The Metaphysics of G. E. Moore (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 12 5 David O'Connor. The Metaphysics of G. E. Moore. Philosophical Studies Series in Philosophy , vol. 25- Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Co., 198~. Pp. x + 18o. Dfl. 8o.oo/U.S. $34-95 (cloth). O'Connor sets himself the task in this volume of showing that if metaphysics is conceived of modestly as a non-speculative but nonetheless systematic study of what there is, Moore was a metaphysician. While he admits that Moore did not have a metaphysical "master plan," he thinks that a consistent metaphysics in Moore's writing can be found if one looks hard enough. The metaphysics of common sense realism, which O'Connor finds Moore maintained, has material objects such as tables and chairs existing independently of perception, minds exising in some non-Cartesian way, and space and time being real in a non-substantial way. It also has us knowing that these and other things are so. Although admittedly a sparse or skeletal theory, O'Connor quite rightly sees Moore's realism as not completely empty since it is opposed to skepticism in epistemology, and to idealism and nominalism in metaphysics . In his opposition to skepticism, Moore admitted that he could not out and out refute the skeptic, but he thought that the skeptic simply does not have enough good reasons to warrant anyone abandoning a cornmon-sensee starting point. In effect, Moore dealt with the skeptic by putting the burden of proof on him. As to the idealist, Moore focused his attack upon the doctrine of internal relations and, as a part of that doctrine, upon the thesis that esse est percipi. For Moore, it was more commonsensical to suppose that what I am aware of is distinct and independent of my awareness of it than not. Finally, against the nominalist, Moore apparently almost took it for granted that common sense believes that two red things, [or example, share something in common. Although Moore was a common-sense realist, O'Connor tells us that he was not a direct or naive realist. Indeed not, since Moore was committed to, or at least seriously tempted by, the very uncommon-sensical sense-data theory for almost his whole life. Involved as he was with such a theory, Moore worried constantly about the relationship between the sense-data and the material world. In fact, as O'Connor sees it, Moore never really dealt satisfactorily with these worries. More than that, these worries move O'Connor to help Moore out by distinguishing between sense-datum propositions and material-object propositions. The former play a descriptive function of telling us how whatever we see looks to us. Sense-datum propositions thus do not refer to sense-data. They do not, as material-object propositions do, identify objects in the world. So in the spirit of John Austin in Sense and Sensibilia, O'Connor argues that there are not sense-data and something else which the sense-data represent, but simply something else. So Moore really has no problem of how his two ontological entities are related to one another. Be that as it may, the point is that Moore was probably not aware of this solution. For him, his worries about sense-data were unresolvable; and, in so far as they were, these worries create a problem for O'Connor's main thesis that Moore has a comprehensive and consistent metaphysical position. An alternative interpretation would be 126 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 23:1 JANUARY 1985 that Moore's position is basically inconsistent in that he could give up neither his common-sense realism nor sense-data. Given even what O'Connor says about Moore's overall position, such an interpretation is not inconceivable. If one goes a step further and looks at such works as Some Main ProblemsofPhilosophyas an indication that Moore knew he had philosophical problems which he could not resolve, this alternative interpretation sounds even plausible. In a way, a resolution of the question of whether Moore held onto a consistent metaphysical position or not depends on how strong a metaphysical position Moore is thought to have held. A strong thesis would take in all of the major aspects of...