"A Defence of Common Sense" is a 1925

essay An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal a ...

by philosopher

G. E. Moore George Edward Moore (4 November 1873 – 24 October 1958) was an English philosopher, who with Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and earlier Gottlob Frege was among the founders of analytic philosophy. He and Russell led the turn from ideal ...

. In it, he attempts to refute absolute skepticism (or nihilism) by arguing that at least some of our established beliefs about the world are absolutely certain, so they can be legitimately called " facts". Moore argues that these beliefs are

common sense ''Common Sense'' is a 47-page pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775–1776 advocating independence from Great Britain to people in the Thirteen Colonies. Writing in clear and persuasive prose, Paine collected various moral and political arg ...

Summary

In section one, he argues that he has certain knowledge of a number of truisms, such as "My body has existed continuously on or near the earth, at various distances from or in contact with other existing things, including other living human beings", "I am a human being", and "My body existed yesterday". In section two, he argues that there is a distinction between mental facts and physical facts. He says there is no good reason to believe, as many philosophers of his time did, that every physical fact is logically dependent on

mental fact Mental facts include such things as perceptions, feelings, and judgments. Mental facts are ultimately caused by physical facts, in that mental facts depend on physical and biological functions which are required for consciousness. The physical and ...

s, or that every physical fact is causally dependent on mental facts. An example of a physical fact is "The mantelpiece is at present nearer to this body than that bookcase is". Mental facts include "I am conscious now" and "I am seeing something now". In section three, he affirms that not only does he not think there are good reasons for believing that all material objects were created by

God In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...

, but neither does common sense give reasons to think that God exists at all or that there is an afterlife. The fourth section considers how common sense propositions like " Here is my hand" are to be analysed. Moore considers three possibilities that occur to him for how what we know in these cases is related to what we know about our sense-data, i.e. what he sees when looking at his hand. Moore concludes that we are absolutely certain about the common sense belief, but that no analysis of the propositions has been offered that is even close to being certain. The fifth section is an examination of the problem of other minds, the idea that one can not be certain that other minds exist. Moore argues that "there are other 'selves'", but explains why this question has baffled philosophers. In other words, the sense data that he perceives through his senses are facts about the interaction of the external world and himself, but he (and other philosophers) do not know how to analyze these interactions.

External links

"A defence of common sense"
published in ''Contemporary British Philosophy'' (2nd series), ed. J. H. Muirhead, 1925. Reprinted in G. E. Moore, Philosophical Papers (1959). . 1925 essays Analytic philosophy literature Cognitive science literature Contemporary philosophical literature Epistemology literature Epistemology of religion Philosophy of religion literature Philosophy of mind literature Philosophy essays {{philo-essay-stub