The Other's Existence

The Other, as the synthetic unity of his experiences, and, equally, as will and as passion, comes to organize my experience. The universality of time, in Kant&s;s thought, is only the universality of a concept; it implies only that each temporality has to possess a determinate structure, and that the conditions of possibility for a temporal experience apply to every temporality. The first solution is known under the name of solipsism. But if it is formulated, in keeping with its designation, as the affirmation of my ontological solitude, it is a pure metaphysical hypothesis, utterly unjustified and gratuitous, because it amounts only to saying that outside myself nothing exists; strictly, therefore, it goes beyond the field of my experience. Confronted with this solution, Kant and the majority of post-Kantians continue to affirm the Other&s;s existence. But, in order to justify their affirmation, they can appeal only to good sense, or to our deep inclinations.

Interdisciplinary Cultural and Social Studies · Latin American and Latino Studies · Philosophy, Ethics, and Existentialism · Psychology