Human Beings and Others — Persons, Other Minds, and the Social Self

So far we have often treated the human being as a single subject: a nature to define, an identity to track, a mind to explain, a will to free. But we never encounter ourselves in isolation. We are born to others, learn a language we did not invent, and become who we are among people. This final lesson turns to the human being as essentially related to others: as a person among persons, as one mind facing the puzzle of other minds, and as a social and political animal who becomes authentic, or fails to, in the company of others.

Persons and the problem of other minds

We began with the concept of a person in Locke's sense: a self-conscious, rational being that can regard itself over time. But how do I know that anyone else is a person, with an inner life like mine? I have direct access only