G.E. Moore

Selected Writings

G.E. Moore, Thomas Baldwin, Thomas Baldwin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781134681730
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

G.E. Moore, more than either Bertrand Russell or Ludwig Wittgenstein, was chiefly responsible for the rise of the analytic method in twentieth-century philosophy. This selection of his writings shows Moore at his very best.
The classic essays are crucial to major philosophical debates that still resonate today. Amongst those included are:
* A Defense of Common Sense
* Certainty
* Sense-Data
* External and Internal Relations
* Hume's Theory Explained
* Is Existence a Predicate?
* Proof of an External World
In addition, this collection also contains the key early papers in which Moore signals his break with idealism, and three important previously unpublished papers from his later work which illustrate his relationship with Wittgenstein.

1

THE NATURE OF JUDGMENT

‘Truth and falsehood’, says Mr Bradley¹ ‘depend on the relation of our ideas to reality’. And he immediately goes on to explain that, in this statement, ‘ideas’ must not be understood to mean mere ‘states of my mind’. The ideas, he says, on the relation of which to reality truth depends, are ‘mere ideas, signs of an existence other than themselves’, and this aspect of them must not be confused either with their existence in my mind or with their particular character as so existent, which may be called their content. ‘For logic, at least’, he says, ‘all ideas are signs’ (p.5); and ‘A sign is any fact that has a meaning’, while ‘meaning consists of a part of the content (original or acquired) cut off, fixed by the mind, and considered apart from the existence of the sign’ (p.4).

But Mr Bradley himself does not remain true to this conception of the logical idea as the idea of something. As such, indeed, it is only the psychological idea, related, indeed, to that which it signifies, but only related to it. Hence he finds it necessary, later, to use ‘idea’, not of the symbol, but of the symbolised. Ideas, as meanings, not as ‘facts, which have a meaning’, ‘are’, he says (p.8), ‘the ideas we spoke of, when we said “Without ideas no judgment’”. And he proceeds to show that ‘in predication we do not use the mental fact, but only the meaning’; although, where he did say ‘Without ideas no judgment’, his words were ‘we cannot judge until we use ideas as ideas. We must have become aware that they are not realities, that they are mere ideas, signs of an existence other than themselves’. It would seem plain, then, that there his doctrine was that we do, in predication, use the mental fact, though only as a sign; whereas here his doctrine is that we do not use the mental fact, even as a sign, but only that which it signifies. This important transition he slurs over with the phrase: ‘But it is better to say the idea is the meaning’. The question is surely not of which is ‘better to say’, but which is true.

Now to Mr Bradley’s argument that ‘the idea in judgment is the universal meaning’ I have nothing to add. It appears to me conclusive, as against those, of whom there have been too many, who have treated the idea as a mental state. But he seems to me to be infected by the same error as theirs, alike in his preliminary failure to distinguish clearly whether it is the symbol or the symbolised of which he is speaking, and in his final description of the ‘idea, as meaning’, when he has definitely decided in its favour. ‘A meaning’, he says, as we saw above, ‘consists of a part of the content (original or acquired) cut off, fixed by the mind, and considered apart from the existence of the sign’. And again, ‘an idea, if we use idea of the meaning, is neither given nor presented, but is taken’ (p.8). If indeed ‘the universal meaning’ were thus simply a part of the content of our own ideas, as mental states, and that, too, a part ‘cut off by our own minds, it would be intelligible that ‘truth and falsehood’ should still be said to ‘depend on the relation of our ideas to reality’. It will be our endeavour to show, on the contrary, that the ‘idea used in judgment’ is not a part of the content of our ideas, nor produced by any action of our minds, and that hence truth and falsehood are not dependent on the relation of our ideas to reality.

I shall in future use the term ‘concept’ for what Mr Bradley calls a ‘universal meaning’; since the term ‘idea’ is plainly full of ambiguities, whereas ‘concept’ and its German equivalent ‘Begriff’ have been more nearly appropriated to the use in question. There is, indeed, a great similarity between Kant’s description of his ‘Begriff, and Mr Bradley’s of his ‘logical idea’. For Kant, too, it is the ‘analytical unity of consciousness’ which makes a ‘Vorstellung’ or ‘idea’ into a ‘conceptus communis’ or ‘gemeinsamer Begriff’ [B133n].²

It is our object to protest against this description of a concept as an ‘abstraction’ from ideas.

