What the Problem of Other Minds Really Tells us about Descartes

Ever since the first generation Cartesian Gerauld de Cordemoy wrote a selfstanding book dedicated to the problem of other minds philosophers have proceeded as though Descartes’ work entails some version of the problem. In this paper I evaluate Descartes’ own contribution to creating and answering skepticism about other minds. It is my contention, first, that for most of his working life Descartes did not see the problem as distinct from the problem of the external world. Second, that when he was finally presented with the problem in a late letter from Henry More, Descartes looked not to behavior, but to a body’s origins as a guide to who does and does not have a mind. Specifically, the response Descartes offers to More appeals to a shared “nature,” something which has struck many readers as an ineffectual response, even as a response which begs the question. On the contrary, and this is my third contention, Descartes’ response is a fairly plausible one when read as utilizing the meaning of “nature” as complexio found in Meditation Six. Though it may be translated as “complex,” complexio is really a technical Latin term coming from the medical tradition, likely introduced into the lexicon at Salerno in the tenthor eleventh-century. It means, roughly, a unique composition of elements or qualities distinguishing species (and individual members of a species) from one another. By emphasizing our shared complexio Descartes is telling More that having resolved the problem of the external world we can rely on God’s uniform action in the world to entail joining a mind to members of our species. Thus, if the question is, as More suggests, whether the existence of other bodies can by itself imply the existence of other minds, then Descartes’ answer, surprisingly, is yes, so long as we take their origins into account. Before collecting the handful of remarks Descartes makes about our knowledge of other minds, I begin by arguing that what motivates the problem of other minds is a specific conception of body as much as, if not more than, a specific conception of mind. In section two I argue that Descartes’ various claims about other minds do not add up to an awareness of the skeptical problem distinct from the skeptical problem of the external world. Here I show, among other things, that the language test from the Discourse is meant to establish only that a mind is not present in a given body; i.e. it does not license any inference about a mind being present. This leaves us, so I claim in section three, with Descartes’ late correspondence with More. In this section I show that Descartes’ treatment of other minds skepticism depends on the “nature” Descartes appeals to, and ultimately on the last sense of “nature” described in Meditation Six. Finally, in section four I suggest this answer to More has the markings of Aristotelianism given that it shuns dualism in favor of viewing the mind or soul as the form of the human body. In effect,