‘Triangulation, One's Own Mind and Objectivity’

Dear Sir,

I would like to offer a rejoinder to Marcia Cavell's very informative and persuasive article entitled ‘Triangulation, one's own mind and objectivity’, in which she argued for the concept of a real, shared, external world. My effort involves a thought experiment.

Imagine you are in total darkness with no smells or sounds or any sensation at all. Just for a moment. Then the lights go on and you see it all and smell and hear as well: the whole world. Now that is, of necessity and just for the moment, your world. It is not solipsistic, since you surely do not deny that it is a real honest-to-goodness world. It is the world and it is filled with people. Now along comes Dr K, who tells you that you see the world wrong. He advises you that the correct way to (say) get along with people is to do it as he does. If it turns out that it indeed succeeds in improving your relationships, then it works, and so can be said to be correct and true. However, Dr K is convinced that he sees it—the whole world—right, and you see it wrong, and surely though this is true of getting along, it need not be so of other things. So you conclude that Dr K has one version of the world which is his world, and you have another. You certainly cannot see that there is some absolute Dr K-type truth out there, but rather just a whole hunch of relative renditions. Some work better than others, and those that work best can be called true, or real or correct, since you make no claim as K does. So far you probably agree.

Now Dr D and Marcia C arrive and, just by chance, the darkness returns, and the world