Abstract
In the ‘Autobiography’ that he contributed to the Schilpp volume of 1942 Moore remarks that upon first hearing MacTaggart propose and then argue for the thesis that time is unreal he surely was astonished and quick to oppose it, even if inexpertly.1 The implication is that anti-idealism was a position maintained consistently by Moore from the very beginning of his career. But that implication is misleading.
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Notes
P. A. Schupp, The Philosophy of G. E. Moore, (Open Court, La Salle, Illinois, 1968), pp. 13–14.
G. E. Moore, ‘The Refutation of Idealism’, Philosophical Studies (Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., London, 1922), p. 5.
John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. by P. H. Niddich (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1979) Book I, Chapter I, p. 43.
J. Locke, Any Essay Concerning Human Understanding, ed. by Fraser, Vol. I (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1894), p. 27, fn. 2.
F. H. Bradley, The Principles of Logic, Vol. I (Oxford University Press, London, 1922), pp. 4–8.
Moore, Some Main Problems of Philosophy, p. 124.
G. Frege, Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik, (Breslau, 1884, English translation by J. L. Austin (Northwestern University Press, Evanston, 1968), p. VI.
‘Autobiography’, Philosophy of G. E. Moore, pp. 20–23. On the influence of Kant on Moore see Gilbert Ryle’s, ‘G. E. Moore’s “The Nature of Judgment”’. G. E. Moore: Essays in Retrospect, ed. by A. Ambrose and M. Lazerowitz (Allen and Unwin, London, 1970), pp. 90–98.
‘Concept’ is Moore’s term, and it is not similarly used by Bradley, See G. E. Moore, The Nature of Judgment’, Mind VIII (1899), p. 177; also Chapter VI, Section 1).
Moore, ‘Nature of Judgment’, pp. 181–182.
Ibid., p. 177.
Bradley, Principles of Logic, p. 4.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 11.
Ibid. p. 12.
Moore, ‘Refutation of Idealism’, p. 17.
Ibid. pp. 18–19.
Moore, ‘The Nature of Judgment’, p. 179.
Moore, ‘Refutation of Idealism’, p. 16.
A. J. Ayer, Russell and Moore: The Analytical Heritage, (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1971), p. 148.
Moore, ‘Refutation of Idealism’, p. 25.
William James, ‘Does Consciousness Exist?’ Essays in Radical Empiricism (Longmans Green and Co., New York, 1912), pp. 7–8.
In his contention, before 1905, that pains, being objects of consciousness can exist outside of and independently of consciousness Moore is not thinking at all of the kind of position that Michael Scriven argues for in regard to what he terms ‘subliminal pains’. (See Scriven, Primary Philosophy, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1966, p. 185). This point about whether or not pains could possibly exist unfelt raises another problem which will be discussed in Chapter V, namely, whether the adherence or non-adherence to the esse est percipi formula for sense-data is a matter to be decided empirically through observation or through stipulating the meaning of ‘sense-datum’. Moore favored the first option for most of his career. This preference of his reflects the ‘old fashioned’ or traditional view which Professor Ayer opposes so vehemently in his The Foundations of Empirical knowledge and since. According to Ayer the question of the perceptual independence or non-independence of sense-data is a question, not of empirical fact, but of philosophical policy.
Schilpp, Philosophy of Moore, p. 653.
Moore, ‘Refutation of Idealism’, p. 24. Moore’s dealings with the suggestion that his so-called objects of consciousness might be represented instead as contents of consciousness, and hence that their mind-dependence might follow therefrom, are considerably more complicated than I have portrayed them here. This is not because there is anything more of substance to Moore’s arguments than I have discussed but because his discussion is troubled by confusion over the meaning of the word ‘content’. Scriven, Primary Philosophy, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1966, Ibid., p. 21 especially, but also elsewhere in his paper.
See ‘The Nature of Judgment’, p. 178.
G. Berkeley, The Principles of Human Knowledge, The Works of George Berkeley, ed. by A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop, (Nelson, London, 1967) Part I, Section 67, p. 71).
G. Berkeley, The Principles of Human Knowledge, The Works of George Berkeley, ed. by A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop, (Nelson, London, 1967) Ibid., Section 96, p. 82.
G. Berkeley, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philanous, The Works of George Berkeley, First Dialogue, p. 172.
Ibid., Third Dialogue, p. 261.
Moore, Some Main Problems of Philosophy, p. 21; ‘Defence of Common Sense’, pp. 38–39. While this is indeed the common reading of Berkeley, it is not universal. For instance, A. J. Ayer and W. H. Walsh offer alternative, and roughly similar, interpretations. See, Russell and Moore. The Analytical Heritage (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1971) pp. 181–183 and Metaphysics (Hutchinson University Library, London, 1966) pp. 116–117 respectively. For opposition to the kind of interpretation offered by Ayer and Walsh see J. Bennett, Locke, Berkeley, Hume: Central Themes (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1972), pp. 138–139.
Moore, ‘Defence of Common Sense’, p. 42.
Ibid., p. 45. See also p. 51.
Moore, ‘External and Internal Relations’, Philosophical Studies (1970), pp. 298, 301.
Moore, PAS, p. 40.
Ibid., p. 41.
In substance this is Moore’s point of ‘External and Internal Relations’, p. 46. I have chosen, however, to use C. Lewy’s expression of the point (See C. Lewy, Meaning and Modality [Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1976], p. 38. See also G. E. Moore’s note Internal Properties and Contradiction’, The Commonplace Book, ed. by C. Lewy [George Allen & Unwin Ltd., London, 1962], p. 276.)
Moore, ‘External and Internal Relations’, PAS, pp. 47–48.
Ibid., p.47.
Lewy, Meaning and Modality, pp. 37–44.
Ibid.
Moore, ‘Sense-Data, Events and Change’, Lectures on Philosophy, ed. by C. Lewy, (Allen and Unwin, London, 1966), p. 61.
Ibid., p. 62.
Moore, ‘External and Internal Relations’, PAS, p. 51.
Ibid.
Moore, ‘The Nature of Judgment’, p. 178.
Moore, ‘Internal Relations’, Commonplace Book, pp. 344–345.
Lectures on Philosophy, pp. 61–64.
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© 1982 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
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O’Connor, D. (1982). Arguments Against Idealism. In: The Metaphysics of G. E. Moore. Philosophical Studies Series in Philosophy, vol 25. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-7749-5_2
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