Mr Bradley’s doctrine, as above sketched, presupposes that, when I have an idea (Vorstellung) of something, that something is itself part of the content of my idea. This doctrine, for the present, I am ready to admit; my question now is whether, when I have an idea of something, that something must not also be regarded as something other than part of the content of my idea. The content of an idea is, Mr Bradley tells us, what the idea is; it is ‘a character which is different or distinguishable from that of other’ ideas, treated as mental facts. Now, before I can judge at all on Mr Bradley’s theory, a part of this character must have been ‘cut off and fixed by the mind’. But my question is, whether we can thus cut off a part of the character of our ideas, and attribute that part to something else, unless we already know, in part at least, what is the character of the idea from which we are to cut off the part in question. If not, then we have already made a judgment with regard to the character of our idea. But this judgment, again, requires, on Mr Bradley’s theory, that I should have had an idea of my idea, and should have already cut off a part of the content of that secondary idea, in order that I may make a judgment with regard to the character of the primary idea that is in question. And similarly it is quite impossible that I should know what the content of my secondary idea is, until I have made it in its turn the object of a third idea, by taking part of this tertiary content. And so on ad infinitum. The theory would therefore seem to demand the completion of an infinite number of psychological judgments before any judgment can be made at all. But such a completion is impossible; and therefore all judgment is likewise impossible. It follows, therefore, if we are to avoid this absurdity, that the ‘idea used in judgment’ must be something other than a part of the content of any idea of mine. Mr Bradley’s theory presupposes that I may have two ideas, that have a part of their content in common; but he would at the same time compel us to describe this common part of content as part of the content of some third idea. But what is gained by such a description? If the part of content of this third idea is a part only in the same sense, as the common part of the other two is a part of each, then I am offering an explanation which presupposes that which was to be explained. Whereas if the part, which is used in explanation, is a part in the only sense which will make my explanation significant, i.e., an existent part, then it is difficult to see how that which belongs to one idea can also come to belong to other ideas and yet remain one and the same. In short, the idea used in judgment is indeed a ‘universal meaning’; but it cannot, for that very reason, be described as part of the content of any psychological idea whatever.

These difficulties, which are of the same nature as the famous τρίτος ἄνθρωπος urged against the hypostasisedx Platonic ideas,³ inevitably proceed from trying to explain the concept in terms of some existent fact, whether mental or of any other nature. All such explanations do in fact presuppose the nature of the concept, as a genus per se, irreducible to anything else. The concept is not a mental fact, nor any part of a mental fact. Identity of content is presupposed in any reasoning; and to explain the identity of content between two facts by supposing that content to be a part of the content of some third fact, must involve a vicious circle. For in order that the content of the third fact may perform this office, it must already be supposed like the contents of the other two, i.e., having something in common with them, and this community of content is exactly what it was proposed to explain.

When, therefore, I say “This rose is red’, I am not attributing part of the content of my idea to the rose, nor yet attributing parts of the content of my ideas of rose and red together to some third subject. What I am asserting is a specific connexion of certain concepts forming the total concept ‘rose’ with the concepts ‘this’ and ‘now’ and ‘red’; and the judgment is true if such a connexion is existent. Similarly when I say “The chimera has three heads’, the chimera is not an idea in my mind, nor any part of such idea. What I mean to assert is nothing about my mental states, but a specific connexion of concepts. If the judgment is false, that is not because my ideas do not correspond to reality, but because such a conjunction of concepts is not to be found among existents.

With this, then, we have approached the nature of a proposition or judgment. A proposition is composed not of words, nor yet of thoughts, but of concepts. Concepts are possible objects of thought; but that is no definition of them. It merely states that they may come into relation with a thinker; and in order that they may do anything, they must already be something. It is indifferent to their nature whether anybody thinks them or not. They are incapable of change; and the relation into which they enter with the knowing subject implies no action or reaction. It is a unique relation which can begin or cease with a change in the subject; but the concept is neither cause nor effect of such a change. The occurrence of the relation has, no doubt, its causes and effects, but these are to be found only in the subject.

It is of such entities as these that a proposition is composed. In it certain concepts stand in specific relations with one another. And our question now is, wherein a proposition differs from a concept, that it may be either true or false.

