WHAT REALLY IS COMMON SENSE? A DEFENSE IN THE LIGHT OF G. E MOORE’S EPISTEMOLOGY

Remigius Achinike Obah

Department of Philosophy, University of Port Harcourt, Port Harcourt, Rivers State. Nigeria.

Abstract

This work explores the question regarding the ‘common sense’ view of the world as postulated in G. E. Moore’s analytic philosophy. It part ways with the views of scholars, philosophers who have engaged in the dominative historical problem of knowledge and who have as well attempted to either prove that something exists or that material substance do not exist. Originating from this is the idealism of Hegel. For him, neither material entities nor space and time exist. This thought found its extremity in the views of the neo-Hegelians such as Francis Bradley and McTaggert who equally denied the existence of the material world, space and time. The above epistemic impasse prompted G.E. Moore to defend the existence of the material world, space and time through what he called the common sense view of the world and the prove of the external world. Some of the objectives set to guide this study are; to examine the post Hegelians – Bradley and McTaggart on reality; and to determine through Moore’s view of proposition and truism of common sense how necessary and possible that reality exists. This study adopts the method of content analysis. This involves textual analysis, conceptual analysis, contextual analysis and evaluation. Thus, this research demonstrates that G. E. Moore’s ‘common sense’ picture of the world is absolutely true because its propositions are commonly understood by everyone who speaks the language and it consists of evidently true propositions which are obvious and indubitable. The study recommends, amongst others, that scientists must look into philosophical findings for the possibility of discoveries that can occasion a paradigm shift.

Keywords: Common Sense, Epistemology, Reality, Idealism.