Thomas Nagel: Aristotle's Doctrine Of The Four Causes

Do we know other minds exist? If so, how? Based on similarities in characteristics and behavior alone are not sufficient proof to conclude other minds exist, however, if we breakdown the mind to its core and analyze the relation to our existence then I believe we can know other minds exist. I will use Aristotle’s Doctrine of the Four Causes to argue that knowledge of other minds is plausible. His doctrine suggests that the reason for something to come to be, can be attributed to four different types of causal factors; these can be applied to comprehend anything. Its objective is to break the thing down to its base or its core to be able to gain a better understanding of the subject. We need to know what as much as we need to know why something

The mind serves the purpose of allowing us to perceive and gain knowledge of our relation with the outside world thus creating this understanding we have of it. In “What does it all mean?” by Thomas Nagel, he presents the relation that exists between our perception and the similarities in behavior such as our interaction with the environment. Through the observation of our physical construction and behavior. One of the examples he uses is whether chocolate would taste the same to you as it would to me. Determining if our taste of chocolate would be the same is a difficult point to argue because I am unable to ever know what something tastes like to you. From John Locke’s point of view, “Nothing exists in the mind that wasn 't first in the senses.” Therefore, this secondary qualities, as he would label them, color and taste of the ice cream, are subjective and exist as ideas. If our senses were removed, our mind would still perceive, conclude and create an experience. Locke refers to this as representative realism, the theory that we perceive objects indirectly by means of our idea of them. All this will serves as the purpose for what the mind was created for. The foundation or what it was designed for will not change from one person to another. The change occurs at the point of perception because this is left to the interpretation of the mind processing the information. The mind depends on my physical existence for its existence. If this is plausible, can we have knowledge of other minds? I believe we