You Think G. E. Moore Offers What He Calls A Proof Of External World

In “Proof of an External World,” G. E. Moore offers what he calls a proof of external reality. Do you think this is a successful proof?

An excerpt from Moore, “I can prove now, 165 G.E. MOORE: SELECTED WRITINGS for instance, that two human hands exist. 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'. And if, by doing this, I have proved ipso facto the existence of external things, you will all see that I can also do it now in numbers of other ways: there is no need to multiply examples. But did I prove just now that two human hands were then in existence? I do want to insist that I did; that the proof

Of course, it would not have been a proof unless three conditions were satisfied; namely (1) unless the premiss which I adduced as proof of the conclusion was different from the conclusion I adduced it to prove; (2) unless the premiss which I adduced was something which I knew to be the case, and not merely something which I believed but which was by no means certain, or something which, though in fact true, I did not know to be so; and (3) unless the conclusion did really follow from the premiss. But all these three conditions were in fact satisfied by my proof.” With this information given, he is stating that if the premise was different from the conclusion then it would not be proof. He states, “The premiss which I adduced in proof was quite certainly different from the conclusion,, for the conclusion was merely ‘Two human hands exist at this moment’, but the premise was something far more specific than this –

We can make assumptions but there has not been proof that the premises in his argument are true. If you cannot prove what you are saying, then it cannot be proven as truth. I need to be shown proof in order to accept his premises as true and I have not been given sufficient evidence to conclude this. If you are unable to prove something then you do not know it, so we cannot assume that we know because then we would need to prove it. I cannot assume that a hand exists behind my back just because we think it exists without it being perceived. I need to be shown proof of this and with following Moore’s ways to prove this, I am