Stroud’s “The Problem of the External World”

The main purpose of Stroud is to understand philosophical skepticism. He does not

want to challenge it or show it is false or show that it is misleading or absurd. He
thinks that the argument for skepticism is clear and presents a significant problem
for any knowledge regarding the external world.

The argument runs like this:

Let P = there is an external world

1) My knowledge of the external world – and that there is an external world –

comes from the senses
2) Any experience that comes from the senses is also possible to be dreamt
3) If I am dreaming P then I do not know P
4) If I have to know P, then I must not be dreaming P
5) There is no way to distinguish between a dream experience and a real
experience
6) Therefore, I cannot be said to know that P

All this means that we do not KNOW that there is an external world. This
argument does not say there is no external world. That would be a metaphysical
claim. This argument makes a claim that is epistemic by nature. Of course we
believe that there is an external world. No one is denying that. And of course there
is an external world. No one is denying that. But what is being denied is that we
know that there is an external world.

Stroud discusses this argument at length. One can challenge (4) and (5). Why
should I have to know that I am not dreaming to know P? Is that not a rather
unusual condition? You make an omelette. You know you just made one. But it is

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claimed that I cannot know this unless I also know that I was not dreaming that I
made an omelette.

But we do apply such standards of knowledge to other cases. You see a

chimpanzee. But are you sure that you saw one? Can you tell the difference
between a chimpanzee and a gorilla? Maybe an expert can but you cannot. So, you
cannot say that you know you saw a chimpanzee. Maybe you are really sure, but
you still do not know it. If any experience can be dreamt as well, you making the
omelette may also be something that you dreamt that you are doing. If you are not
sure that whether you were dreaming or awake, then you do not know that you
made the omelette. No one is saying that you did not make the omelette, or that
there is an omelette there in front of you. No one is denying that you believe that it
is in front of you. But what is being denied is that you know that there is an
omelette that you made and that it is in front of you.

One can deny (5). Dream experiences can be rather vague; dream memories are not
strong; dreams have no coherence from day to day like our lives do; dreams do not
have the strong “feel” of a real experience. But all this is contingent. Also, they can
be denied. Some people might remember their dreams very well. Others might
have coherent dreams from day to day (Condorcet thought this was certainly
possible). Dreams can be very direct and clear in nature; and dreams can certainly
carry the weight of a real experience. We are often relieved to know that we
dreamt of a tiger leaping on us, and it was not for real. That shows that dreams are
pretty scary.

So, neither (4) nor (5) can be challenged immediately. The argument stands. It is
an argument that makes us uneasy.

Reactions to Skepticism

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1) Disbelief, anger, rejection, dismissal: This reaction is not very rational at first
sight. The skeptic only says that you do not know there is an external world. The
skeptic has no problem if you continue to believe. After all, you do not know there
is a God, but people do not object that you believe in one. We do not react with
shock and anger if people believe in God but do not know that he exists. In the
same way, being angry and shocked with the skeptic might be misunderstanding
what she is saying. The skeptic does not say: the world does not exist. That is
indeed shocking. The skeptic says: you do not know there is an external world.
Surely, we can argue with the skeptic on that without dismissing her.

2) True belief is fine in all practical matters: This is something that Socrates
says in the Meno. This may be true, but humans want more. The skeptic will not
argue with Socrates on this, though she might say that maybe true belief is not all
that matters in practical issues. We want the assurance of knowledge. Just having
true beliefs seems very dissatisfactory.

3) Seek a proper analysis of knowledge: This is a more rational reaction. Instead

of surrendering to the skeptic, or believe, like Descartes that God makes our
perceptions true, we can strive to understand the nature of knowledge better.
Ernest Sosa had done this by developing virtue epistemology.

4) Keep seeking the elusive knowledge as we live as skeptics: This seems to

have been the position of skeptics in ancient times. They continued to be skeptical
but also they did not think that knowledge was impossible. So, they kept seeking
knowledge. That is a very hard life to lead though.

5) Devalue knowledge: Maybe knowledge is not that valuable. Maybe the skeptic
is overvaluing knowledge. The skeptic assumes that knowledge is very important
but she may not be right. This sort of reaction is only sensible if the skeptic is

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indeed overvaluing knowledge. But that may not be so. Maybe this is not about the
value of knowledge. The skeptic may launch her argument without having any
notion of the value of knowledge.

