A Note on the Cover Art
Heather Salazar was kind enough to create the cover art for the Introduction to Philosophy series. Her wonderful piece for this book, titled Here Is a Hand, was inspired by G. E. Moore’s famous “Proof of an External World” from his 1939 essay by that title. Moore’s “proof” is featured in Chapter 4 of this volume. The cover design for this book and others in the series is by Jonathan Lashley.
Moore’s Hands
I can prove now, for instance, that two human hands exist. How? By holding up my two hands, and saying, as I make a certain gesture with the right hand, “Here is one hand,” and adding, as I make a certain gesture with the left, “and here is another.” And if, by doing this, I have proved ipso facto the existence of external things, you will all see that I can also do it now in numbers of other ways: there is no need to multiply examples.
—G. E. Moore
“Proof of an External World”
In Philosophical Papers (New York: Collier Books, 1962): 144–8.