Can I know what another person is thinking or feeling? If so, how?
The problem of Other Minds is a true philosophical enigma. It is apt to strike children with no philosophical education whatsoever, yet remains intractable to many academics.
Broadly speaking, the problem can be divided into three questions. Firstly, how do
I come to believe that there are minds in the world other than my own?
Secondly, how can I justify my belief that there are minds in the world
other than my own? Thirdly, what can I state about the mental states of
minds other than my own?. The question we are dealing with here falls
largely into the third category, although of course issues relating to the
other two will also be involved.
Firstly, it is imperative to assert that, in looking for 'knowledge', we
are not aiming for logical certainties - we are not aiming to show that
any propositions about other minds can be demonstrated with absolute
certainty equivalent to that of mathematical truths. Philosophy ever
since Descartes has tended to be defined by scepticism: either it aims to
produce sceptical theories or it aims to refute them. And sceptics tend
towards extremity in their doubts. It must be stated here and now that
there are not, and never can be, any theories that prove demonstratively
that other minds exist, or that I know others' mental states. This is not
what should be aimed at in attempting to solve the problem. As Austin puts
it "To suppose that the question 'How do I know that Tom is angry?' is
meant to mean 'How do I introspect Tom's feelings?' is simply barking up
the wrong gum-tree."
Most philosophers agree that their theories only bestow a greater or
lesser amount of probability onto statements about other minds (although
there are exceptions, e.g. Peter Strawson's attempt to argue
transcendentally for the existence of other minds through our own
self-consciousness). There have been a number of different attempts to do
this. J.S. Mill, who produced the first known formulation of the Other
Minds problem, used the so-called 'Argument from Analogy' both to explain
how we come to believe in other minds and to justify this belief. Briefly,
the argument holds that I am directly aware of mental states in myself,
and I am aware of the behaviour of mine that results from and is caused by
these mental states. As I can observe similar physical behaviour in
others, I draw the analogy that it is caused by the same (or at least
similar) mental states to my own.
At the beginning of the era, punishments were decided by individuals or their families. This led to punishments were the quantity and quality did not match the significance of the crimes committed. Eventually, proportionate punishment was created, and left to the community, or whoever enforced the law. The reason for their extreme punishments, like execution or banishment on people was because they thought it would make other people refrain from breaking the law. However, studies have been shown that making punishments very harsh did not help much at all, if any (“Punishment”). Some of the most common severe punishments included hanging, burning, the pillory, whipping, branding, starvation in front of the public, and cutting off parts of the body. They also used items such as the scold’s bridle, which was an iron muzzle placed over the head and had a metal piece that stuck in the person’s mouth. The drunkard’s cloak was a type of pillory used on people who became drunk. Overall, most punishments that did not involve anything too serious were normally shameful to the criminal by placing them in front of the public. Some of the minor punishments included being carried in a cart through the streets, and riding backwards on a horse. The pillory was probably the most used prop for punishment, because it varied in intensity, such as getting the criminals ears nailed to the pillory itself. In that time period, they had specific punishments for certain offences. Some of these specifics included stealing anything over 5 pence led to being hanged. Also, the punishment for poaching varied based on the time of day. “Poaching at night resulted in the punishment by death, whereas poaching during the day time did not” (Alchin). Another major form of punishment used was imprisonment. At that time, prisons were very unsanitary and many diseases were
In a study conducted by Louis J. Guillette Jr. of the University of Florida and Ana M. Soto of Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, hormonal activity of water from sites located both upstream and downstream of feedlots in Nebraska were tested by adding the water samples to cells that “react in various ways to hormonal steroids” (Raloff, 2002, para 17-18). The study (as cited in Raloff) found that:
Punishments as a result of crime have changed in many societies, directly reflecting society’s views. Religion, classes and governments are examples of aspects that lead to change in punishments. Ancient Egypt, Edo Japan and Stuart England are eras whereby changing various societal views led to punishments themselves being modified.
Workplace bullying is defined as any as any type of repetitive abuse in which the victim of the bullying behaviour suffers verbal abuse, threats, humiliating or intimidating behaviours, or behaviours that interfere with his or her job performance and are meant to place at risk the health and safety of the victim (Murray, 2009). Bullying can take many forms, some blatant, others more subtle. Researchers ha...
...ishments varied depending on the person. Rich and poor people had varying punishments; now, despite social status or gender, people are only punished differently by age. Being punishable by death is also quite rare today, only being used in a few societies. Additionally, olden time punishments were more physical, to mainly hinder people from crime. Today’s punishments are to affect the person mentally, in the hope that they will be rehabilitated and become a better person.
Farah, Yara N.1, yara_tarah@baylor.edu. "Through Another's Eyes." Gifted Child Today 36.3 (2013): 209-212. OmniFile Full Text Select (H.W. Wilson). Web. 10 Feb. 2014
Workplace bullying is an issue at my current place of employment. It pertains specifically to my experiences and observations of a staff member who feels the need to demoralize and abuse her co-workers and patients. Her harsh mannerisms, including aggressiveness and manipulation had a negative impact on many staff
... commit another crime. Counselling sessions are given individually to each prisoner, and are run by psychologist and social workers. Further counselling is offered to criminals who need extra support during prison, or are having difficulty coping with prison. In conjunction with this, counselling helps criminals understand how they can adapt to the outside world which, in turn, allows prisoners the chance to become more socially acceptable upon their release. Studies have shown that criminals who receive counselling are less likely to reoffend once they have been released. Therefore, these counselling and self-help sessions must be implemented within prisons to reduce the rate of reoffending. Additionally, prisoners are offered counselling sessions after their release. This helps them to control their actions and teaches them how to behave in amongst society.
Consequently, A can be known as the cause of B, and B as the cause of C.
It has various negative effects which are persistent in nature, and the individual victim realizes the behaviour as bullying (Wilson, 2016). Bullying is associated with physical and psychological problems among nurses leading to absenteeism, poor performance, low job satisfaction, and increased turnover (Ganz, et al., 2015). The issue of bullying among nurses further affects the entire health care team including patient outcomes and health care costs due to the declining level of nurses’ performance (Becher & Visovsky, 2012). Although bullying exists in the nursing work place, they are silent in nature, and goes undetected (Becher & Visovsky,2012). Hence, identifying and managing workplace bullying needs efforts of individual facing bullying and support of the
...ook the back of the book (Miller, 1995). Cognitive inability to realize other’ perspective and lack of social conversation are propounded by Piaget the reasons of the egocentrism. Children talk while they play with peers however; this communication does not necessarily related to each other that even in group self communication can exist. He suggests based on his own observations such this speech decrease with age. In other words, egocentric thinking transition from autistic to social thinking and when child start to think silently egocentrism disappear (Piaget,1950). Vygotsky’ view departs from this point; in contradiction age decline he claimed initial mission of egocentric speech is cognitive self- guidance rather than social communication (Rubin, 1973). In commonsense, egocentrism is shaped by development of thoughts but, Piaget attributed it genetic roots.
would cause to occur. But Perspective 1 is something that disagrees with the previously mentioned
When doing this experiment I was able to see the effect of different concentrations on the rate of osmosis, each was done by measuring the initial mass and length of the potato cylinder and after osmosis, the results were conducted to show that as the sucrose concentration increases the rate of osmosis also increases as I said in my hypothesis thusly making a direct decrease in mass.
Cook, C., Guerra, N., Kim, T., Sadek, S., Williams, K. (2010). Predictors of bullying and
What is workplace bullying? According to the Workplace Bullying Institute “ 35 per cent of the U.S workforce repor...