None of the reactions seem right. So we must appreciate the skeptic’s position. But
also we must feel unhappy with it. That is what it is to be in a position of
philosophical understanding regarding the problem of the external world.

Moore’s “Proof of an External World”

For all the difficult arguments that the Skeptic seems to advance, Moore comes up
with a remarkably simple argument to show that there is an external world. Note
immediately what Moore wants to establish: he wants to prove that there is an
external world, not that we know there is an external world. So, Moore is
advancing a metaphysical thesis, whereas what we want is more like
epistemological assurance. However, in proving the existence of the external
world, Moore does reply to the arguments that relate to skepticism.

Moore’s proof goes like this.

Premise 1: Here is one hand

Premise 2: Here is another hand
Therefore, Two human hands exist

Human hands are part of the external world, and hence there is an external world.
Moore says that this satisfies three criteria for a good proof:

1) Premisses should be different from the conclusion

2) I (Moore) must know that the premisses are true

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3) The conclusion must follow from the premisses

Moore is confident that his argument meets these criteria. Moore says that his
premisses contain more information than the conclusion, in the sense that his
premisses are more specific. Moore says that the conclusion might have been true
even if the premisses were false. Moore might mean that while he may not have
had two hands or was under an illusion that he had two hands, the conclusion could
still be true because the conclusion does not say Moore has two hands. It says
“Two human hands exist”. So, if someone else had two hands that would make the
conclusion true.

Moore says that he knows that the premisses are true and he thinks that the
conclusion follows from the premisses.

One might wonder what kind of proof this is. Is it a deductive proof? Moore thinks
that the conclusion is different from the premisses; therefore, this cannot be a
deductive proof. In deduction, the conclusion does not outrun the premisses and
the conclusion does not say anything new.

It is not an inductive proof either; inductive proofs cite previous instances and
draw a conclusion, Here, no previous instances are cited.

Is it an abductive proof? Abduction means something like an inference to the best

explanation. At night you wake up hearing a loud crash in your home. You infer
immediately that the best explanation of this is that there is a thief in your home
(since there is no one else in your home, you have no pets, your neighbors would
not break in, spooky events are ruled out etc). Your inference can be called an
abductive inference.

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Moore’s proof would be abductive if he said that there being two hands is best
explained by two human hands existing. But Moore does not take his argument to
be an inference to the best explanation. He is not trying to explain why he has two
hands. If so, it is hard to tell what kind of proof Moore has in mind. It is not a
deductive argument, nor an inductive argument nor an abductive argument.

In any case, Moore says that he is confident that his argument is right. He tries to
counter two objections.

Objection 1: You have not proved your premisses. Since you have not proved your
premisses, your conclusion does not follow.

Moore’s response: It is true that I have not proved my premisses; such a proof
cannot be given. To give such a proof, I need to know that I am not dreaming. But
I cannot know that I am not dreaming. In any case, what is being asked for cannot
be given. Hence, maybe, Moore wants to say is that if you want a proof of the
premises, then you are asking for what cannot be proved. The demand is asking for
too much.

Objection 2: If you cannot prove your premisses, then you have not given
conclusive proof of the conclusion. If you cannot prove your premisses then you
cannot know them.

Moore’s response: I can know things that I cannot prove. He says that Kant is
wrong in thinking that if we cannot know that there is an external world then we
have to accept it as a matter of faith. Moore says that he knows that here is one
hand and here is another even though he cannot prove it. But his lack of a proof of
his having two hands do not deprive of him of knowing that he has two hands.

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 Moore “Certainty”

One might approach Moore’s Certainty in many ways. My view is that Moore
seems to offer the skeptic an interesting form of answer. The answer is: my
argument is as good as yours. Therefore, your argument does not carry greater
weight than mine. Hence, while your argument is strong, mine is equally strong. If
so, and given the startling nature of the skeptic’s argument, and the ordinary nature
of mine, it follows that there must be something odd or maybe self-contradictory in
what the skeptic is saying. There is a sense in which Moore wants to say when we
say that we are standing we may well come to doubt that we know that we are
standing up, but yet that doubt can be dispelled by an equally strong conviction
that we know we are standing.

