Knowledge and Reality: on Skepticism
I.
Questions about the nature of the physical world are among some of the oldest and most prominent in philosophy. Such problems challenge our most basic beliefs about the structure of the world and force us to reconsider everything we think we know. How do we know that we are not dreaming, or in The Matrix? For that matter, how do we know there is a material world at all, and that we are not simply immaterial minds whose ideas create our perceptions? In this essay I will address skeptical questions such as these by comparing a simple skeptical argument with G. E. Moore’s famous counterargument. I will attempt to demonstrate that the skeptical argument is in fact the more reasonable by considering several flaws in Moore’s reasoning.
II.
Before looking at Moore’s argument, we must first consider the skeptical argument to which he is responding. Though there are numerous ways in which to present this argument, we will consider a simple version for example purposes. Skepticism can be defined as “The position that denies the possibility of knowledge”[1]. A skeptic of the material world questions what we can know, with absolute certainty, about the nature of existence. At first, it may appear that we know plenty about the world we live in, but upon further consideration, we realize that many of the things we ‘know’ to be true are not absolutely certain – we don’t ‘know’ them for sure. In his Meditations on the First Philosophy Rene Descartes undertakes a famous thought experiment, questioning what knowledge he has at the most basic level:
Whatever I have up till now accepted as most true I have acquired either from the senses or through the senses. But from time to time I have found that the senses deceive, and it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once…there are many other beliefs about which doubt is quite impossible, even though they are derived from the senses – for example, that I am here, sitting by the fire, wearing a
Questions about the nature of the physical world are among some of the oldest and most prominent in philosophy. Such problems challenge our most basic beliefs about the structure of the world and force us to reconsider everything we think we know. How do we know that we are not dreaming, or in The Matrix? For that matter, how do we know there is a material world at all, and that we are not simply immaterial minds whose ideas create our perceptions? In this essay I will address skeptical questions such as these by comparing a simple skeptical argument with G. E. Moore’s famous counterargument. I will attempt to demonstrate that the skeptical argument is in fact the more reasonable by considering several flaws in Moore’s reasoning.
II.
Before looking at Moore’s argument, we must first consider the skeptical argument to which he is responding. Though there are numerous ways in which to present this argument, we will consider a simple version for example purposes. Skepticism can be defined as “The position that denies the possibility of knowledge”[1]. A skeptic of the material world questions what we can know, with absolute certainty, about the nature of existence. At first, it may appear that we know plenty about the world we live in, but upon further consideration, we realize that many of the things we ‘know’ to be true are not absolutely certain – we don’t ‘know’ them for sure. In his Meditations on the First Philosophy Rene Descartes undertakes a famous thought experiment, questioning what knowledge he has at the most basic level:
Whatever I have up till now accepted as most true I have acquired either from the senses or through the senses. But from time to time I have found that the senses deceive, and it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once…there are many other beliefs about which doubt is quite impossible, even though they are derived from the senses – for example, that I am here, sitting by the fire, wearing a
Cited: [1]Klein, Peter. “Skepticism.” Stanford Encyclopdia of Philosophy. Ed. Edward N Zalta. 9 July 2007. Stanford University. 11 Nov. 2007 <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism/>. [2]Descartes, Rene. “Meditations on the First Philosophy.” Reason & Responsibility. Ed. Joel Feinberg and Russ Shafer-Landau. 13th ed. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2007. [3]Pollock, John. “A Brain in a Vat.” Reason & Responsibility. Ed. Joel Feinberg and Russ Shafer-Landau. 13th ed. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2007. [4]Moore, G. E.. “Proof of an External World.” Reason & Responsibility. Ed. Joel Feinberg and Russ Shafer-Landau. 13th ed. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2007. [5]Descartes, Rene. “Meditations on the First Philosophy.” Reason & Responsibility. Ed. Joel Feinberg and Russ Shafer-Landau. 13th ed. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2007. [6]Coliva, Annalisa.“ The Paradox of Moore’s Proof of an External World.” The Philosophical Quarterly 10.39 (2007): 1-10. 11 Nov. 2007 <http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1467-9213.2007.513.x