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THE THOMIST A SPECULATIVE QUARTERLY REVIEW OF THEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY EDITORS: THE DoMINICAN FATHERS OF THE PROVINCE OF ST. JosEPH Publishers: The Thomist Press. Washington 17, D. C. VoL. XXXI JULY, 1967 GEORGE EDWARD MOORE'S CRITICISM OF SOME ETIDCAL THEORIES No.8 IN HIS Logic and Language, Second Series, A. G. N. Flew termed George Edward Moore the doyen of British philosophy .1 Although he failed to attract popular attention as did certain of his contemporaries such as Ludwig Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell, recognition of his stature as a " philosopher 's philosopher" has been widespread and enduring. The time-spread of his activity is in itself nothing short of phenomenal: his first published work appeared in 1897, and the last lectures he published came from the press in 1957, the year before his death.2 As a professor at Cambridge and long-time editor of Mind, he had ample opportunity to leave his mark on two generations of philosophers in the Englishspeaking world.3 1 Logic and Language, Second Series (Oxford, 1958), p. 2. • His Commonplace Book 1919-1953 was published posthumously in 1964. • Moore's autobiography may be found in The Philosophy of G. E. Moore, a colleciion of essays by various authors edited by Paul Arthur Schilpp, !!nd ed. (New York, 1952), pp. 8-89. An account of Moore's final days appears in "George ~59 9l60 GABRIEL FRANKS Moore has often been compared to Franz Brentano as a pivotal figure in the history of contemporary philosophy. Just as Brentano, by his rejection of the post-Kantian idealism of nineteenth century German philosophy, fostered and inspired such diverse movements as existentialism and the neo-empiricism of the Vienna Circle, so did Moore change the course of British philosophy by his rejection of the Hegelianism which flourished in Great Britain at the turn of the century.4 It was he who led his fellow-student at Cambridge, Bertrand Russell, to abandon idealism in 1898, and together they embarked upon a crusade which led far beyond the goals which either had envisioned or intended. Not only do the milder forms of logical and linguistic analysis which dominate British philosophy today derive from the orientation and method which was Moore's legacy to his followers. The more radical philosophy of the early Wittgenstein of the Tractatus, and of the logical positivism of A. J. Ayer and his disciples, are also generally regarded as having their origin in Moore's rejection of Hegelianism.5 The fact that Moore never became well known beyond the comparatively narrow circle of professional philosophers in spite Edward Moore 1878-1958," by R. B. Braithwaite, in Proceedings of the British Academy, Vol. XLVII, pp. 298-809. • J. Laird, Recent Philosophy (London, 1986), pp. 188 and 129 fl'. Cf. also F. Copleston, S. J., "Contemporary British Philosophy," in Gregorianum XXXIV (1958); also Moore's " Preface " to his Principia Ethica, pp. x-xi. • For the relationship between Moore and the Logical Postivists, see A. Stroll, The Emotive Theory of Ethics (Berkeley, Calif., 1954); for L. Wittgenstein's dependence on Moore see the " Introduzione critica" to the Italian translation by G, C. M. Colombo, S. J., of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, pp. 18 fl'. See also M. White, The Age of Analysis (New York, 1955), pp. 21-26. In his" A Reply to My Critics" in The Philosophy of G. E. Moore. Moore wavered toward acceptance of the emotive theory of ethics of the Logical Positivists, but in a personal conversation I had with him on September 7, 1955, he told ine that he had definitely rejected such a view. This rejection is confirmed by A. C. Ewing, who has recently reported that at some date after 1958, Moore said that "he still held to his old view [that ethical statements have cognitive meaning], and further that he could not imagine whatever in the world had induced him to say that he was almost equally inclined to hold the other view." (Mmd, LXXI [196!!], p. 251.) MOORE'S CRITICISM OF SOME ETHICAL THEORIES fl61 of his great importance is partly due to the fact that his relatively conservative views about strictly philosophical problems were not the sort of...

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