The follow paper deals with the idea of scepticism that we do not have knowledge of our external world. I will discuss this particular version of scepticism called ‘Cartesian Scepticism'. I will then discuss Bertrand Russell's view concerning our knowledge of external objects as posed in "The Existence of Matter" in The Problems of Philosophy. I will provide a clear exposition of Russell's' thoughts in order to examine if he is successful in overcoming sceptics arguments. I maintain that although it is weak, Russell's view is plausible in refuting the difficult problem of external world scepticism.
There are many different kinds of scepticism. This essay will focus mainly on Cartesian Scepticism thusly called because of the doubt raised by Descartes in his method of doubt which I will allude to later.
Scepticism arguments appear in many different forms and argue different points, i.e. infallibility, certainty. The following is a sceptic's argument for infallibility:
1) If......
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Approximate Pages: 11 (260 words per double-spaced page) |