I.

INTRODUCTION
It is a fact that the discoveries of science and technology are results of man’s rational
capacity that probes to the exploration of the vast nature of things and depths of the human
mind.  Without the mind, understanding is impossible. As the universe expands, new ideas
emerged from constant rationalization and actualization of one’s ideas that gave birth to our
current epoch, ‘the digital world’. Constant flux brought by secularization follows as a result of
the exchange of ideas through mediums of communication. Realizing that a human being is now
able to reach fellow beings through the digital technology with the rise of virtual space.
However, even if these facts show clarity, out of the majority, one would still ask the question:
How would a person know that what he is speaking to, virtually, is true in reality? Following this
inquiry, to doubt ‘certainty’ is inevitable in the human mind and whether everything is truly and
justifiably verifiable which deals with the problem of ‘Hyperconnectivity’.
The idea of ‘Hyperconnectivity’ is closely related to Hyperreality which is the simulation
of reality in the virtual world. Communicating between person-to-person and person-to-machine
as a current trend.1 However, this advancement with its positive effects still implies an
undeniable consequence that stimulates the term ‘solipsism’. The term infers many facets that
can even date back to the ancient period. But all agree with a common understanding. That one's
own self and mind are the only things that exist. 2 Philosophers and thinkers of various epochs
and the influence of the Cartesian system developed this idea with their series of philosophy.
Despite its doctrine, it brought various discourse among philosophers which implicate its
refutation. The focus of the paper will dwell on the problem of ‘solipsism’ in relation to its
occurrence and an evaluation through the attempt of modern solutions and Thomistic
epistemology. The purpose of the paper is to refute the intricacies of solipsism and its egoistic
reality because the system contradicts the epistemological reality of the Human person. Its
philosophical system must be debunked as it implies corresponding danger to the concept of
reality. The paper ensues a clearer knowledge to widen our understanding of the topic. The
researcher will first discuss the stand of solipsism including Hyperconnectivity followed by
attempts, epistemological principles, and the exposition of modern solutions and the Thomistic
notion. Finalized with an application and synthesis.
1
2018. The Paradox of Hyper-connectedness and Solipsism in Contemporary America. May 28. Accessed
Novemmber 25, 2021. https://anthropology365.com/2018/05/28/the-paradox-of-hyper-connectedness-and-
solipsism-in-contemporary-america/
2
Ibid.
II. EVALUATING ‘SOLIPSISM’ IN HYPERCONNECTIVITY: MODERN
SOLUTIONS AND THOMISTIC EPISTEMOLOGY
A. HYPER-CONNECTEDNESS AND SOLIPSISM
1.1 On Hyper-connectedness
In today’s 21st century, technology, as part of man’s daily life, developed with the new term
called ‘Hyperconnectivity’. It is a “a term that is currently used to define the connectivity that
exists in digital environments and the interaction between information systems, data and devices,
all of them related to each other through the internet.” 3 These devices are product of the brilliant
capacity of the human mind in order to answer the problem of life especially communication as a
means of convenience. It was a historical fact that people (before the spur of technology) are
using imprinted texts as form of communication. Now with its evolution people can already
convey information without even the real presence of the intended person. It already developed
this atmosphere of hyper-connectedness as it implies an alternative to the existing reality called
as ‘virtual reality’. More so, this reality is properly determined to sought man’s convenience, in
which everything is provided personally, economically, and socially through this medium.