The skeptic’s argument seems very strong and they tilt the scales away from
knowing anything. But Moore wants to restore balance in favor of knowing, and
his main response to do so is this:

A) If the skeptic says that I do not know because I do not know that I am not
dreaming, then I can also say that I know what I take to be true because I know that
I am not dreaming. In Moore’s own words: “I know that I am standing up,
therefore I know that I am not dreaming;” is as good as “You don’t know that you
are not dreaming, hence you don’t know that you are standing up.”

Moore makes the following remarks in “Certainty” regarding skepticism.

1) If I am dreaming that I am standing, then I do not know that I am standing

even if I am standing. However, Moore says he is not sure how this
inference can be proved to be a valid one.
2) You may dream that you are standing, and you might even think that you are
standing and you may be standing, and yet you do not know that you are
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 standing. He says that this is correct and cites Russell: you may think
something is true, and it is true, yet you may not know that it is true.
3) Hence, True belief is not identical with knowledge
4) But Moore can always say: if you say that I am dreaming and hence I do not
know that I am standing up, I can also say that I know that I am standing up
and hence I know that I am not dreaming. So, the skeptic must give some
good argument for saying that his argument is better than Moore’s rejoinder.
5) What can the skeptic say? Well, the skeptic says that dream experiences are
just like actual sense experiences. For this to work, the skeptic has to say
that he knows that the sense experience that you are having is the same as
some of the actual dream experiences you have had. To this, Moore objects
by saying this implies that the skeptic knows that dreams have occurred. But
he might be dreaming that dreams have occurred and hence he does not
know that dreams have occurred that have similar feel as the feel of sense
experience. Surely, the skeptic too does not know that he is not dreaming
and hence he cannot know that he is not dreaming that dreams have
occurred. But the skeptic is confident that dreams have occurred. This is an
inconsistent position.
6) However, Moore concedes the force of the skeptic’s argument and asks
further whether it is possible that a man has the sense experience he has and
also remembers having other experience in the past, and yet be dreaming all
this up. The skeptic says that this is logically possible. Moore might be
dreaming not only his present experience but also that he remembers having
had other experiences in the past. Moore questions whether such a thing is
even logically possible. More interestingly, he thinks that having the present
experiences one has and also having memory of other experiences and
saying that we might be dreaming this up has the air of a self contradiction.
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7) Moore repeats the balancing argument in the end: If the skeptic says that you
do not know that you are not dreaming and hence you do not know that you
are standing up, then Moore can say that he knows that he is standing up and
hence he knows that he is not dreaming.
8) Moore says that he does not know of any good argument that the skeptic has
to show that his argument is weightier than Moore’s.

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 Nozick on Knowledge

Nozick’s main purpose is to make us appreciate the skeptic’s argument but also
make us understand that knowledge is possible.

Nozick says that we need to have a proper characterization of knowledge such that
it the characterizations are individually necessary and jointly sufficient for
knowing anything (or at least knowing ordinary cases of knowledge)

Two conditions are not contested by anyone:

1. P is true

2. S believes P (where S is any subject)

The third condition is usually thought to be one of justification. To know you must
have justification. Also, mere true belief cannot be knowledge. You may believe
that you got 100 marks in logic and it might be true that you have got 100 marks,
but since the result has not been declared you do not know that you have got 100
marks in logic. So, you need some evidence, which acts as justification.

But Edmund Gettier showed in 1963 that even justification is not enough. If you
know something by sheer luck that is not knowledge, even though you may well be
justified. If you look at a field and you see something that looks like a sheep, and
you conclude that it is a sheep, you are justified (because there was a sheep there
but it was behind a sheep dog that you had actually seen, and the sheep dog from a
distance looks just like a sheep) but you do not know that there was a sheep there.

To get around this problem, it was suggested that to know P you must have some
causal connection with P. In the sheep example, we are not rightly causally
connected with the sheep. Rather our causal connection is with the sheep dog.

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But the causal connection condition may not work in cases of mathematics and
ethics. How do you know 2 +2 is 4? Are you causally connected to mathematical
truths? How do you know you should keep your promises? Is there some moral
fact like this with which you are causally connected? Not very likely (unless you
are a Platonist)

Also, Nozick says that if you are floating in a tank of water and you believe,
because excited by electrodes stuck to your brain that you are floating in a tank of
water then even though your belief is formed in the right causal conditions, you
still do not know that you are floating in a tank of water. (One might wonder
whether Nozick is right about whether this example adheres well with the causal
connection requirement, but we can leave this issue aside here).

