ABSTRACT
The problem of other minds is well known in both Western and Indian philosophy. How can I know other minds? While I am immediately aware of my own mind, I can’t introspect the minds of others. If others have minds, they are either epistemically inaccessible to me or known by some means other than that by which I know my own mind. But given that interiority or subjectivity is essential to a mind, nothing other than introspective awareness could possibly give me access to a mind. Therefore, no matter how much external behavior or speech by others I observe, I can never know others to have minds. This chapter examines Krishna Chandra Bhattacharyya’s solution to the problem in relation to those of Abhinavagupta and Daya Krishna. These three philosophers share the insight that the key to the problem is the situation of address. Nonetheless, there are differences among these solutions, and attention to them suggests that K.C. Bhattacharyya got it right, while Abhinavagupta and Daya Krishna each miss the target. This leads us to see the essentially intersubjective, social nature of the mind, and the essential role of normativity in the attribution of mind, whether to ourselves, or to others.
