(a) What are the main arguments put forward by Moore in his paper "A Defence of Common Sense" to prove that there are possible propositions about the world that are known to be true with certainty? Do you think Moore's arguments provide a sufficient

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(a) What are the main arguments put forward by Moore in his paper "A Defence of Common Sense" to prove that there are possible propositions about the world that are known to be true with certainty? Do you think Moore's arguments provide a sufficient response to objections presented by the sceptic against the possibility of knowledge? Give reasons in support of your answer. (20 marks)
(b) What according to Strawson are basic particulars ? What reasons does Strawson offer to believe that 'material bodies' and 'persons' are basic particulars ? Critically discuss. (15 marks)
(c) Critically examine Quine's postulate of empiricism without the dogmas with reference to his 'Two Dogmas of Empiricism'. (15 marks)

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Moore and common sense
Moore argues in “A Defence of Common Sense” that common-sense propositions are known with certainty because they are more certain than any argument denying them. He lists truisms such as “here is one hand”, “here is another”, “I am a body”, “there are other bodies”, “the past exists” and “other minds exist”. His hand-waving proof is a paradigm: if I know that here is one hand and here is another, I know that there are at least two material things; hence the external-world sceptic is wrong. Moore also holds that knowing entails being certain, so common-sense propositions are certain.

Critically, Moore’s proof is not sufficient for the sceptic. The sceptic does not deny that Moore can say “here is one hand”; he denies that this premise gives knowledge of an external world, or that it is known in the required sense. Thus the proof is question-begging against a radical sceptic, because it assumes the perceptual certainty the sceptic challenges. It is better read as a Wittgensteinian hinge proposition: such statements are not justified by evidence but frame evidence and doubt. Contextualism helps: ordinary contexts allow knowledge of hands, while sceptical contexts raise standards. Moore therefore exposes sceptical incoherence but does not meet the sceptic’s demand for proof of premises.

Strawson’s basic particulars
Strawson calls material bodies and persons basic particulars because they can be identified without reference to other particulars; non-basic particulars are identified only through relations to basic ones. Material bodies are basic because they can be re-identified across time and space by spatiotemporal continuity. Persons are basic because the concept of a person primitively combines physical and psychological predicates, irreducible to either bodily or mental description alone.

The critical difficulty is whether this asymmetry is secure. Material bodies are often identified through relations to other bodies, landmarks and perceptual contexts; if identification always depends on a background of other particulars, bodies may not be strictly basic. Persons may be identified by social roles, language and psychological continuity, which seem to depend on material bodies and other persons. If persons are not material bodies, Strawson must explain their ontological status; if they are, the primitive concept may collapse into body plus mental states. Strawson’s account is persuasive in showing that bodies and persons are fundamental to ordinary identification, but it risks circularity: the criteria of basicness are chosen to fit bodies and persons, and the irreducibility of persons remains contested.

Quine’s empiricism without dogmas
In “Two Dogmas of Empiricism,” Quine attacks the analytic/synthetic distinction and reductionism. Analyticity is circular: definitions, verificationism and interchangeability salva veritate presuppose synonymy or meaning that cannot be independently fixed. Reductionism is rejected because no meaningful statement can be reduced to immediate experience. Quine replaces these dogmas with confirmational holism: beliefs form a web whose edges touch experience, and any part can be revised to accommodate evidence. This yields ontological relativity, since theory choice is constrained by evidence but not uniquely determined by it.

Critically, Quine does not eliminate dogmas so much as relocate them. His critique depends on pragmatic and semantic notions such as synonymy and meaning, which he cannot fully naturalise. Grice-Strawson and Davidson’s critiques show that his semantic notions may presuppose analyticity or destabilise belief attribution. Quine’s naturalised epistemology is therefore a major advance, but it leaves open whether holism is a theory of knowledge or a description of scientific practice.

Moore, Strawson and Quine each shift the ground: Moore defends common sense as a framework, Strawson anchors ontology in identifiable particulars, and Quine naturalises empiricism. None fully defeats scepticism, but each shows that sceptical challenges often rest on a mistaken picture of knowledge, identification or meaning.

(a) What are the main arguments put forward by Moore in his paper "A Defence of Common Sense" to prove that there are possible…

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