Metaphysical solipsism
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Metaphysical solipsism is the variety of idealism which asserts that nothing exists externally to this one mind, and since this mind is the whole of reality then the "external world" was never anything more than an idea. It can also be expressed by the assertion "there is nothing external to these present experiences", in other words, no reality exists beyond whatever is presently being sensed. The aforementioned definition of solipsism entails the non-existence of anything presently unperceived including the external world, causation, other minds (including God's mind or a subconscious mind), the past or future, and a subject of experience. Despite their ontological non-existence, these entities may nonetheless be said to "exist" as useful descriptions of the various experiences and thoughts that constitute 'this' mind. The solipsistic self is described by Wittgenstein in the Tractatus: "The self of solipsism shrinks to a point without extension and there remains the reality coordinated with it" (TLP 5.64).
There are weaker versions of metaphysical solipsism, such as Caspar Hare's egocentric presentism (or perspectival realism), in which other persons are conscious but their experiences are simply not present. Similarly, J. J. Valberg develops a concept of one's personal horizon and discusses how it is in a sense the (preeminent) horizon, stating that "we are all solipsists" in his sense of solipsism.
See also
- Actual idealism
- Brain in a vat
- Cartesian skepticism
- Epistemological solipsism
- Methodological solipsism
- Solipsism
