I woke up thinking I had been spelling “solipsist” wrong. Should it not be “solopsist”, starting with “solo” from the Latin for “alone”. Alas, the word derives not from “solo” but from “solus” which is truncated by the i from the Latin “ipse” meaning “self”. I wonder if the name of Ipsilante, Michigan, is somehow derived the Latin word for self.
Discussion of solipsism, from what I surveyed earlier today and in earlier times, seems to gravitate toward derision. I sense an inevitable assumption, a punch line if you will, that solipsists have some kind of psychosis, or are pathologically self-absorbed. Some discussion seems to rise above that assumption. Maybe I don’t understand philosophy like I thought I once did but it leads me to believe that we only assign names to people and their characteristics so we can make ourselves feel superior, even if that feeling is itself a self-absorbed delusion.
At what level of discussion is there no sanctimony? I do not know.
That question just made my head spin.
Reading about solipsism started, for me, with the bullet-point like pair of definitions at dictionary.com. The first definition defines solipsism as a “theory” that only the self exists, and that only the self can be proven to exist. The second more controversial and, to me, biased definition defines it as “egoistic self-absorption.” That does not strike me as a particularly objective or impartial definition. But in the days when dictionaries were most people’s primary resource for definitions that might have ended any entertainment of what the term means.
I do not begin this litany with an articulate or succinct definition of solipsism as I understand it. I think I know what it means to me but the words are not all in place. It starts with my belief that consciousness does not exist, or that it cannot be proven to exist. There is no lightning in a bottle that one can point to and say “There it is. That is human consciousness. Let’s market that, and slap ads on it.”
By extension, if consciousness is an illusion then so too is everything we think exists. What are all these material things around us if not the product of human consciousness and the industry guided by it?
But consciousness exists, just not in a physically definable form. This, I believe, is God.
If it cuts to any of my core beliefs about life I would look to my belief that you can never know another person or understand their lives. The experiences which gather to form other humans creates indivisible units of experience and unique perceptions of reality. Maybe that is just sugar-coating the matter, making me an apologist for solipsists when it would be easier just to label them egocentric.
Further reading elucidates the fact that solipsism is not a philosophy but a problem. This term, again, is weighted by contextual implications that there is something here that needs to be or even can be solved, either through logic or disapprobation. Problems are not necessarily solved but instead they are to be understood, which I think represents a more moderate philosophy of conflict, one which aspires to avoid name-calling.
Interesting, it seems Descartes employed God in a way that could be seen as a crutch. Most philosophers decline to bring God in to these discussions. I admit, my invocation of God earlier does sound and feel, no pun intended, holier than thou.
Descartes seems to think that one’s understanding of other people can only come from or be a reflection of an understanding of yourself. Maybe that is my dilemma, for I feel one can never truly know yourself, and thus it is not possible to even begin to truly know another person. All of us are mysteries, even to ourselves. At the risk of sounding judgmental (the attitude I am most anxious to avoid) I think that some of us are more willing than others to admit that we do not really know ourselves. This makes philosophical conclusions harder to reach, when base attitudes interfere.
Aha, Locke seems to follow this logic but is thereby accused of doing it to “avoid” solipsism. Avoiding the problem! How gauche.
OK, I will continue this thought stream later. Head spinning again, and this body needs food.
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