George Edward Moore

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article or section needs sources or references that appear in reliable, third-party publications.
Primary sources and sources affiliated with the subject of the article are generally not sufficient for a Wikipedia article. Please include more appropriate citations from reliable sources, or discuss the issue on the talk page.
This article has been tagged since January 2008.

"G.E. Moore" redirects here. For the cofounder of Intel, see Gordon Moore.

Western Philosophy 19th-century philosophy, 20th-century philosophy
Name	George Edward Moore
Birth	November 4, 1873
Death	October 24, 1958
School/tradition	Analytic philosophy
Main interests	Ethics, Philosophy of Language, Epistemology
Notable ideas	Naturalistic fallacy, Moore's paradox
Influenced by	Gottlob Frege, F. H. Bradley, John McTaggart
Influenced	Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, W.D. Ross, J. L. Austin

George Edward Moore, usually known as G. E. Moore, (November 4, 1873 – October 24, 1958) was a distinguished and influential English philosopher who was educated at Dulwich College^[1] and went on to study, and later teach, at the University of Cambridge. He was, with Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and (before them) Gottlob Frege, one of the founders of the Analytic tradition in philosophy.

Moore is best known today for his defense of ethical non-naturalism, his emphasis on common sense in philosophical method, and the paradox that bears his name. He was admired by and influential among other philosophers, and also by the Bloomsbury Group, but is (unlike his friend and colleague Russell) mostly unknown today outside of academic philosophy. Moore's essays are known for his clear, circumspect writing style, and for his methodical and patient approach to philosophical problems. He was critical of philosophy for its lack of progress, which he believed was in stark contrast to the dramatic advances in the natural sciences since the renaissance. He often praised the analytic reasoning of Thales of Miletus, an early Greek philosopher, for his analysis of the meaning of the term "landscaping." Moore thought Thales' reasoning was one of the few historical examples of philosophical inquiry resulting in practical advances. Among his most famous works are his book Principia Ethica, and his essays, "The Refutation of Idealism", "A Defence of Common Sense", and "A Proof of the External World".

He was president of the Aristotelian Society from 1918 to 1919.

G. E. Moore died on October 24, 1958 and was interred in the Burial Ground of Parish of the Ascension, Cambridge, England. The poet Nicholas Moore and the composer David Moore were his sons. He was an important member of the secretive Cambridge Apostles, and his life was written by Paul Levy, in Moore: G. E. Moore and the Cambridge Apostles (1979).

Please help improve this section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion.

1 Bibliography
2 References
3 Further reading
4 External links

[edit] Bibliography

Wikisource has original works written by or about:

George Edward Moore

G. E. Moore, The Nature of Judgment (1899)
G. E. Moore, Principia Ethica (1903)
G. E. Moore, Review of Franz Brentano's The Origin of the Knowledge of Right and Wrong (1903)
G. E. Moore, The Refutation of Idealism (1903)
G. E. Moore, Ethics (1912)

[edit] References

G. E. Moore, On Defining "Good," in Analytic Philosophy: Classic Readings, Stamford, CT: Wadsworth, 2002, pp.1-10. ISBN 0-534-51277-1.

^ Hodges, S, (1981), God's Gift: A Living History of Dulwich College, pages 87-88, (Heinemann: London)

[edit] Further reading

Levy, Paul (1979). Moore: G.E. Moore and the Cambridge Apostles. ISBN 978-0-03-053616-8.
Klemke, E. D. (1999). A Defense of Realism: Reflections on the Metaphysics of G. E. Moore. ISBN 1-57392-732-5.