G. E. Moore on common sense and the external world

J. A. Burgess

pp. 1-33

in: Roberto Poli (ed), Consciousness, knowledge, and truth, Berlin, Springer, 1993

Abstract

G.E. Moore was fond of proving the existence of the external world to any audience who would invite him to address them on the matter. More precisely, he was fond of proving the existence of external objects by holding up both of his hands and informing his audience that here was one hand and here was another. For any member of the audience who harboured any lingering doubts, he supplied a further premise: external objects are just things like sticks, stones, cats, dogs and, of course, hands. And that was it. Not only was this a proof of the existence of (at least two) external objects, it was, according to Moore, entirely conclusive, in his opinion. Furthermore, it also seemed to him that no better proof could be provided of that proposition. (I shall refer to this argument as the Naive Argument.)¹

Cited authors

Moore George Edward