Moore

On Concepts as Propositions

Here we have a relatively early reference to propositions, rather than, say, Fregean Thoughts. Judgements, in Moore’s view, point to concepts. So concepts, in this sense, seem to fill the role that is also played by propositions. That is, the judgement is not the proposition, and it is not a concept, instead it ‘points to’ a ‘concept’. So a concept is not an ‘idea’ in, say, the Lockean sense. It is not a mental item or state. Moore was explicit about the non-mental nature of concepts. The concept is ‘neither a mental fact nor any part of a mental fact’. In must be, therefore, either a concrete or abstract object of some kind, just as is the case with an abstract proposition. More precisely, the concept is the ‘object’ of ‘our thinking’. Therefore it has nothing to do with the actual acts of thinking.

Of course, propositions have always had a Platonic shade to them. Passmore writes that a Moorean concept is like ‘a Platonic form’. That is, the concept is ‘eternal and immutable’. Of course, it does not automatically mean that because something is an abstract object that it must be ‘eternal and immutable’. However, this is indeed how Moore saw concepts, just as people see propositions in the same way. But what motivated this belief in immutable and eternal entities? For a start, it guaranteed both the possibility of invariability and of objectivity. That is, the same concept, according to Passmore, ‘can appear as an identical ingredient in a number of different judgements’. So our individual expressions or judgements may differ, but the concepts that are constituents and objects of these expressions remain invariable both between different people and over time. So concepts were not unlike Frege’s ‘senses’ or ‘Thoughts’. It is concepts that are linked together ‘in chains of reasoning’. It is concepts that secure and guarantee the uniformity and invariability of conditional or contingent expressions.

Concepts are not Empirical or Psychological

Moore was reacting against empiricist notions of a concept. To most empiricists, concepts were simply abstractions. Not only that, but empirical ‘abstractions’. That is, from the data of the senses we abstract a concept that is used to make sense of the surfeit of empirical data that we face in day-to-day life. So the concept [man] is abstracted from perceiving many different men. Certain empirical attributes of these men will be abstracted to form the source material for the concept [man]. But Moore, of course, wanted to escape from conceptual psychologism by finding something that could secure ‘objectivity and the independence of the objects of thought’ (203). If concepts were built upon fleeting empirical data and the vicissitudes of our experiences, then, of course, objectivity could not be guaranteed. Not only that, but the ‘objects of thought’ would also fluctuate in time with the mind’s fluctuations and the possible distortions of our sense impressions.

On Concepts as Propositions

Propositions and Their Objects

So the object of a proposition is not a belief or an expression of any kind. So what is the object of a proposition, in Moore’s case? It is ‘reality’, or, at least, an aspect of ‘reality’. So here Moore is at least saying that a proposition is an expression of some kind, though what it ‘denotes’ is not an expression of any kind. Other philosophers, on the other hand, have seen propositions as the objects of expressions, not the expressions themselves. Moore also brings in the philosophical notion of ‘correspondence’. That is, the proposition ‘I exist’, according to Moore, corresponds to the reality my existence. So my actual existence is not the proposition, it is the object denoted by the proposition ‘I exist’. So the object of the expression, in this case, seems to be concrete. That is, part of the denotation of ‘I exist’ is myself. The other part is the property of the predicate ‘exist’. But this is a strange kind of correspondence. That is, in Moore’s scheme ‘exist’ corresponds with existence and ‘I’ corresponds with my being. But how can anything correspond with the word ‘exist’ or ‘existence’? Especially if the predicate ‘exist’ is not accepted as a genuine predicate, which is thought to be the case by many philosophers.

