external world

English

Noun

external world (plural external worlds)

1. (philosophy) The world consisting of all the objects and events which are experienceable or whose existence is accepted by the human mind, but which exist independently of the mind.
   • 1882, Josiah Royce, "Mind and Reality," Mind, vol. 7, no. 25, p. 30:

     Human beings are able to form ideas that correspond in some way with a real world, outside of themselves. . . . [T]o each necessary relation a:b in human consciousness, there corresponds a relation A:B in the external world.

   • 1954, Daniel Cory, "God or the External World," The Journal of Philosophy, vol. 51, no. 2, p. 61:

     Is not a vast "background" of experience what we all really mean by an external world, or God, according to the mood we are in?

   • 2003, Ram Neta, "Contextualism and the Problem of the External World," Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, vol. 66, no. 1, p. 1:

     Skeptics . . . claim that our evidence can't support our beliefs about the external world.

Derived terms

• problem of the external world

See also

• noumenon
• phenomenal world
• real world