Abstract
We saw earlier how Moore, in his ‘Defence of Common Sense’, expressed himself as completely certain that those propositions that he calls the truisms of common sense are true. From among the classes of truisms in question propositions maintaining the existence of material objects are the most important for present purposes and so I will concentrate upon those. But while expressing himself as absolutely certain that propositions about the real existence of the Earth, human beings, and material bodies of various sorts are true, we saw also how Moore allows that he is “very sceptical as to what, in certain respects, the correct analysis of such propositions is”.1 This has to be seen as a major reservation in Moore’s philosophy, because of his conviction that “the whole question as to the nature of material things obviously depends upon their analysis”.2
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Notes
Moore, ‘Defence of Common Sense’, p. 53.
Ibid. In this sentence the word ‘their’ refers to propositions in the previously quoted sentence. However, it is not only the nature of material objects that depends upon analysis. According to Moore, it is upon analysis too that questions about the nature of mind depend. See ‘The Status of Sense-Data’ (1914), Philosophical Studies, pp. 174–175.
See Some Main Problems of Philosophy, p. 277.
Ibid., pp. 265–269.
Moore, ‘Defence of Common Sense’, p. 53.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 54. This description of sense-data as the ultimate subjects of perceptual propositions was first offered by Moore in 1918 in his paper, ‘Some Judgments of Perception’, Philosophical Studies, pp. 232, 236.
See The Nature of Judgment’, p. 181, Principia Ethica, p. 41 and ‘Identity’, PAS I (1900), throughout. For an interpretation of Moore which casts his references to particulars in a nominalistic light see, Herbert Hochberg, ‘Moore’s Ontology and Non-natural Properties’, The Review of Metaphysics XV (1962), pp. 365–395 and Donald Brownstein’s Aspects of the Problem of Universals (University of Kansas, Lawrence, 1973), Chapter V. For criticism of Hochberg’s reading of Moore, see John O. Nelson’s ‘Mr Hochberg on Moore: Some Corrections’, The Review of Metaphysics XVI (1962), pp. 119–32.
Moore, Some Main Problems of Philosophy, p. 32.
See Lectures on Philosophy, pp. 53–57.
‘Addendum’ to ‘Reply’, Philosophy of G. E. Moore, p. 683. In this Addendum Moore expressly repudiates use of an expression which previously (since 1905 in fact) he had used to describe the mode of our access to sense-data. The expression in question is ‘direct apprehension’. In adopting ‘direct perception’ as his technical verb of perception in the context of sense-datum theory, Moore extracts his position from the kinds of difficulties stemming from the fact that in Some Main Problems of Philosophy, p. 56 and throughout, he writes of the direct apprehension, not just of sense-data, but of propositions too. In light of that extension in 1910 of ‘direct apprehension’ to cover relations between people and propositions, it is surprising that in his ‘The Status of Sense-data’ (1914) Moore should refer to the phrase ‘direct apprehension’ as his technical term for perception of sense-data. Obviously he had forgotten the liberty of 1910.
‘Some Judgments of Perception’, pp. 236–237. Also, see ‘Defence of Common Sense’, p. 54.
‘Some Judgments of Perception’, p. 230. See notes 13 and 15 above.
Moore, Lectures on Philosophy, p. 58 and following.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 59. Of course we might say this of a similar (but not self-identical) event. Moore, like Broad and Russell, does not consider the possibility that events might be universals and might recur.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 62.
Ibid., p. 63.
Moore, Lectures on Philosophy, p. 69.
G. E. Moore, ‘Visual Sense-Data’, British Philosophy in the Mid-Century, ed. by C. A. Mace (Allen and Unwin, London, 1966), p. 211.
See ‘Defence of Common Sense’, p. 56 and ‘Reply’, p. 681.
In this connection see R. B. Braithwaite, ‘George Edward Moore 1873–1958’, G. E. Moore: Essays in Retrospect, ed. by A. Ambrose and N. Lazerowitz (Allen and Unwin, London, 1970), p. 23.
See Bertrand Russell’s Our Knowledge of an External World (Allen and Unwin, London, 1926).
Moore, ‘The Status of Sense-Data’ (1914), pp. 190–191 and ‘Defence of Common Sense’(1925), p. 58.
See Lectures on Philosophy, p. 89. In one part of the relevant passage Moore’s text is garbled and unclear, but the main drift of his point is clear enough.
‘The Status of Sense-Data’, pp. 189, 190;’Defence of Common Sense’, p. 58. Indeed it is doubtful that a thorough phenomenalist analysis could ever be formulated without circularity. See Don Locke’s Perception and our Knowledge of the External World (Allen and Unwin, London, 1972), pp. 59–60. Also, pp. 60–66 for further and equally damaging criticisms of phenomenalism.
For instance, see B. Russell, The Problems of Philosophy, (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1968), p. 26.
Ibid.
Moore, Lectures on Philosophy, pp. 93, 101. This point depends on Moore’s distinction between the sensing and its ‘object’ in every experience.
Ibid., p. 101.
Ibid. Moore is here opposing a view of Broad’s.
Ibid.
Ibid., p. 102; also, ‘Defence of Common Sense,’ p. 57.
Moore, Lectures on Philosophy, pp. 88–89.
J. L. Austin, Sense & Sensibilia, (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1964), p. 98.
On this distinction see G. Ryle, The Concept of Mind (Penguin Books, Middlesex, 1973), pp. 200–222 and A. R. White, G. E. Moore, pp. 170–190.
Not only is this a position of Moore’s but also of a sense-datum theorist like Ayer who renounces Moore’s formulation of sense-datum theory. See Ayer’s ‘Has Austin Refuted the Sense-Datum Theory?’ Metaphysics and Common Sense (Freeman, Cooper and Co., San Francisco, 1969), pp. 141–145.
I have given fuller consideration elsewhere to some of the main points discussed in this section. See D. O’Connor, ‘Identification and Description in Ayer’s Sense-Datum Theory’, The Modern Schoolman LVII, No. 3, 1980, pp. 213–243.
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O’Connor, D. (1982). Sense-Data and Things in the Material World. 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_5
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