2 Answers

  1. Well, why not? Everyone loves Occam's razor, right? And what does it prescribe for us? Don't introduce additional entities unnecessarily. What's the most minimalistic explanation? One in which only the existence of our own consciousness is assumed as an immediate given.

    For some reason, some people think that the” default ” position in philosophy should be a kind of naive empiricism and materialism: they say that there is a material world and the senses give us an adequate idea of it. However, from a philosophical point of view, each of these statements needs to be proved. This was well understood by the ancient philosophers, Descartes understood it perfectly (that is why he begins with “cogito ergo sum”, and not with any material world there), and many philosophers of the XIX and XX centuries understood it perfectly.

    Solipsism is the position of those who are sufficiently convinced of the existence of their own consciousness (otherwise they would be consistent agnostics), but are not yet sufficiently convinced by the arguments of those who defend the necessity of the hypothesis of a ” material world “(or a” world of ideas”, for that matter, because solipsists also deny it).

    Therefore, there is nothing surprising in the existence of such a philosophical position. Another thing is that this position is so contrary to our everyday experience and, most importantly, our daily practice that it is naturally perceived as problematic. Hence the tension of the philosophical question: why is there something and not nothing? Why should we consider the world to exist? How can we verify its reality? How can we verify the validity of our own feelings?

    Having dealt with this problem, one or another philosopher, as a rule, formulates for himself a philosophical concept that sufficiently convinces them.

  2. Psychiatrists don't work well, apparently.) Solipsists are extremely rare in practice. As a rule, all the “solipsism” of such people is the result of mental problems (obsession with an obsession) that are not related to knowledge in philosophy.

    Philosophers came to solipsism not because it appealed to them, seemed convincing and had no alternative, but as a result of solving the old problem of subject and object (the logic of deducing the object from the subject, to be more precise).

    Solipsism is essentially rationalism carried to the absolute. The mind, which is closed in concepts, representations, etc., simply does not need anything else, except for this loading in itself. Where there is a sphere of the living, will and interaction (conflicts of wills), solipsism is no longer reached.

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