On Truth as a Property of Propositions

For a start, Moore thinks that truth is a ‘simple, unanalysable, intuitable property’. He believes this in a literal sense. For example, just as a rose may have either the property of being red or the property of being white, so propositions have the property of either being true or being false. So truth is literally a property of propositions, in Moore’s eyes. However, the colours red and white are surely analysable, unlike Moore’s truth. However, it has indeed also been argued that colours too are ‘unanalysable’. So perhaps this was an unfortunate example on Moore’s part. If he had said: ‘Just as some politicians are male and some female’. Perhaps that would have been a more convenient equivalence on Moore’s part. In that case, being male and being female would not be ‘unanalysable’, as is the case with Moore’s truth. And they certainly aren’t ‘intuitable’. So what did Moore mean by the word ‘intuitable’?

True Propositions are Facts

In the passage above, Passmore makes it seem that Moore thought that concepts were chunks of the world, as it were. This means that the world ‘is composed of eternal and immutable concepts’. However, if they were genuine chunks of the world, as I put it, then we can say that chunks of the empirical world cannot be, like concepts, ‘eternal and immutable’. It may follow, therefore, that concepts are not, in fact, chunks of the world. At least not chunks of the empirical world.

In terms of propositions, which are, according to Moore, expressions, not abstract objects, such things do things to concepts. That is, they ‘relate concepts one to another’. So propositions are made up of concepts. The propositions are not, one assumes, ‘eternal and immutable’, but the concepts contained in them, or to which the terms refer, are indeed ‘eternal and immutable’. It is the way that these concepts, within the propositions, are put together that will determine whether or not the proposition is true. If the ‘relation of concepts’ is true, then the proposition itself is true. Therefore the proposition can have the property of truth predicated of it. It follows, for Moore, that if the proposition is true, then it is ‘a fact’ or ‘a reality’. On this reading, then

true proposition = a fact

true proposition = ‘a reality’

Just as Moore seems to believe that propositions are the expressions, so too, if he believes that a true proposition is a fact, he must also believe that facts are expressions also. This, again, goes against what many other philosophers not only believe about propositions, but also what they believe about facts. That is, both entities are more often than not not deemed to be expressions. They are either abstract objects, as in propositions, or bits of the spatiotemporal world to which true propositions refer, as in facts. However, what these linguistic expressions are about are not themselves expressions, but they must not be, by hypothesis, facts or propositions either. Facts and propositions are not the objects of true propositions or factual statements. But all this must lead to the obvious question: What are the ‘objects’ of true propositions and facts?

Against Propositional Attitudes

This passage seems to express an early scepticism about propositions. Or, at least, a sceptical attitude towards propositional attitudes that can also be seen in the work of, say, Paul Churchland around 80 years later. The argument seems to be that there is no relation between a subject and a proposition that constitutes a belief. So the subject must, therefore, be related to something else when he or she believes something - perhaps something in the world, not to a proposition that somehow expresses that something in the world. So in terms of belief, propositions are not the objects of belief, and, perhaps also, they may not be the objects of thought either. Does Moore simply mean by this, that belief is not a relation to a sentence or expression that functions as an object of belief? However, Moore goes further than this. He argues that belief is ‘never a relation between ourselves and something else’. On this account, therefore, the belief’s object cannot be something in the world either, as I put it earlier. But a belief must be about something. And if it is about something, then surely the belief has an object at which it ‘points’, as it were. Moore then says that ‘there are no propositions’. This seems to suggest that at this time he had changed his view about what propositions are. Earlier it was clear that Moore thought that propositions, and facts, were expressions of some sort. But expressions exist. However, he said that ‘there are no propositions’. This seems to lead to the conclusion that Moore is now talking about and rejecting abstract propositions, rather than propositions as true or false expressions.

