430).
12. Explain How the problem of other minds relates to the question of whether or not computers/machines can think?

Disregard the two problems that Hospers mentions at the end of the essay.These are not immediately relevant to the larger issue that we will be considering.Read up to the paragraph that begins ‘Many would rest content with this answer…’ on page 430