help identify books about solipsism
April 18, 2011 7:14 AM Subscribe
help identify books about solipsism
When I was in high school (back in the 80s), an older college-aged friend told me about this guy in his dorm who'd read a series of books about solipsism and become convinced that he was the only real person in the world and that everyone else was essentially a figment of his imagination.
The guy started doing conspicuously selfish things. Like, he'd tear down all the notices on the dorm's bulletin boards because they distracted him. When other residents complained, he'd tell them that they weren't real so their concerns didn't really matter.
Years later I asked this friend if he remembered the books' titles or author, but he didn't. He's pretty sure they were not by Ayn Rand (who, despite not being a solipsist, does sometimes prompt college age kids to act like selfish dicks).
Any ideas?
FYI, I'm not particularly interested in solipsism. More in the types of books that, at an impressionable age, can throw people's world-view all out of whack.
When I was in high school (back in the 80s), an older college-aged friend told me about this guy in his dorm who'd read a series of books about solipsism and become convinced that he was the only real person in the world and that everyone else was essentially a figment of his imagination.
The guy started doing conspicuously selfish things. Like, he'd tear down all the notices on the dorm's bulletin boards because they distracted him. When other residents complained, he'd tell them that they weren't real so their concerns didn't really matter.
Years later I asked this friend if he remembered the books' titles or author, but he didn't. He's pretty sure they were not by Ayn Rand (who, despite not being a solipsist, does sometimes prompt college age kids to act like selfish dicks).
Any ideas?
FYI, I'm not particularly interested in solipsism. More in the types of books that, at an impressionable age, can throw people's world-view all out of whack.
Moby Dick, for one--Ahab is described as wanting to punch through the veil of reality. Ahab is both a solipsist and a monomaniac; he has both a singular purpose and a singular reality. I think this is ultimately why the dubloon that is nailed to the mast has such significance, and why the book overall has such a difficult time with doubles (Queequeg, Ishamael's double, is killed off, etc).
But probably Nietzsche, which many slightly unstable people drink too deeply.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 7:27 AM on April 18, 2011
But probably Nietzsche, which many slightly unstable people drink too deeply.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 7:27 AM on April 18, 2011
Useful phrase to look for: "other minds." The problem of other minds is the general problem, to which solipsism is one solution. Solipsism will often come up more as a way to define the boundaries of the problem than as a position worth taking seriously.
Internet Encylopedia of Philosophy: Solipsism. Includes a bibliography.
Any philosophy dictionary (e.g.) should have an entry on "solipsism" or "other minds." Is this adequate, or do you really need an entire book on the subject? Simon Blackburn's Dictionary of Philosophy has a nice one-paragraph entry on solipsism (which you can see online by using Amazon's "look inside" feature and searching for "solipsism"). Sample:
Internet Encylopedia of Philosophy: Solipsism. Includes a bibliography.
Any philosophy dictionary (e.g.) should have an entry on "solipsism" or "other minds." Is this adequate, or do you really need an entire book on the subject? Simon Blackburn's Dictionary of Philosophy has a nice one-paragraph entry on solipsism (which you can see online by using Amazon's "look inside" feature and searching for "solipsism"). Sample:
Russell reports meeting someone who claimed that she was a solipsist, and was surprised that more people were not so as well.posted by John Cohen at 7:36 AM on April 18, 2011 [1 favorite]
Here are lots of papers on solipsism (via David Chalmers's MindPapers).
posted by John Cohen at 7:55 AM on April 18, 2011
posted by John Cohen at 7:55 AM on April 18, 2011
I'm not sure it's a likely trigger of solipsism, but Catcher in the Rye is one of those books you talk about that can have a strong influence on young adults.
posted by londonmark at 8:04 AM on April 18, 2011
posted by londonmark at 8:04 AM on April 18, 2011
another possibility might be Max Stirner, author of The Ego and Its Own (and, as others have mentioned with Nietzsche, a possibility based mostly on misunderstanding).
still another possibility would be some New Age style philosophy along the lines of "reality is what i perceive it to be".
ahh, solipsism and undergraduate boys... is it a developmental thing? in any case, i remember meeting more than a few of these types while at college. and, inevitably, they would all resort to the "when i close my eyes, you don't exist" argument. which is when i would tickle them. nothing like seeing arrogant smugness dissolve into giggling. good times.
posted by jammy at 8:36 AM on April 18, 2011
still another possibility would be some New Age style philosophy along the lines of "reality is what i perceive it to be".
ahh, solipsism and undergraduate boys... is it a developmental thing? in any case, i remember meeting more than a few of these types while at college. and, inevitably, they would all resort to the "when i close my eyes, you don't exist" argument. which is when i would tickle them. nothing like seeing arrogant smugness dissolve into giggling. good times.
posted by jammy at 8:36 AM on April 18, 2011
Descartes and later Hume, certainly, but I doubt he would have been reading those guys just to justify his asshole hobby.
posted by richyoung at 8:49 AM on April 18, 2011
posted by richyoung at 8:49 AM on April 18, 2011
I can see where you'd get "being an asshole is good" from a bad reading of Nietzsche, but I can't think of anything in his work that would make you a solipsist. I'd say Descartes's Meditations is the most likely culprit, since the book is commonly assigned in 101-level philosophy classes and the arguments against solipsism or total idealism in it are obviously and intuitively bad to a modern reader.
posted by nasreddin at 8:57 AM on April 18, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by nasreddin at 8:57 AM on April 18, 2011 [1 favorite]
Otherwise, Bishop Berkeley is a strong candidate, especially if your solipsist doesn't believe in God.
posted by nasreddin at 8:58 AM on April 18, 2011
posted by nasreddin at 8:58 AM on April 18, 2011
My guess would be Vonnegut's "Breakfast of Champions". Seems exactly like the sort of thing a college kid might have been reading in the '80s, and there's a book-within-a-book in it from Kilgore Trout, which contains a monologue delivered to the the character Dwayne Hoover, but also to you, the reader:
posted by Missiles K. Monster at 9:38 AM on April 18, 2011 [3 favorites]
Dear sir, poor sir, brave sir: You are an experiment by the Creator of the Universe. You are the only creature in the entire Universe who has free will. You are the only one who has to figure out what to do next--and why. Everybody else is a robot, a machine.This might have the effect you describe.
