1.2 The Conceptual Problem

The conceptual problem follows the same route. If each of us has the kind of direct knowledge we have of our own experience only in the case of those experiences that are ours, by what means could we acquire the concepts we have of mental states belonging to human beings other than ourselves. All experience presents as ours and necessarily presents as ours. Once again, the problem is not that we cannot observe the pains of others. What would be needed for the problem not to arise would be observing such pains, experiencing such pains as, indeed, the pains of others.

How would I know that someone was "suffering from some abnormal mental condition" if I could not experience their experience (which in any case is often 'known' by an observer who labels the 'condition' as characterised by the abnormal subjectivity's not experiencing either suffering nor knowledge of abnormal cognition). Indeed it is an epistemological quagmire we have here and a series of separate problems or areas of confusion which would seem to benefit from a rigorous application of linguistic analysis (in the sense also of making explicit the analysis of language which causes the muddles) prior to our agreeing that we do know what we know, such agreement made possible by our knowing that when we agree we have agreed.

epistemological quagmire indeed methinks