Mind, Matter, and Meaning

G. E. Moore

G. E. Moore (1873–1958) wrote on perception, knowledge, philosophical analysis, and ethics. His rejection of idealist arguments, distinction between awareness and its object, and defense of ordinary knowledge helped shape early analytic philosophy. These contributions do not constitute a single settled theory of perception: Moore continued to investigate sense-data and the relation between what is immediately experienced and physical objects.

Major Works

  • “The Refutation of Idealism” (1903) — awareness, its objects, and an argument associated with esse est percipi.
  • Principia Ethica (1903) — goodness, ethical analysis, and the open question argument.
  • “The Status of Sense-Data” (1913–1914) — the relation between perceptual objects and physical things.
  • “A Defence of Common Sense” (1925) — ordinary knowledge and philosophical accounts of it.
  • “Proof of an External World” (1939) — a proof from the existence of hands to the existence of external objects.

Awareness and Its Object

“The Refutation of Idealism” examines the claim that being is being perceived. Moore argues that a sensation of blue includes two distinguishable elements: blue, the object of awareness, and awareness itself. Sensations of blue and green differ in their objects while sharing the element of consciousness. Identifying blue with the sensation of blue confuses the object with the awareness of it.

The argument attacks a particular route to idealism, not every possible idealist metaphysics. Distinguishing an object from awareness does not alone prove that the object can exist independently of every mind. Moore’s title should therefore not be read as announcing a proof of all the claims ordinarily associated with realism.

Diaphanous Experience

Moore observes that, in trying to introspect a sensation of blue, attention tends to fall on blue rather than on awareness. Awareness appears “diaphanous.” Importantly, he also says that awareness can be distinguished if one looks attentively enough. His point supports an act–object distinction; it is not an unqualified claim that the mental act is impossible to attend to.

Later discussions of transparency draw on this passage. Representationalists argue that attending to experience reveals represented properties rather than additional intrinsic qualities of experience. Other theories explain the same observation differently, and Moore did not himself develop the later claim that phenomenal character is identical with representational content.

His subsequent engagement with sense-data complicates any portrayal of him as a straightforward contemporary direct realist. The question whether the immediately perceived color or shape belongs to an ordinary physical object remained a problem for his analysis.

Goodness and the Open Question Argument

In Principia Ethica, Moore argues that goodness is simple and cannot be defined by identifying it with pleasure, desire, or another proposed property. Whatever definition is offered, it still seems meaningful to ask whether something possessing that property is good. Asking whether pleasure is good does not appear equivalent to asking whether pleasure is pleasure.

Moore calls attempts to define goodness in this way instances of the naturalistic fallacy, though his objection also concerns proposed metaphysical definitions, not just definitions using natural science. The term should not be conflated with the distinct problem of deriving an “ought” from an “is.” His own account treats goodness as a non-natural property, while ethical judgment also requires inquiry into which things possess it.

A central objection distinguishes conceptual equivalence from property identity. A question can remain informative when two expressions refer to the same property, just as an empirical identity may be discovered without being obvious from the meanings of its terms. Ethical naturalists therefore deny that an open question alone rules out every naturalistic account. Moore’s defenders reply that the persistent normative character of the question calls for explanation; the argument’s force depends on what sort of reduction is proposed.

Common Sense and the External World

Moore’s 1939 proof begins with “Here is one hand” and “Here is another.” If these are known premises, external objects exist. He distinguishes having a proof from being able to prove every premise of that proof, and does not claim to have independently eliminated every skeptical possibility.

Critics argue that the proof cannot persuade someone whose doubt concerns precisely whether the premises are known. Responses distinguish proving that external objects exist from supplying a non-question-begging answer to skepticism. Moore’s broader approach gives ordinary knowledge greater initial credibility than philosophical premises that would undermine it; whether that priority amounts to a satisfactory epistemology remains debated.

Further Reading

  • Moore, G. E. “The Refutation of Idealism.” Mind 12, no. 48 (1903): 433–453.
  • Moore, G. E. Principia Ethica. Cambridge University Press, 1903.
  • Moore, G. E. “A Defence of Common Sense.” In Contemporary British Philosophy, second series, edited by J. H. Muirhead, 1925.
  • Moore, G. E. “Proof of an External World.” Proceedings of the British Academy 25 (1939): 273–300.
  • Transparency — the later debate prompted by diaphanous awareness.
  • Indirect Realism and Sense-Data — Moore’s continuing perceptual investigations.
  • Intentionalism — a later interpretation of experiential transparency.
  • Russell — early analytic philosophy and theories of acquaintance.
  • Harman — a later formulation of the transparency argument.