It is at first sight tempting to say that the truth of a proposition depends on its relation to reality; that any proposition is true which consists of a combination of concepts that is actually to be found among existents. This explanation was indeed actually used above (p.4), as a preliminary explanation. And it may be admitted that propositions with which this is the case are true. But if this constituted the truth of a proposition, concepts too might in themselves be true. Red would be a true concept, because there actually are red things; and conversely a chimera would be a false concept, because no such combination either has been, is, or will be (so far as we know) among existent things. But the theory must be rejected as an ultimate one, because not all true propositions have this relation to reality. For example, 2 + 2 = 4 is true, whether there exist two things or not. Moreover it may be doubted here whether even the concepts of which the proposition consists, can ever be said to exist. We should have to stretch our notion of existence beyond intelligibility, to suppose that 2 ever has been, is, or will be an existent.

It would seem, in fact, from this example, that a proposition is nothing other than a complex concept. The difference between a concept and a proposition, in virtue of which the latter alone can be called true or false, would seem to lie merely in the simplicity of the former. A proposition is a synthesis of concepts; and, just as concepts are themselves immutably what they are, so they stand in infinite relations to one another equally immutable. A proposition is constituted by any number of concepts, together with a specific relation between them; and according to the nature of this relation the proposition may be either true or false. What kind of relation makes a proposition true, what false, cannot be further defined, but must be immediately recognised.

And this description will also apply to those cases where there appears to be a reference to existence. Existence is itself a concept; it is something which we mean; and the great body of propositions, in which existence is joined to other concepts or syntheses of concepts, are simply true or false according to the relation in which it stands to them. It is not denied that this is a peculiarly important concept; that we are peculiarly anxious to know what exists. It is only maintained that existence is logically subordinate to truth; that truth cannot be defined by a reference to existence, but existence only by a reference to truth. When I say ‘This paper exists’, I must require that this proposition be true. If it is not true, it is unimportant, and I can have no interest in it. But if it is true, it means only that the concepts, which are combined in specific relations in the concept of this paper, are also combined in a specific manner with the concept of existence. That specific manner is something immediately known, like red or two. It is highly important, because we set such value upon it; but it is itself a concept. All that exists is thus composed of concepts necessarily related to one another in specific manners, and likewise to the concept of existence.

I am fully aware how paradoxical this theory must appear, and even how contemptible. But it seems to me to follow from premisses generally admitted, and to have been avoided only by lack of logical consistency. I assume Mr Bradley’s proof that the concept is necessary to truth and falsehood. I endeavour to show, what I must own appears to me perfectly obvious, that the concept can consistently be described neither as an existent, nor as part of an existent, since it is presupposed in the conception of an existent. It is similarly impossible that truth should depend on a relation to existents or to an existent, since the proposition by which it is so defined must itself be true, and the truth of this can certainly not be established, without a vicious circle, by exhibiting its dependence on an existent. Truth, however, would certainly seem to involve at least two terms, and some relation between them; falsehood involves the same; and hence it would seem to remain, that we regard truth and falsehood as properties of certain concepts, together with their relations – a whole to which we give the name of proposition.

