The thesis is argued that Wittgenstein's response, unlike either Moore's or Wright's, is the right answer to scepticism about the existence of an external world. Moore offers his brief 'proof' as an alternative to developed, theoretical responses, which fall prey to higher-order scepticism. As it fails to address the intuitions which give rise to scepticism, however, it seems merely dogmatic. Wright's more detailed argument invokes a principle to delineate factual from non-factual claims and thereby turns the sceptical argument on itself, but depends on our accepting this fundamental epistemological principle as a convention, which the sceptic need not. Wittgenstein declines to legitimate the sceptic by arguing with her, but presupposes that she has made a mistake. This mistake resides in a failure to acknowledge the level of agreement among speakers on which language depends, which includes taking it to be the case that there is an external world.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.60070 |
| Date | January 1990 |
| Creators | Kermode, Robert |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Department of Philosophy.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001234984, proquestno: AAIMM67800, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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