Position
Moorean Common Sense
We know ordinary truths about physical objects more securely than we know the premises of any argument against them, so it is the sceptical argument that should be given up.
Classification
- Position level
- specific
- Domains
- Epistemology
Overview
Moore's response reverses the direction in which a sceptical argument is normally read. A valid argument from premises to the conclusion that I do not know I have hands can equally be run backwards: I do know I have hands, so one of the premises is false, whichever it turns out to be.
The point is one about comparative certainty rather than about hands. Nothing a sceptical argument rests on is as certain as the ordinary claims it would overturn, and an argument cannot rationally compel assent when its conclusion is less credible than its own denial.
Position on
Incompatible positions
- External-World Skepticism
Question scope: Knowledge of the External World
References
- G. E. Moore, 'A Defence of Common Sense' (1925)
- G. E. Moore, 'Proof of an External World' (1939)
- G. E. Moore, 'Proof of an External World', Proceedings of the British Academy 25 (1939), which offers knowledge of one's own hands as a proof that external things exist