Problem of Other Minds and the Analogical Argument

The problem of "Other Minds", as one of the most important problems of the contemporary philosophy of mind, is usually considered through two different approaches; i. e. the epistemological and the conceptual ones. In this paper, after a short discussion of these approaches and a survey of historical issues, we will focus on the "analogical argument" as one of well-known responses to the epistemological problem. The main basis of this argument is that we are able to justify our belief in other minds through an inductive generalization of our mental states. We first explain some versions of the argument and then try to examine the most important objections against it. The final conclusion is that the analogical argument results in a probability of the existence of other minds, which is enough high to justify the related belief.