I suspect that 'here is my hand' would suggest, in ordinary language, an
offer of a handshake - say between two people who had some disagreement
before. I can't think of many situations in which 'here is a hand' would be
used as an ontological claim, in ordinary language. (Outside of the
philosophy department at Cambridge.)
O.K.
On Thu, May 21, 2015 at 7:29 PM, Redacted sender Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx for
DMARC <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In a message dated 5/21/2015 6:21:23 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx writes: "you don't seem to distinguish between
skepticism and
idealism. I'll not go into whether Moore did. Schopenhauer's version of
idealism certainly doesn't find it necessary to deny that we have hands.
And S's
theory of object and perception is, let's say, slightly more elaborate and
sophisticated than: "Here is a hand, and here is another hand." From a
skeptical point of view, Moore doesn't do anything that would exclude any
of
the standard skeptical scenarios, such as the dream scenario. Personally,
I
find something like the dream scenario plausible. Another plausible
scenario
is that Moore is drunk, in which case he doesn't really know that he has
hands, even if he happens to have them."
I think it was Walter O. who brought up the Witters/Moore polemic, which is
an interesting one, in that both were Cantabrigian; yet their polemic had
an Oxonian side to it.
For we can say that Moore is adopting a common-sense view where
common-sense = roughly, what ordinary-language users display.
And Witters is criticising the non-ordinariness, as it were, of "I know for
certain that here is a hand".
The Oxonian, as it were, seems to be thinking, and rightly, too, that Moore
and Witters commit a common mistake, even if it's greater in Witters's
case. For while "I know for certain that here is a hand" may possibly
have no
use, it may actually be given as one of the many instances that prove
Witters's idea of
meaning = use
wrong.
Cheers,
Speranza
Reference:
Malcolm, N. "Moore and ordinary language", in Schilpp, "The library of
living philosophers".
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