Some persons seem to like you, and others seem to hate you, and you must wonder why. They are simply liking machines and hating machines.
You are pooped and demoralized. Why wouldn't you be? Of course it's exhausting, having to reason every time in a universe which wasn't meant to be reasonable.
You are surrounded by loving machines, hating machines, greedy machines, unselfish machines, brave machines, cowardly machines, truthful machines, lying machines, funny machines, solemn machines. Their only purpose is to stir you up in every conceivable way, so the Creator of the Universe can watch your reactions. They can no more feel or reason than grandfather clocks...
posted by Missiles K. Monster at 9:38 AM on April 18, 2011 [3 favorites]
I think Missiles is on to something. But nasreddin's point about Descartes is plausible, too - some folks think he wasn't really trying at the end of the Meditations, the arguments are so weak. So adopting a solipsistic outlook after reading the Meditations carries the bonus of allowing one to feel intellectually superior to a famous philosopher.
Fun fact: Samuel Johnson famously kicked a rock and said "Thus I refute Berkeley." And I memorized a short poem in college about that episode, which runs thus:
posted by richyoung at 11:01 AM on April 18, 2011 [1 favorite]
Fun fact: Samuel Johnson famously kicked a rock and said "Thus I refute Berkeley." And I memorized a short poem in college about that episode, which runs thus:
Kick at the rock, Sam Johnson, break your bones,Had to look up the author... it's Richard Wilbur, the poem is called "Epistemology," and I had memorized it split into eight, rather than 4 lines. Other than that, it has somehow survived intact for 20 years in my dusty brain.
but cloudy, cloudy is the stuff of stones
We milk the cow of the world, and as we do,
we whisper in her ear, "You are not true."
posted by richyoung at 11:01 AM on April 18, 2011 [1 favorite]
The cow in Wilbur's poem is an allusion to the opening scene of E.M. Forster's novel The Longest Journey (1907):
"The cow is there," said Ansell, lighting a match and holding it out over the carpet. No one spoke. He waited till the end of the match fell off. Then he said again, "She is there, the cow. There, now."
"You have not proved it," said a voice.
"I have proved it to myself."
"I have proved to myself that she isn't," said the voice. "The cow is not there." Ansell frowned and lit another match.
"She's there for me," he declared. "I don't care whether she's there for you or not. Whether I'm in Cambridge or Iceland or dead, the cow will be there."
It was philosophy. They were discussing the existence of objects. Do they exist only when there is some one to look at them? Or have they a real existence of their own? It is all very interesting, but at the same time it is difficult. Hence the cow. She seemed to make things easier. She was so familiar, so solid, that surely the truths that she illustrated would in time become familiar and solid also. Is the cow there or not? This was better than deciding between objectivity and subjectivity. So at Oxford, just at the same time, one was asking, "What do our rooms look like in the vac.?"
Where did Forster get the cow from? Tony Brown, in 'Edward Carpenter and the Discussion of the Cow in 'The Longest Journey'' (JSTOR link, from The Review of English Studies, 1982), argues that he got it partly from G.E. Moore's paper 'The Refutation of Idealism' (1903, free text here) and partly from Edward Carpenter's 'The Art of Creation' (1905, free text here). Sadly the rest of the novel doesn't live up to the promise of that marvellous opening scene.
posted by verstegan at 11:30 AM on April 18, 2011 [1 favorite]
"The cow is there," said Ansell, lighting a match and holding it out over the carpet. No one spoke. He waited till the end of the match fell off. Then he said again, "She is there, the cow. There, now."
"You have not proved it," said a voice.
"I have proved it to myself."
"I have proved to myself that she isn't," said the voice. "The cow is not there." Ansell frowned and lit another match.
"She's there for me," he declared. "I don't care whether she's there for you or not. Whether I'm in Cambridge or Iceland or dead, the cow will be there."
It was philosophy. They were discussing the existence of objects. Do they exist only when there is some one to look at them? Or have they a real existence of their own? It is all very interesting, but at the same time it is difficult. Hence the cow. She seemed to make things easier. She was so familiar, so solid, that surely the truths that she illustrated would in time become familiar and solid also. Is the cow there or not? This was better than deciding between objectivity and subjectivity. So at Oxford, just at the same time, one was asking, "What do our rooms look like in the vac.?"
Where did Forster get the cow from? Tony Brown, in 'Edward Carpenter and the Discussion of the Cow in 'The Longest Journey'' (JSTOR link, from The Review of English Studies, 1982), argues that he got it partly from G.E. Moore's paper 'The Refutation of Idealism' (1903, free text here) and partly from Edward Carpenter's 'The Art of Creation' (1905, free text here). Sadly the rest of the novel doesn't live up to the promise of that marvellous opening scene.
posted by verstegan at 11:30 AM on April 18, 2011 [1 favorite]
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Mostly, I'd argue, because of his oblique writing style and the confused preconceptions people come to his work with.
posted by elektrotechnicus at 7:24 AM on April 18, 2011