I have appealed throughout to the rules of logic; nor, if any one rejects these, should I have much to fear from his arguments. An appeal to the facts is useless. For, in order that a fact may be made the basis of an argument, it must first be put in the form of a proposition, and, moreover, this proposition must be supposed true; and then there must recur the dilemma, whether rules of logic are to be accepted or rejected. And these rules once accepted, would seem themselves to offer a confirmation of our theory. For all true inference must be inference from a true proposition; and that the conclusion follows from the premiss must again be a true proposition: so that here also it would appear that the nature of a true proposition is the ultimate datum. Nor is an appeal to the ‘matter’ of the proposition more useful than the former appeal to the facts. It may be true that this matter is given in sensation, or in any other conceivable way. We are not concerned with its origin, but with its nature; and its nature, if it is to enter into a true proposition, must, we agree with Mr Bradley, be the nature of a concept and no other: and then the old conclusions follow. Nor, finally, is a vicious circle involved in our own attempt to establish conclusions with regard to truth, by rules of logic in which that conception is presupposed. For our conclusion is that truth is itself a simple concept; that it is logically prior to any proposition. But a vicious circle occurs only where a proposition is taken as prior to a concept, or a more complex proposition (one involving more concepts) as prior to one which is more simple. Valid logical processes would seem to be of two kinds. It is possible to start from a complex proposition and to consider what propositions are involved in it. In this case the latter must always be more simple than the former; and they may be true, although the former is false. Or it is possible to start from a more simple proposition and to deduce one that is more complex, by successive additions of concepts; which is the properly deductive procedure exhibited in the propositions of Euclid: and in this case the premiss must be true, if the conclusion is so. It may be well to state that both procedures are synthetic, in the sense that the results arrived at are different from the premisses, and merely related to them. In a vicious circle, on the other hand, the two procedures are confused. A result arrived at by the former of the two processes just described, is regarded as involving the truth of its premiss. Thus, when we say that the conceptual nature of truth is involved in logical procedure, no vicious circle is committed, since we do not thereby presuppose the truth of logical procedure. But when an existent is said to be involved in truth, a vicious circle is committed, since the proposition ‘Something is true’, in which ‘Something exists’ is supposed to be involved, must itself be true, if the latter is to be so.

It seems necessary, then, to regard the world as formed of concepts. These are the only objects of knowledge. They cannot be regarded fundamentally as abstractions either from things or from ideas; since both alike can, if anything is to be true of them, be composed of nothing but concepts. A thing becomes intelligible first when it is analysed into its constituent concepts. The material diversity of things, which is generally taken as starting-point, is only derived; and the identity of the concept, in several different things, which appears on that assumption as the problem of philosophy, will now, if it instead be taken as the starting-point, render the derivation easy. Two things are then seen to be differentiated by the different relations in which their common concepts stand to other concepts. The opposition of concepts to existents disappears, since an existent is seen to be nothing but a concept or complex of concepts standing in a unique relation to the concept of existence. Even the description of an existent as a proposition (a true existential proposition) seems to lose its strangeness, when it is remembered that a proposition is here to be understood, not as anything subjective – an assertion or affirmation of something – but as the combination of concepts which is affirmed. For we are familiar with the idea of affirming or ‘positing’ an existent, of knowing objects as well as propositions; and the difficulty hitherto has been to discover wherein the two processes were akin. It now appears that perception is to be regarded philosophically as the cognition of an existential proposition; and it is thus apparent how it can furnish a basis for inference, which uniformly exhibits the connexion between propositions. Conversely light is thrown on the nature of inference. For, whereas it could not be maintained that the conclusion was only connected with the premisses in my thoughts, and that an inference was nothing, if nobody was making it, great difficulty was felt as to the kind of objectivity that belonged to the terms and their relation, since existence was taken as the type of objectivity. This difficulty is removed, when it is acknowledged that the relation of premisses to conclusion is an objective relation, in the same sense as the relation of existence to what exists is objective. It is no longer necessary to hold that logical connexions must, in some obscure sense, exist, since to exist is merely to stand in a certain logical connexion.

It will be apparent how much this theory has in common with Kant’s theory of perception. It differs chiefly in substituting for sensations, as the data of knowledge, concepts; and in refusing to regard the relations in which they stand as, in some obscure sense, the work of the mind. It rejects the attempt to explain ‘the possibility of knowledge’, accepting the cognitive relation as an ultimate datum or presupposition; since it maintains the objections which Kant himself urged against an explanation by causality, and recognises no other kind of explanation than that by way of logical connexion with other concepts. It thus renounces the supposed unity of conception guaranteed by Idealism even in the Kantian form, and still more the boasted reduction of all differences to the harmony of ‘Absolute Spirit’, which marks the Hegelian development. But it is important to point out that it retains the doctrine of Transcendentalism. For Kant’...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Introduction
• 1 The Nature of Judgment
• 2 Truth and Falsity
• 3 The Refutation of Idealism
• 4 Sense-Data
• 5 Hume’s Theory Examined
• 6 External and Internal Relations
• 7 A Defence of Common Sense
• 8 Is Existence a Predicate?
• 9 Proof of an External World
• 10 Certainty
• 11 Being Certain that One is in Pain
• 12 Moore’s Paradox
• 13 Letter to Malcolm
• Bibliography
• Index