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I.
Questions about the nature of the physical world are among some of the oldest and most prominent in philosophy. Such problems challenge our most basic beliefs about the structure of the world and force us to reconsider everything we think we know. How do we know that we are not dreaming, or in The Matrix? For that matter, how do we know there is a material world at all, and that we are not simply immaterial minds whose ideas create our perceptions? In this essay I will address skeptical questions such as these by comparing a simple skeptical argument with G. E. Moore’s famous counterargument. I will attempt to demonstrate that the skeptical argument is in fact the more reasonable by considering several flaws in Moore’s reasoning.
II.
Before looking at Moore’s argument, we must first consider the skeptical argument to which he is responding. Though there are numerous ways in which to present this argument, we will consider a simple version for example purposes.......

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