It also corresponds many benefit to people with the help of technology and is used as answer
to man’s needs. The spur of this reality often associated with digital interface in the internet as
means of personalization.4 It is stated that “with the advancement of technologies, new ways of
communicating, working and enjoying free time are being developed. Advances in mobile
phones, browsers, voice assistants or the IoT (internet of things) are just some of the examples
related to hyperconnectivity.”5 However, even if this is true, there is this undeniable paradox
which arise from its excessive use as a result of its simulation. Since it includes an atmosphere of
hyper-connectedness, it seems that the objective reality or external world is converted into a
virtual space with the use of gadget to which the gap between both distinct realm (real world and
virtual world) turns out to be parallel to a point that there is no distinctive difference, a concrete
similarity. Implying that the “accessible technology that allows you to connect with people and
tap into the news and information stream also hyper-individuates users, resulting in solipsism.”6
1.2 On Solipsism
3
HYPERCONECTIVITY How does it affect us on a daily basis? (internet source)
4
Physical Place and Cyberplace: The Rise of Personalized Networking. 231
5
HYPERCONECTIVITY How does it affect us on a daily basis?
6
2018. The Paradox of Hyper-connectedness and Solipsism in Contemporary America. May 28. Accessed
Novemmber 25, 2021. https://anthropology365.com/2018/05/28/the-paradox-of-hyper-connectedness-and-
solipsism-in-contemporary-america/.
 The idea is derived from the latin etymology solus ipse which means oneself alone. It was
first associated with the famous sophist named Gorgias stating that ‘nothing exists’ and later
developed by the skeptic Pyrrho and his followers stating that “nothing whatsoever is certain”. 7
Later in the modern era, it was revived by the famous philosopher Rene Descartes in his famous
dictum Cogito Ergo Sum which directly means ‘I think, therefore, I exist’ and is adopted by the
philosophy of Idealism and succeeding philosophies.8 Moreover, in the general view, a
technique, system, or point of view is ‘solipsistic’ if it ascribes a basic, irreducible, and
asymmetrical importance to subjective experiences of the kind generally denoted by the singular
form of the first-person pronoun. Its views, emphasize both the unique and irreducible
characteristics of, say, the ‘I’, me, myself, my ego, my subjectivity, or my experience. 9
Solipsism, necessitates adherence to a more rigorous position, namely that there are fundamental
metaphysical and epistemological truths of the kind ‘I alone’ or ‘Only I’. On an ontological level,
a solipsist may assert that ‘I alone exist’, ‘I alone am aware’, or, in Wittgenstein's words, ‘Mine
is the first and only reality.’ On the other hand, on epistemological level, it implies that one’s
knowledge outside the mind is uncertain. It takes the shape of a theory devoted to the conclusion
that ‘For everything that is known, only I exist’ or ‘There can be no basis for denying that I am
the only aware being.’10 Following this system, it is divided into two aspects: partial solipsism
and global solipsism.
Partial solipsism is limited in scope of ontological and epistemological asymmetries
between the existence, character, and knowability of mental states in comparison to their
existence. It is well-known with the school of skepticism that concludes, roughly, ‘I am justified
in asserting the existence of one and only one conscious being, namely myself.’ In other words, it
is a theory concerning minds (mental phenomena, psychological states, sentient creatures, and
aware subjects) that may remain agnostic regarding the existence, nature, and knowability of
non-mental things. In contrast, global solipsism entails a far more extreme set of commitments,
according to which nothing less than the whole universe, reality itself, must be accounted for in
basically solipsistic terms. Commitments of this kind may be seen in Wittgenstein's declaration

7
Questions that Matter in Philosphy. 123, 163.
8
Ibid. 107-122
9
The Solipsism Debates by David Bell
10
Ibid.
from his Tractatus stating that ‘the world is my world’. 11 Nevertheless, these aspects still fall to
an egoistic implication and the mind-body problem.
B. ATTEMPTS ON SOLIPSISM
Since solipsism was adopted and developed into many variations in philosophy, it was taken
as a major debate among philosophers in the course of time. It was known that the philosophy of
idealism which is first revolutionized by Descartes and expounded by the philosophers like
George Berkeley, G.W. Leibniz, Immanuel Kant, J.G. Fichte, F.W.G. von Schelling, G.W.F.
