common sense

[Carl Remick]

> So, strictly speaking, our belief 
> in the existence of
> an external world is false yet a necessary belief for us to 
> get on in the
> world.

As Dr.  Johnson memorably demonstrated when Boswell commented that,
though Berkeley's theory of the non-existence of matter was clearly not
true, it could not be refuted.  "I refute it *thus,*" said Dr. J.,
kicking "a large stone, till he rebounded from it."

Carl Remick