Barry Stroud's Certainty And The Problem Of The External World

Throughout history, philosophers have been known to use skepticism as a method to justify their theories of existence and knowledge. Such philosophers like Descartes who wrote in his meditations that by doubting everything one is able to establish a foundation based upon certainty. However, others philosophers like G.E Moore and Barry Stroud reject Descartes and continue on to explain their foundations and ideas on the connection between knowledge and existence. Certainty and The Problem of the External World are both works that focus on the notion of how knowledge does not need to be justified through skepticism in order to be proven certain. In the work Certainty, the author presents seven different assertions in which he claims to be true. Through his assertions Moore implies that these statements are not only true but they are in fact certain. As well as the fact that he knew that they were. He attempts to prove …show more content…
Stroud believes that there is an argument in which no one can ever really know anything about the external world. Stroud examines how Descartes upon reflecting on his senses, was unable to rule out the possibility of dreaming which leads him to conclude that he has no knowledge of the world around him. Stroud then argues how Descartes couldn’t distinguish reality from the concept of dreaming, and since he believed one couldn’t know things on account of their dreams, then in simpler words he wouldn’t know anything. He basically states how he knows about the external world only if he knows that he is not dreaming, but he cannot know that he is dreaming at the moment, therefore he cannot know anything about the external world. So in order to know anything about the world around us we must then know for a fact that we are not