Hegel, F.H. Bradley, and Alfred North Whitehead resulted to the revival of epistemological
skepticism. As it becomes a major problem in their epoch, various philosophers have been
confronted with the need of establishing the existence of the external world, and solutions to the
mind-body problem.12 With this problem, it is then important to know some attempts of
philosphoers in solving and opposing the problem on ‘solipsism’. The Solipsism Debates by
David Bell can be a relevant basis to probe the oppositions held against the solipsistic system.
But it will only be limited to the sufficing notion of some of his enumerated philosophers and
their philosophies.
2.1 The Stand of Common-Sense
According to David Bell, first it was stated that there is a popular view that solipsism cannot
have proponents because it is psychologically difficult to believe it is true – or, more accurately,
because it is psychologically impossible for a rational person to think it is true genuinely.
“Schopenhauer was the first to object to solipsism in these terms. As a doctrine, he wrote: in
philosophy it has never been used other than as a sceptical sophism”.13 Bertrand Russell also
reacted about solipsism stating: “psychologically impossible, and there is an element of frivolous
insincerity in any philosophy which pretends to accept it”. 14 Even so, common sense is a blunt
instrument for attacking solipsism: it fails to distinguish the various forms that the latter doctrine
can take, the philosophical motivations that may underpin its adoption, the insights it may
embody, and the reasons, if any, for finding it incorrect. Still, Russellian common sense gives no
justification for determining that solipsism is untrue; at most, it provides a feeble justification for
disregarding anything.15

11
Ibid.
12
Solipsism, Idealism, and the Problem of Perception
13
The Solipsism Debates by David Bell
14
Ibid.
15
Ibid.
 2.2 On Anti-Cartesianism
In David Bell’s second point, he stated that there is a collection of plausible, interrelated,
and mutually supportive beliefs that, when combined, provide a picture of how mind, body, the
minds of others, and the physical things that fill the external world are related to one another. The
image may legitimately be termed Cartesian, and it contains a commitment to the following
theses. First, “my intellect (and its contents) are only tangentially tied to my body (and its
behaviour)”. Second, “my understanding of another person's thoughts is only tangentially tied to
my knowledge of his or her body and behaviour”. Third, according to Descartes, “the intellect is
better known than the body”. As Descartes would say: “There is nothing more readily or clearly
discernible to me than my own thinking”. Fourth, “my understanding of my own mind is only
outwardly connected to my knowledge of other minds and tangible things”. Finally, and more
broadly, the prior, philosophically most fundamental phenomena here are cognitive: when it
comes to understanding oneself, one's relationships with others, and one's place in the world, the
issues to be addressed concern, first and foremost, self-knowledge, knowledge of others, and
knowledge of the external world. Although none of these commitments is inherently solipsistic,
they are certainly capable of further elaboration and interpretation in ways that would provide a
range of solipsistic theories, both ontological and epistemological, partial and global. A recurring
theme in twentieth-century debates about solipsism on both sides of the topic has been the need
for a radical critique of Cartesianism, aimed at articulating a very different vision of oneself,
others, and the world, from which all solipsistic tendencies are detached.16
2.3 On Existentialism and Experience of Others
Following David Bell’s third point in Sartre’s philosophy: Sartre explains human life, of
what it is to be a human being, in which both one's knowledge of others and one's spontaneous
reaction to their consciousness of oneself are equally fundamental of one's basic identity as a
conscious person.17 Sartre summarizes the unifying feature in all existentialist reactions to the
danger of solipsism: ‘If we are to refute solipsism’, he claims, ‘then my relation to the Other
[must be] first and fundamentally a relation of being to being, not of knowledge to knowledge’.18
2.4 On Phenomenology and Experience of Objects

16
The Solipsism Debates by David Bell
17
Ibid.
18
Ibid.
