Does Russells Argument Successfully Refute External World Skepticism?
...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 you know something, then you can't be wrong about it.
2) You can always be wrong about anything
So, you never know anything
This argument can be interpreted in many ways, I will consider one possible way:
1) If you know p then not possibly ( you believe p and p is false)
2) But it is possible( that you believe p and p is false)
Therefore you don't know p.
In attempting to find fault with this argument, I could attack premise 1) however by contradicting premise 1).I risk falling into the trap of then affirming premise 2) So rather I will focus my attention on premise 2.
Premise 2) implies that nothing is indubitable. Descartes however establishes that there are some things that are indubitable. He re-assesses all his previous beliefs and finally comes to the conclusion that even though many things can be doubted, the fact that he exists cannot be indubitable. He has knowledge of his own mind and nothing can convince him otherwise.Likewise, we are all certain of our own...
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