erraticwisdom

G.E. Moore, an English philosopher, was famous for his simplistic “here is a hand” argument for a commonsensical refutation of skepticism. Before lectures of his Proof of an External World, he would raise each hand, remarking “here is a hand, here is another hand, skepticism refuted”, suggesting the intuitive nature of the observation and our phenomenal experience of hands was refutation enough.

An interesting, related anecdote passed along from my professor involved a specific lecture where Moore reportedly referenced a door in the back of the hall as another obviously real entity (equivalent to his hands). It was only at the end of the lecture that a participant commented that the door in question was actually only part of a larger mural and therefore wasn’t real. Thus, despite the apparent certainty and immediacy of our senses, there remains the possibility (however small) that we’re not getting things quite right.

How much importance should skeptical hypotheses be given? Is their affront to our common sense ideas of the world sufficient to refute them?