On David Bell’s fourth topic following Ponty’s argument, “Merleau-Ponty writes: ‘Solipsism
would be strictly true only of someone who managed to be tacitly aware of his existence, without
being or doing anything, which is impossible . . . [For] transcendental subjectivity is revealed
subjectivity, revealed to itself and to others, and is for that reason an intersubjectivity’”.19
2.5 Solipsism and Language
The last of David Bell’s position, it principally dwells on Wittgenstein's conclusion. He
concluded that there is a type of solipsism, exemplified by the oriental despot, that is internally
coherent, materially adequate, and philosophically appealing, but that does not require the use of
the first-person pronoun or reference to any entity such as the self or subject of experience.
Although this sort of global, metaphysical solipsism cannot be described in words, its adoption
may be expressed: it can reveal itself, it can present itself, for example, in my adoption of a
language with a certain shape. The shape of such language will be recognizably solipsistic, but
the language itself, like our daily language, will lack any means of directly declaring the fact of
solipsism: In the Tractatus, Wittgenstein states, “What the solipsist intends is absolutely accurate;
only it cannot be spoken.” “It manifests itself.”20
At this point, following the philosophers’ position as presented by David Bell, it seems that
there are still inconsistencies with their stand since most of them evaluated ‘solipsism’ through
their field of thought in adaptation to their philosophies. It actually goes back to the earliest
problem of Plato’s philosophy on what reality is. That all existing reality in this world are just
resemblance in the world of ideas. 21The veracity of their evidences are still lacking in the realm
of epistemological reasoning. In this case, it is necessary to understand the epistemological
principles to deal with the dilemma of ‘solipsism’.
C. EPISTEMOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES

D. MODERN SOLUTIONS AND AQUINAS’ NOTION

19
Ibid.
20
The Solipsism Debates by David Bell
21
Questions that Matter
is the notion of being. And rightfully so! Being is first in the order of the simple apprehension of
concepts and it is also first in the order of judgment. This must be so, since every judgment is
made from concepts. However, it must be added that the word “principle” has two different
senses in St. Thomas’s, as indeed in any other, philosophy. Descartes reproached Scholasticism
for positing as the first principle the universal notion of being and the principle of identity which
derives immediately from it. What concrete knowledge, asked Descartes, can anyone hope to
derive from such formally abstract notions? Hence his conclusion that it is not the principle of
identity or a contradiction, evident as it may be, but rather the first judgment of existence which
constitutes the first principle of philosophy. If to know is to progress from existences to
existences, the first principle of philosophy can only be the judgment of existence which
precedes and conditions all the others: I think, therefore I am.
233 Descartes was right, at least in the sense that he was here emphasizing, what was never
afterwards to be forgotten, the distinction between the principles which govern thought, such as
the principle of identity or contradiction, and the principle of acquisition of knowledge, such as
the Cogito for him. But his charge that Scholasticism raised the principle of contradiction to a
principle of acquisition of knowledge was inaccurate, so far as the teaching of St. Thomas is
concerned. The “commencement-principle” of the philosophy of St. Thomas is the sensible
perception of actually existing concrete beings. The entire structure of a knowledge of the
Thomistic type, from the lowest sciences right up to metaphysics, rests on this fundamental
existential experience. Human knowledge never ceases to make an ever-fuller inventory of its
content.
With this central point, we can see how the guiding theses of Thomisitc noetic come together
and how texts to which his interpreters usually object are in full accord. It is true that the first
object known is the thing itself: “that which is primarily understood is the thing,” provided that it
be present in thought through its species: “the thing of which the intelligible species is the
likeness.” In saying, with this precise meaning, that the object is the first known, there is no
intention of opposing the knowledge of object to the concept which expresses it, but to the
knowledge of the intellectual act which conceives it and of the subject which accomplishes this
act. The expression “that which primarily understood is the thing” signifies therefore that thought
first forms the concept of the object. Then, reflecting upon this object, it observes the act by
which it has just grasped it, and finally, knowing the existence of its acts, it discovers itself as
their common source. “And therefore that which is first known by the human intellect is an
object of this kind, and that which is known secondarily is the act by which that object is known,
and through the act the intellect itself is known, whose perfection is the act itself of
understanding”.
