What Do Philosophers Do? Maddy, Moore (and Wittgenstein) II

The chapter takes issue with Professor Maddy's reply (2018) to my commentary (Coliva in International Journal for the Study of Skepticism 8:198–207, 2018) on her account of Moore's[aut]Moore, G.E. proof in What Philosophers do. SkepticismSkepticism and the Practice of Philosophy (2017). In particular, I argue that transcendental idealism was the target of Moore's proof, rather than skepticism; that he did not dismiss Cartesian skepticismCartesian skepticism as illegitimate or even nonsensical; yet thought that since knowledge of the premises of his proof, such as “Here is one hand”, and “Here is another”, does not depend on being able to prove that one is not dreaming, contra Cartesian skepticism, he did have knowledge of them. Moore's defence of the good standing of his proof was thus based on embracing a proto-externalist account of knowledge, according to which knowledge (K) does not entail knowing how one knows, in the specific sense of being able to prove that one knows (KK).