The Problem Of The External World Analysis

The Problem of the External World is presented by Barry Stroud as an attempt to understand the problem about our knowledge of the world around us. He begins his work by claiming that he believes that this particular problem has no solution; and that the only solution that he believes can provided, is one that involves us knowing nothing about the world around us. In this particular piece of work, Stroud uses his Dreaming Sceptical Argument in an attempt to show that we cannot have knowledge of the external world. This paper will firstly present the argument that Stroud introduces in his paper. It will then go on to study the argument in its entirety, presenting possible objections to the validity of the two existent premises. Both of the premises
His argument is presented as a sceptical paradox as it is an argument with a conclusion that claims that we do not know certain things that we have been led to believe we do. Each premise does however, appear to be true and the argument seems to be valid. Stroud does not attempt to solve the paradox, he merely wants to show how interesting and complex it is. In order for the non-sceptic to solve the paradox, they must either find one or more of the premises to be false or they must reject the conclusion while accepting both the
Thus, if we believe that ‘if we don’t know that we aren’t dreaming, then we don’t know anything about the world around us’; then being unable to prove that we do not know that we are not dreaming, ultimately leads us to reason that we do not know anything about the world around us. Being able to accept our sensory beliefs and inference as knowledge requires us to have knowledge that we are in fact awake. It appears that not only are we unable to disprove the second premise of Stroud’s Dreaming Sceptical Argument; but that we are also ultimately unable to prove that we have any knowledge of the external world. Therefore, the straightforward approach fails to falsify the