Cogito in the shared world: Re-evaluating the problem of other minds

This paper examines the problem of other minds by questioning the foundational assumptions that render it a problem at all. I argue that its persistence in modern philosophy stems not from a failure of inference, but from a deeper methodological commitment—the privileging of the first person perspective as the basis of knowledge. When philosophy begins “from within,” as it does in Descartes and many who follow, it secures the certainty of the self at the cost of estranging the other. Kant and Husserl, while refining and expanding the framework, still operate within its bounds: Kant’s transcendental idealism subtly preserves the gap between self and other, while Husserl’s phenomenology, despite its emphasis on empathy, never fully escapes the reduction it initiates. In contrast, Heidegger and Wittgenstein reconceive the problem by shifting the point of departure: being-in-the-world and shared linguistic practices displace epistemic isolation as the primary lens. The paper thus argues that the problem of other minds is less a philosophical impasse to be solved than a by-product of where we choose to begin, and that rethinking this point of origin may dissolve, rather than resolve, the question itself.