The current standard interpretation of Moore’s proof assumes he offers a solution to Kant’s famously posed problem of an external world, which Moore quotes at the start of his 1939 lecture “Proof of an External World.” As a solution to Kant’s problem, Moore’s proof would fail utterly. A second received interpretation imputes an aim of refuting metaphysical idealism that Moore’s proof does not at all achieve. This study departs from received interpretations to credit the aim Moore announced for the proof (...) Moore performed in his 1939 lecture. Moore’s aim was to impose a counter-example to a stated presupposition of Kant’s problem of an external world. Moore’s lecture nevertheless neither endorses a replacement for Kant’s problem nor acknowledges that an immediate implication of achieving his announced aim would subvert Kant’s famously posed problem of an external world. (shrink)

This study credits Descartes’s Meditations with a linear central argument that can achieve its meditator’s announced goal for knowledge in prospective mathematical sciences. The argument starts from the Second Meditation’s opening argument that provides premises with an epistemic feature that enables the central argument to advance to its theist conclusion free of vicious circularity. Nevertheless, not only do standard translations obscure the Second Meditation’s opening argument. Also, the original and long-standing ‘Cartesian Circle’ Objections picture Descartes’s Meditations as a circle, but (...) misinterpret their target passages at the Third Meditation’s start and at the Fifth Meditation’s close. These ostensible impediments to crediting the Meditations’ linear central argument each overlooks or misconstrues the technical epistemic terms the Meditations specifies, and all comply with the unchallenged current assumption that the Meditations’ central argument can be consistent with teleological religious theism. (shrink)

The current standard interpretation of Moore’s proof assumes he offers a solution to Kant’s famously posed problem of an external world, which Moore quotes at the start of his 1939 lecture “Proof of an External World.” As a solution to Kant’s problem, Moore’s proof would fail utterly. A second received interpretation imputes an aim of refuting metaphysical idealism that Moore’s proof does not at all achieve. This study departs from received interpretations to credit the aim Moore announced for the proof (...) Moore performed in his 1939 lecture. Moore’s aim was to impose a counter-example to a stated presupposition of Kant’s problem of an external world. Moore’s lecture nevertheless neither endorses a replacement for Kant’s problem nor acknowledges that an immediate implication of achieving his announced aim would subvert Kant’s famously posed problem of an external world. (shrink)

The current standard interpretation of Moore’s proof assumes Moore offers a solution to Kant’s famously posed problem of an external world, which Moore quotes at the start of his 1939 lecture “Proof of an External World.” As a solution to Kant’s problem, Moore’s proof fails utterly. Similarly, a second received interpretation imputes an aim of refuting metaphysical idealism that Moore’s proof does not at all achieve. This study departs from the received interpretations to credit Moore’s stated aim for the proof (...) Moore performed in his 1939 lecture that is to impose a counter-example to an explicitly stated presupposition of Kant’s famously posed problem of an external world. The outcome would therefore subvert Kant’s problem. There is not, however, any rival external world problem that Moore commends in place of Kant’s problem. (shrink)

Descartes’s First Meditation imposes a pressing, currently neglected problem of reconciling its sound central argument that concludes that all the meditator’s current and currently prospective results are doubtful with subsequent Meditations’ results that are not at all doubtful. The problem cannot be addressed by received interpretations that fail to credit the First Meditation with a sound extended central argument; it cannot be solved by interpretations reliant on standard translations that obscure the Second Meditation’s opening argument. This study credits the First (...) Meditation’s three-premise argument for its announced conclusion; the Second Meditation’s opening argument for its meditator’s announced “Archimedean” conclusion; and a contribution from the Meditations’ genre of dramatic monologue. The solution specifies the Meditations portrayal of its meditator’s epistemic conceptual transition. (shrink)

Once, G. E. Moore scorned the “common point of view which takes the world of experience as ultimately real.” The argument Moore followed to this sceptical conclusion in his fledgling 1897 fellowship dissertation was a legacy from Kant's Antinomies. By 1899 Moore had renounced idealist conclusions; he set out both to disengage from Kantian arguments and to reconcile with “the world of experience.” Moore's work for a stable realist basis for knowledge to fulfil both aims occupied his most famous argument, (...) in his 1939 lecture “Proof of an External World.” Moore himself is sometimes supposed to have thought the argument of this masterwork unsatisfactory where it treats a traditional sceptical puzzle posed by dreaming. Critics, including Wittgenstein, have portrayed Moore's best reply to philosophical scepticism as dogmatic mere assertion, unresponsive or as ineffectual as sheer handwaving. However, these critics rate Moore's success against scepticism based on interpretations of “Proof of an External World” that neglect its part in Moore's campaign against Kant. Consequently, some potentially pivotal questions — which in this study I merely broach — remain wide open; for example, why in presenting his famous 1939 proof did Moore state that its purpose was to refute what “Kant declares to be his opinion, that there is only one possible proof of the existence of things outside of us”? And why did Moore explicitly reject the formula for posing philosophical scepticism in which Kant famously proclaimed this problem “a scandal to philosophy”? (shrink)