Was Moore a Moorean? On Moore and Scepticism

Abstract

One of the most important views in the recent discussion of epistemological scepticism is NeoMooreanism. It turns a well-known kind of sceptical argument (the dreaming argument and its different versions) on its head by starting with ordinary knowledge claims and concluding that we know that we are not in a sceptical scenario. This paper argues that George Edward Moore was not a Moorean in this sense. Moore replied to other forms of scepticism than those mostly discussed nowadays. His own anti-sceptical position turns out to be very subtle and complex; furthermore it changed over time. This paper follows Moore's views of what the sceptical problem is and how one should respond to it through a series of crucial papers with the main focus being on Moore's 'Proof of an External World'. An appendix deals with the much neglected relation between epistemological scepticism and moral scepticism in Moore. Epistemic scepticism comes in many varieties. Let us start with a form of scepticism according to which we do not and cannot know ordinary propositions where ordinary propositions are contingent propositions about the external world. The current discussion about scepticism focuses very much on an argument of the following type (with “o” referring to an ordinary proposition, like “I have hands”, “s” to a proposition describing some sceptical scenario, like “I am merely dreaming that I have hands”, and with “K” for the knowledge-operator): 1 This is the pre-peer reviewed version of the following article: Peter Baumann, Was Moore a Moorean? On Moore and Scepticism“, European Journal of Philosophy 17, 2009, 181-200 which has been published in final form at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.14680378.2008.00300.x/abstract.