In the second place, it is equally true to say that the first object of the intellect is not the thing but
its concept. This is true, however, on condition that we understand it just as St. Thomas means it
when he states it. What is known, absolutely speaking, is not the being considered in its own
subjective existence, since this remains what it is whether I know it or whether I do not know it.
What is known is only this same being in so far as it has become mine by the coincidence or
meeting of my intellect with its species, from which the act of simple apprehension results. To
say that the immediate object of though is the concept is not, therefore, to deny that it is the
thing, but rather to affirm that it is the thing, inasmuch as the thing’s intelligibity makes all that
of a concept.
Once we have grasped these guiding theses of Thomistic doctrine, it becomes possible to
conceive of an epistemology faithfully extending and
234 amplifying it. Perhaps we are even in possession of a far fuller epistemology than is
customarily imagined.
At our first approach to this doctrine, it is only right to place a criticism of the Critique in order
to find out whether the basic Idealist argument does not imply a false position on the problem of
knowledge. If we suppose that it is impossible for them to meet, then there is no bridge to allow
though to cross over to things, and Idealism is true. It is contradictory to ask whether our ideas
conform to things, if things are not known to us save through their ideas. Such an argument is
irrefutable, and here again Idealism is true, unless indeed the argument begs the question.
St. Thomas, they say, has not indicated this difficulty. But perhaps it is because he has already
resolved another difficulty, which Idealism in its turn has not raised, and whose solution renders
impossible the very position from which the Idealist problem emerges. St. Thomas has not asked
himself the conditions for a mathematical physics, but he has asked himself what conditions are
necessary if we are to have an abstract notion of any physical body whatsoever. The possibility
of our knowledge in general is perhaps pre-formed in the conformity of our humblest concept to
its object. It becomes possible, contrary to the Idealist thesis, to know whether or not our ideas
conform to thins, in a doctrine of the conception of ideas. The true Thomistic reply to this
criticism is to be found in an earlier analysis in which the inquiry into science in particular. To
demand that St. Thomas refute Kant’s Critique is to ask him to solve a problem which from his
point of view simply cannot exist.
When the ground is cleared by this preliminary explanation, it would seem that for St. Thomas a
complete theory of knowledge does not require what since Kant’s time has been called his
Critique. The is knowledge, this knowledge is true, at least under certain conditions. It is true
each time it is formed under normal conditions, by a normally constituted mind. Whence it arises
that agreement among minds may be reached, and that beyond the conflict of opinions, there is
truth. The intellect, in search of this impersonal basis of given truths, reflects upon its act and
judges that this basis lies both in the specific identity of nature which connects all human reasons
and in the impersonal objectivity of things known by these reasons.
But is it possible to conceive of the act of a thought which extends to a thing? To know it, the
regressive analysis, which has brought us to the concept, must mount in the end from the concept
back to the intellect. Does there exist in us a principle of such kind that it can produce a concept
whose conformity to the object is assured? Yes, if it is true that
235 we have an intellect; that is, when all is said and done, if it is true that we are not enclosed in
our own being, but are capable of becoming the being of others by way of representation.
This is the only possible keystone of a Thomistic theory of knowledge. The adequation of the
intellect to the real, which is the definition of truth, is legitimately affirmed in a doctrine in which
the intellect reflects upon itself and finds that it is capable of becoming reality: secundum hoc
cognoscit veritatem intellectus, quod supra se reflectitur. From the moment when the intellect,
which judges things, knows that it can only conceive them at the price of its union with them, no
scruple can prevent it from affirming as valid the judgments in which the content of its concepts
become explicit. The initial factor in knowledge, which this analysis but tries to penetrate, is the
direct grasping of intelligible reality by an intellect served by a sensibility.
E. EVALUATION THROUGH MODERN SOLUTION AND AQUINAS’ NOTION