PHL100Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Northrop Frye, Milky Way, Taoism
Document Summary
Skepticism is the view that we lack knowledge, that we do not know things we may think we know. Our focus will be on skepticism about the external world. It is important to be clear on exactly what this involves: Some propositions about the external world are true and the rest are false, but it is impossible for anyone to know of any that it is true or false. The crucial point here is that skepticism about the external world henceforth, just. Skepticism is not the view that there is no external world. The claim is that even if there is such a world we do not know anything about it not even that it exists. The external world we will take to be the totality of physical things, our bodies included, that strike us as being out there, beyond our minds. Examples of external things: your body, my body, cats, dogs, cars, the planet earth, the milky way galaxy.
