G. E. Moore

G. E. Moore. George Edward Moore was a preeminent English philosopher, a central founder of the analytic tradition in the 20th century. He is best known for his decisive contributions to ethics, his robust defense of common sense realism, and his profound influence on contemporaries like Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Moore served as a professor at the University of Cambridge and was a pivotal figure in the shift away from British idealism.

Life and career

Born in Upper Norwood, he was educated at Dulwich College before winning a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge in 1892. At Cambridge University, he initially studied Classics but was drawn to philosophy through the Cambridge Apostles, a secret society that included John McTaggart and Bertrand Russell. After a fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge, he left academia briefly before returning as a lecturer and, in 1925, succeeding James Ward as Professor of Mental Philosophy and Logic. He edited the journal *Mind* for decades, shaping the discipline, and was a member of the Bloomsbury Group, influencing figures like John Maynard Keynes.

Philosophical work

Moore's early work, including his 1903 article "The Refutation of Idealism" and his book *Principia Ethica*, mounted a powerful attack on the then-dominant British idealism of F. H. Bradley and J. M. E. McTaggart. He championed a common sense view of the world, famously arguing in "A Defence of Common Sense" that propositions like "Here is one hand" are undeniably true. His meticulous, clear method of conceptual analysis, focusing on the precise meaning of statements, became a hallmark of analytic philosophy. He also identified the puzzling logical contradiction in asserting "It is raining but I do not believe it", later termed Moore's paradox.

Ethics and the naturalistic fallacy

In his seminal work *Principia Ethica*, Moore argued that good is a simple, non-natural, indefinable property, analogous to the color yellow. He contended that any attempt to define good in terms of natural properties like pleasure or evolutionary fitness commits the naturalistic fallacy, a central error in moral philosophy. His open-question argument demonstrated that for any proposed definition (e.g., "good means pleasurable"), it remains a significant, open question whether that thing is itself good. He held that the most valuable things in life are complex organic unities, such as the appreciation of beauty and the enjoyment of friendship.

Influence and legacy

Moore's impact was immense and multifaceted, directly shaping the course of British philosophy in the 20th century. His emphasis on clarity and analysis provided a model for Bertrand Russell and the early Ludwig Wittgenstein, and later for the ordinary language philosophy of J. L. Austin. His ethical work influenced the non-cognitivism of A. J. Ayer and the prescriptivism of R. M. Hare, while his defense of common sense resonated with later Reidian philosophers. His ideas permeated the Bloomsbury Group, affecting the aesthetics and ethics of Virginia Woolf and E. M. Forster.

Major publications

Moore's key works include his ethical masterpiece, *Principia Ethica* (1903), and the collection *Philosophical Studies* (1922). His later, more developed epistemological and metaphysical views are presented in *Some Main Problems of Philosophy* (1953) and the posthumously published *Commonplace Book*. Many of his influential essays, such as "The Refutation of Idealism" and "A Defence of Common Sense", are found in the volume *Philosophical Papers* (1959).

Category:20th-century English philosophers Category:Analytic philosophers Category:Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge Category:Ethicists