Nozick says that we need a condition like the following to be added to the truth of
P and the belief in P:

3. If p were not true, then S would not believe that p

(not p  not (S believes that P)

How does this help? Now, take the Gettier case of the sheep. If the sheep were not
there, would the person still believe that the sheep was there? Yes, he would
because his belief is based on the sheep dog and not the sheep. Hence, the person
violates condition 3 and hence does not know, as Gettier predicts. Condition 3 gets
this prediction right.

Unfortunately it does not get the Tank case right.

If you are not floating in the tank, then of course you would not believe that you
were floating in the tank. Why on earth would you believe that?

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Hence Condition 3 is met in the tank case (If it is not the case that you are floating
in the tank then you do not believe that you are floating in the tank)

So you must know that you are floating in the tank.

But that is the wrong result!! You do not know that you are floating in the tank.

So Nozick puts in a fourth condition.

4. If P were true, then you would believe P.

This condition is violated in the tank case. If it is true that you are floating in a
tank of water, then you need not believe that you are floating in a tank of water
(because the electrodes may make you think you are shopping in London).

So we have four conditions for knowledge

1. P is true

2. S believes P (where S is any subject)

3. If P were not true, then S would not believe that P (variance condition)

4. If P were true, then you would believe P. (adherence condition)

3 and 4 tell is that we are sensitive to the truth. If something is false, we would not
believe it, and if something is true, we would believe it. So, if conditions vary, our
beliefs change, and if conditions remain the same, our beliefs remain the same.
That is why Nozick says that 3 is to be called the variance condition and 4 is to be
called the adherence condition.

Nozick uses these four conditions to give an interesting argument against

skepticism. He concedes the power of the skeptical arguments.

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Let’s see how his argument proceeds.

Suppose that you are reading this page. It is true, you believe it, if it were false you
would not have believed it, and if it were true, you would believe it. So, you know
that you are reading this page.

But the skeptic says that you do not know that you are not dreaming. So, if you do
not know that you are not dreaming, then you do not know that you are reading this
page. Therefore, you do not know you are reading this page.

Nozick says that the skeptic’s reasoning relies on the principle of closure for
knowledge. This says that knowledge is closed under known logical implication.

Principle of Closure: If (KP and K(P  Q))  KQ

Of course we can say, and Nozick is happy to concede this, that if you know that
you are reading this page, then you know that if you are reading this page, then you
are not dreaming that you are reading this page and so you know that you are not
dreaming that you are reading this page.

But the skeptic’s argument is equally strong. So, what to do?

Nozick’s answer is this. The Principle of Closure is wrong. Knowledge is not

closed under logical implication.

Logical implication is obeyed by the conditions 1 and 2 in the characterization of

knowledge. The conditions were that P is true and S believes P. So, if S believes P
and S believes that P entails Q, it does follow that S believes Q.

But does logical implication hold for Condition 3 and 4?

Here is condition 3.

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3. If P were false, S would not believe P

S believes P (In the sense that the belief in P is subjunctively sensitive to P being
false as Condition 3 needs) and S knows that P entails Q, and S believes Q, but S
may not know Q because S is not subjunctively sensitive to Q. For that, S needs to
believe that

3* If Q were false, then S would not believe Q

If you were born in Delhi, then you were born on the earth. That is an entailment.
But contemplating a situation when you were not born in Delhi would be very
different from contemplating what would be the case if you were not born on earth.

Here is Nozick’s example (suitably changed)

P: I am awake and sitting on a chair in Delhi

Q: I am not floating in a tank in Alpha Centauri being stimulated by

electrochemical means to believe that P

P entails Q. I know that P entails Q and I know P. If P were false, then maybe I am
standing or sleeping in Delhi or somewhere nearby. If Q were false, then I am
floating in a tank in Alpha Centauri being made to believe in P. These are very
different circumstances. If P were false, I would not believe P. But if Q were false,
then I would be floating in a tank in Alpha Centauri and I would believe that P.
Hence, we know P, and we know that P entails Q, but we do not know Q. We do
not know Q because Q violates condition 3.

Hence, condition 3 does not obey closure. Hence, knowledge is not closed under
logical implication. P may entail Q, and we may track (be sensitive to) P, but we
may not track (be sensitive to) Q.

