Resurrecting the Moorean response to the sceptic

Duncan Pritchard*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

84 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

G. E. Moore famously offered a strikingly straightforward response to the radical sceptic which simply consisted of the claim that one could know, on the basis of one's knowledge that one has hands, that there exists an external world. In general, the Moorean response to scepticism maintains that we can know the denials of sceptical hypotheses on the basis of our knowledge of everyday propositions. In the recent literature two proposals have been put forward to try to accommodate, to varying extents, this Moorean thesis. On the one hand, there are those who endorse an externalist version of contextualism, such as Keith DeRose, who have claimed that there must be some contexts in which Moore is right. More radically still, Ernest Sosa has expanded on this externalist thesis by arguing that, contra DeRose's contextualism, Moore may be right in all contexts. In this paper I evaluate these claims and argue that, suitably modified, one can resurrect the main elements of the Moorean anti-sceptical thesis.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)283-307
Number of pages25
JournalInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies
Volume10
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2002
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Contextualism
  • Epistemology
  • Moore
  • Scepticism

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