Abstract
DR. A. C. EWING, in an article entitled “Knowledge of Physical Objects”, has discussed the question, “How can we justify the claim to know the physical world?” (Mind, April 1943). He first considers the contention that it is meaningless to entertain a. general doubt about such knowledge because there are no possible experiences which could cast doubt on all physical propositions, only on some. He answers it by pointing out that dreams and illusions are the experiences on which the general doubt is based, and even though they are not conclusive evidence, the doubt has meaning by reference to them. This was a point well worth making. He next examines Prof. Moore's view that we can know with certainty something which it is both logically possible might not be true and also logically possible we might be wrong in thinking we knew. Our knowledge of physical objects is of this kind, according to Moore, and we know them without knowing how we know them. As Moore does not hold that we know physical objects directly, it seems possible to raise a doubt about our knowledge by pointing out that induction, by means of which this knowledge is established, cannot yield certainty. Briefly, Moore's answer to this is that the proposition that inductive argument cannot yield certainty is itself less certain than the proposition that he knows there is a chair.
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Our Knowledge of the Physical World. Nature 152, 242 (1943). https://doi.org/10.1038/152242c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/152242c0