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To know something, your belief must vary with the truth. This means that if P were
not true, then you would not believe P. The skeptic must agree to this, since the
skeptic is the one who brings in conditions like dreaming, or evil demons, and asks
us to consider these possibilities against knowledge. But the skeptic also believes
that knowledge is closed under logical implication. However, logical implication
only preserves truth, and is blind to any variations regarding the connection
between truth and your beliefs. The skeptic is caught in the crossfire of his own
demands: he wants logical implication, and yet he wants the belief to vary with the
facts. One cannot have it both ways. If belief varies with the facts, then logical
implication fails.

The skeptic is right that we do not track the truth that we may be dreaming, but he
is not right in thinking that we do not track ordinary truths that we are reading this
page.

Criticisms of Nozick

The criticisms of Nozick’s theory of knowledge are taken from an article by Saul
Kripke titled “Nozick on Knowledge”. The article has many criticisms. Some of
the criticisms are as under. The main target of the criticism is Condition 3.

Remember, Condition 3 is: If p were false, then S would not believe it.

This sounds very natural. However, let us see what the criticisms are.

Henry and the Fake Barn

In the famous Fake Barn case, Henry is driving past an area where there is just one
real barn and the rest are fakes. They are fake because they look like barns but are
not barns. Henry looks at the only real barn. Does he know that it is a real barn?
No. Condition 3 explains this. If there was no real barn there, there would have

15
been a fake barn there, and Henry would have believed that it was a real barn. This
violates condition 3. Hence, Henry does not know. Condition 3 gives us the right
result. Unfortunately, it gives us the wrong results in some cases.

Here is a variation on the case. Suppose everything is the same as above. There is
just one real barn and the rest are fakes. There is however a difference. The fake
barns can only be made on areas with the right soil conditions. The real barn stands
on the type of soil on which one cannot make a fake barn. Henry does not know
this. He looks at the real barn. Does he know that it is a real barn? No. Nothing has
changed from the previous case. Henry cannot tell the difference between real
barns and fake barns. However, Condition 3 is not violated in this case. If there
was no real barn there, then there would not be a fake barn there, hence, Henry
would not believe that there was a real barn there. So, Henry knows that what he
saw was a real barn. But Henry does not know. So, Nozick’s theory gives the
wrong result.

The Case of the Clairvoyant

Now, take a different case. Suppose that a man divines the presence of the Indian
Prime Minister by clairvoyance. So he knows that the PM is in New York when
the PM is in New York. He often gets this right. But clairvoyance is not the right
method to find out the whereabouts of the PM. Plus, it is irrational to trust
clairvoyance. All this is told to the man. One day, the man is told that the PM is in
Delhi. Everyone is confident that he is in Delhi. But the man believes that the PM
is in New York because his clairvoyance says so. Now it turns out that the PM is in
New York, contrary to what many believe. So, the clairvoyant is right. He has a
true belief. Also, if the PM were not in New York, he would not have believed that
the PM was in New York. So, according to Condition 3, he knows that the PM is

16
in New York. But he does not because he uses clairvoyance to do so. Hence,
Nozick’s theory again gives the wrong result.

The Incompetent Scientist Case

Here is another case. Suppose a scientist is incompetent. He needs to test whether

a drug effectively treats a disease. He administers the drug to the patients but he
forgets to test a placebo on a control group. The patients recover. The scientist
believes that the drug is effective. Does he know that the drug is effective? No. But
if the patients had not recovered, the scientist would not have believed that the
drug was effective. Hence, this meets Condition 3. So, according to Nozick, the
incompetent scientist knows that the drug is effective. That is the wrong result.
Indeed, it seems that Nozick would grant knowledge in all cases where the result
was obtained sloppily or incompetently or irrationally.

Nozick’s Condition 4

Let’s take Condition 4. Condition 4 says that if p were true then S would believe
it.

Let’s see whether this condition is correct.

Mary and the Photon

Here is a thought experiment. Mary is a physicist. She needs to know whether a

photon is being emitted. When a photon gets emitted, it can go left or right. To find
out, she puts a detector on the right. A photon is emitted. It turns right and hits the
detector. Mary believes that the photon was emitted. Does Mary know that the
photon was emitted? Intuitively, yes. But Condition 4 gives a different answer. If a
photon were emitted, then Mary need not have believed that the photon was

17
emitted because it could have turned left and not hit the detector. So, going by
Condition 4, Mary does not know. That is the wrong result.

Given these criticisms, it appears that either Nozick’s theory of knowledge needs
some serious repairs or that we must abandon it.

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