Moore is more explicit about the nature of propositions, or propositional beliefs or attitudes. Take the statement ‘I believe p’. This does not assert a relation between a mental act and a mental belief, or an act of belief and a mental proposition. Again, was he talking about propositions-as-true-or-false-expressions, or propositions-as-abstract entities? Clearly, in the situation of my believing that ‘Blair is a liar’, I am not related, or not always related, to a sentential expression of this belief. Or so it seems. But what am I related to? Am I related to mental images or other such mental phenomena? But this can’t be the case either. A mental image or representation cannot in and of itself express my belief that Tony Blair is a liar. Such mental phenomena may be correlated or accompany my belief in Blair’s status as a liar, but the images, etc. alone cannot be the belief. It may even be the case that when I believe that Blair is a liar, mental items always accompany such a mental state or thought process. But, again, the mental items alone would not be enough to establish a belief. It may even be necessary that a belief is accompanied by or correlated with non-linguistic mental items. But even if these non-linguistic mental items or processes are necessary, they will not be sufficient for belief, at least not the belief that ‘Tony Blair is a liar’.

Of course, we must distinguish here between occurent beliefs, that is, acts of beliefs, and beliefs that are, as it were, in cold storage waiting to be brought back to the conscious mind. Clearly, stored beliefs cannot be relations between a subject and a proposition, abstract or sentential. So, if anything, it is occurent beliefs, or acts of belief, that may have a relation to either a proposition-as-an-expression or to a proposition-as-an-abstract-object. However, as we have seen, Moore at this stage seemed to believe, or did believe, that beliefs were not relations between subjects and anything else.

Intrinsic Properties, Extrinsic Relations, and Systems

Moore and Russell were primarily fighting against philosophical holism, which, in certain respects, engenders philosophical monism. The prime offenders, according to Moore and Russell, were Hegel and Bradley. Indeed, Russell’s ‘logical atomism’ can be seen as the logical conclusion of Russell and Moore’s anti-monism and anti-holism. The question that is being asked here is: Which properties are extrinsic, and which are intrinsic to an object? More precisely, do any extrinsic properties belong to the ‘essence’ of a thing? Moore and Russell believed that only intrinsic properties belong to the essences of things. Such properties would be things like being yellow, being tall, being made of atoms, having certain beliefs, and so on. However, what about a thing’s relations to other things? Don’t these determine the properties of individual things too? More precisely, do external relations ever become properties of things, or even the essential properties of things? External relations would include things like being related to someone by birth, living in the sea, being part of a crowd, being controlled by a force far away, and so on. So part of the ‘essence’ of, say, Tony Blair, could be the property of being related to Cherie Blair. That is, the relation of being married to X becomes a property of Tony Blair. In fact, Hegel and Bradley take this acceptance of external relations as the constituents of various essences much further. They argue that their external relations largely determine things and beings. Even more than that. The ‘things are less real’ that the ‘things they relate’. So things are not genuine atoms. They are intimately related to things, events and processes external to the intrinsic physical or psychological, in the case of persons, properties of a thing.

So just as Hegel and Bradley emphasised the importance of external relations on the essences of things, Moore and Russell emphasised the importance of the distinctiveness of things. In the latter case, a thing’s essence did not in any way depend on external things or its relations to external things.

Moore also made his point against Hegelian and Bradlian systems. In their case, systems, that it the totality of objects within a specific domain, have an influence on things and beings over and above the influence of things within systems taken individually. This may mean that a system is something more than a mere collection of the things it contains. Just as members of a system can affect the system, so the system, taken qua system, can have an effect on its members. This is why Russell and Moore referred to Bradley’s ‘monism’. That is, the totality of the system in question must be taken as a whole. The members of that whole, therefore, are parts of that whole, and are also determined and constituted by that whole or system.

Moore takes the exact opposite approach to Bradley. Just as Bradley’s position can be called ‘extreme monism’ or ‘extreme holism’, so Moore’s position could be deemed ‘extreme atomism’ or ‘extreme pluralism’. Moore’s position on atomism was so extreme that he believed, according to Passmore, that to ‘be at all is to be independent’. It is hard to decipher what this statement actually means. Does it mean that in order to be an individual thing, of whatever sort, then it must be independent. On the other hand, if a thing’s essence is determined by external objects and its external relations to these objects, then, in a sense, these other things become and are a part of the thing in question. It has no true independence from these other things within the system of the totality of its external relations. The only thing that can ‘be’, in Bradley’s system, according, one assumes, to Moore, is the system as a totality. It is the system itself, in a sense, that is the only thing or only individual because, presumably, the system as-a-whole has not itself any external relations to other things, unless it does so to other systems and the other members of other systems.

