Somebody else's argument for idealism

Abstract This article offers a novel argument for vicarious metaphysical idealism, according to which all perceptions are about the mental states of other minds. Unlike conventional arguments for idealism, nothing in the argument hinges on the problem of skepticism, the intractability of the mind–body problem, the mysteriousness of the intrinsic nature of physical things, or verificationist semantics. Instead, the argument relies only on assumptions modern materialists generally accept: that qualitative states of experience are equally compatible with all possible nonqualitative states, that physical states are essentially nonqualitative, and that our experiences are generally informative about a world independent of our own minds. Vicarious metaphysical idealism resists the standard objections to conventional idealism given by analytic philosophers. Nonetheless, I conclude that it is easily refuted by the phenomenology of action, which is overlooked in the conventional debate.