What counts as an ‘external object’,
these are things whose existence is not dependent upon our experience. So, he argues, if he can prove the existence of any such things, then he will have proved the existence of an ‘External World’. Moore then maintains that he can do this —
How? By holding up my two hands, and saying, as I make a certain gesture with the right hand, ‘Here is one hand’, and adding, as I make a certain gesture with the left, ‘and here is another’ (‘Proof of an External World’ 166).How absurd it would be to suggest that I did not know it, but only believed it,
Moore's ‘proof’ demonstrates the ‘empirical’ truth of a simple truism, that he has hands; but it leaves entirely open the question of the analysis of this truism. Yet it is at the level of analysis that the ‘transcendental’ question of whether things such as hands are altogether independent of experience and thought is to be answered.
Wittgenstein suggests that Moore fails because his claim that he knows he has a hand automatically invites the question of how he knows,
Traditional epistemology has sought a bedrock of certain knowledge, knowledge that is immune to all possible doubt,
Wittgenstein asserts that claims like “here is a hand” or “the world has existed for more than five minutes” have the form of empirical propositions but that in fact they have more in common with logical propositions. That is, these sorts of propositions may seem to say something factual about the world, and hence be open to doubt, but really the function they serve in language is to serve as a kind of framework within which empirical propositions can make sense. In other words, we take such propositions for granted so that we can speak about the hand or about things in the world—these propositions aren’t meant to be subjected to skeptical scrutiny.
At one point, Wittgenstein compares these sorts of propositions to a riverbed,
which must remain in place for the river of language to flow smoothly, and at another, he compares them to the hinges of a door, which must remain fixed for the door of language to serve any purpose. The key, then, is not to claim certain knowledge of propositions like “here is a hand” but rather to recognize that these sorts of propositions lie beyond questions of knowledge or doubt.
That statement explains how the word hand is to be used rather than making an empirical claim about the presence of a hand. If we begin to doubt these sorts of propositions, then the whole structure of language, and hence thought, comes apart. If two people disagree over whether one of them has a hand, it is unclear whether they can agree on anything that might act as a common ground on which they can debate the matter. Communication and rational thought are only possible between people when there is some sort of common ground, and when one doubts such fundamental propositions as “here is a hand,” that common ground shrinks to nothing. Skeptical doubts purport to take place within a framework of rational debate, but by doubting too much, they undermine rationality itself, and so undermine the very basis for doubt.
imilarly, skepticism gains its foothold by doubting propositions like “here is a hand” when these propositions are abstracted from the activity of everyday life. According to Wittgenstein, a proposition has no meaning unless it is placed within a particular context. “Here is a hand,” by itself, means nothing, though those words might come to have meaning in the context of an anatomy class or of a parent teaching a child to speak. However, once we give propositions a particular context, the doubts cast by a skeptic lack the kind of generality that would throw the very existence of the external world into doubt. Only by removing language from all possible contexts, and hence rendering language useless, can skepticism function.
In other words, the most fundamental aspect of language is that we learn how to use it in social contexts, which is the reason why we all understand each other. We do not understand each other because of a relationship between language and reality.
hat someone could invent a language for his or her own private use that describes his or her inner sensations. In such a language, there would be no criteria to determine whether a word had been used correctly, so the language would have no meaning. Wittgenstein illustrates this point by arguing that the sentence, “I know I am in pain” makes no sense. The claim to know something carries with it further baggage that is inapplicable when talking about our own sensations. To claim to know something, we must also be able to doubt it, we must have criteria for establishing our knowledge, there must be ways other people can find out, and so on—all of which is absent when dealing with our inner sensations.
I 'see' this fork
or I see it as a fork
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