ABSTRACT
When a problem has been around as long as has the problem of minds and machines (or, for that matter, its twin-the problem of “other minds”) without either being very productive or being laid to rest, it is perhaps time to look beyond simple conceptual muddles and unclarities to deeper sources in philosophical practice and assumptions that enter there undiscussed. To get the proper measure of the problem it may even be necessary to go beyond the stricter bounds of philosophy itself to look at the sources and the role of certain philosophical views and problems in a wider context, to provide what might be called a “social pathology” of the problem.
