A History of Ideas7 Aug 2015

Neuropsychologist Paul Broks on Wittgenstein

Paul Broks looks at the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein and the problem of "other minds". How do I know you are not a zombie who behaves like a human but actually has no consciousness? Even if you are conscious, how can I tell that what I experience as red, you do not experience as blue? I know what's going on in my own mind, but I can never have direct access to what's going on in yours.

Such questions have troubled philosophers for centuries, but Wittgenstein thought that most of these tough problems were caused by nothing more than a "bewitchment by language". He didn't claim to be able to solve them; rather, he invented a method which he thought of as a kind of philosophical therapy that would cause the problems to melt away. The aim, he said, was to "show the way out of the fly bottle". In the case of the "other minds" problem, he imagined trying to invent a "private language" to describe one's own private mental states, and then showed (he thought) that such an idea was incoherent.

Is the fly out of the fly bottle? Paul Broks suspects not, and psychologist Nicholas Humphrey argues that philosophy took a disastrous turn in the 20th century when it started focusing on language. Humphrey argues that the privacy of our individual minds is a stark and unpalatable fact about human existence which has driven much of our culture.

Presenter: Paul Broks Producer: Jolyon Jenkins.

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(60)

Philosopher Clare Carlisle on Reality and Perception

If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound?That's the kind of head-scratching question that's popularly believed to occupy the time and brains of philosophers. It...

6 Aug 201512min

Physicist Tara Shears on Falsification

Science is based on fact, right? Cold, unchanging, unarguable facts. Perhaps not, says physicist Tara Shears. Tara is more inclined to follow the principles of the Anglo-Austrian philosopher, Karl Pop...

5 Aug 201512min

Lawyer Harry Potter on Eyewitness Testimony

Barrister Harry Potter asks whether we can believe the evidence of our own eyes. It's a vital question for the justice system today and Harry traces it back to the work of 18th century Philosopher Dav...

4 Aug 201513min

How Can I Know Anything at All?

A history of ideas. Presented by Melvyn Bragg but told in many voices. Each week Melvyn is joined by four guests with different backgrounds to discuss a really big question. This week he's asking 'How...

3 Aug 201513min

Writer Lisa Appignanesi on the Love of Children

How should we love our children? Can we build on the feelings we experience when we see them for the first time, raise them by instinct and personal principles or should we consult the childcare gurus...

31 Jul 201512min

Psychotherapist Mark Vernon on Freud

What is love? Psychotherapist Mark Vernon looks at Freud's ideas on the Greek god Eros, which he saw as a kind of life force running through us, shaping our desires and passionsFreud is often thought ...

30 Jul 201512min

Theologian Giles Fraser on Altruism

Giles Fraser discusses gene theory versus altruism with playwright Tom Stoppard whose play The Hard Problem explores the extent to which our genes dictate human acts of love and kindness, and Armand L...

29 Jul 201512min