On To Be is to Be Perceived

It should not be said that to be is to be perceived, but, to be, as we know it to be, the object must be perceived. How an object is un-perceived, we can never know. From this conclusion, one assumes, Berkeley believed that we might as well drop the notion of an object ‘as it is in itself’ or how an object is un-perceived. Un-perceived objects play no role. They are utterly redundant. A mere fiction.

So, yes, ‘if anything x is known to exist’ then it must be perceived or have been perceived. The very fact that x is known, means that it has been perceived. More than that, it is known as it is when perceived, not how it is when it is un-perceived. So if we only know x as it is perceived, then the essence of x, as it were, will belong to how it is known when perceived. The essence of x, therefore, is be perceived. However, we should not say that ‘being perceived follows from being’. Something can be, without being perceived. Perhaps we can now say that x, whatever x is, can be without being perceived. However, what is this x that is not perceived? What is it like? Indeed, what kind of being does it actually have? Can we even say, of any un-perceived object, that it is even an object? If, by definition, we know nothing of x, then how can we even say that it is an un-perceived object? What right have we to call it an ‘object’? Perhaps an unperceived thing is not an object, but, say, a process or an event. And if we cannot say of x that it is an object, then we cannot say that it is an ‘event’ or ‘process’ either. Perhaps things can only be objects, processes or events when they are perceived. Un-perceived things may be none of these things. How could we deny this conclusion when we, by definition, know nothing of un-perceived objects?

So we can say, rather tautologically, that to be as perceived to be is to be perceived. There is no being that we can speak of when referring, incorrectly, to un-perceived objects. How does x exist or be when not perceived? We do not know. Then how do we know that x exists un-perceived? Just because we are using a variable that can refer to anything within a given class, this does not automatically mean that the variable must refer to something. Perhaps the variable, in this case, is used incorrectly as a non-referring symbol. So, again, for x to be as it is to us, it must be perceived. How does x exist, or be, when not perceived? No one knows. Then how do we know that x does exist un-perceived? No one knows. Then how do we know that anything exists un-perceived? We don’t. Therefore Berkeley is right: to be is to be perceived. We can accept the possibility that some things exist when un-perceived. But we cannot know this to be the case. And if, by definition, we cannot know it to be the case, then what does the notion of un-perceived objects serve? What’s is the notion’s point? Where does it get us? What does that notion do or achieve? If it achieves nothing, then the notion of un-perceived objects, along with un-perceived objects themselves, should be jettisoned. And that’s what Berkeley did.

The Rose’s Red and the Sensation of Red

It may be true that when we say we are ‘having a sensation of red’ that there is not something red within our consciousness. At least, not something red in the way that a rose is red. That is, a rose is red, to put it crudely, because of a certain arrangement of molecules giving off certain light waves which are taken in by our eyes and then pass through the brain, in which they are worked upon, and then certain things enter consciousness, at which time we have a sensation of red. So, the arrangement of molecules, the light waves, etc., can’t literally happen within consciousness itself because what happens in conscious is the end result of these processes. The processes themselves do not occur within consciousness. So, again, the configuration of molecules on the surface of the rose cannot be replicated in consciousness itself. But perhaps we can still say that there is something red within consciousness, even though it is not the same kind of red that belongs to the rose. However, the rose doesn’t even have its own kind of red. That is, it has no kind of red when someone or something does not perceive it. However, it will still have the causes or ‘powers’ that cause the red sensation that cannot occur within consciousness itself. So, in that sense, there can be no literal red within consciousness. What we have, it is supposed, is an image or representation of red. However, if the rose is not red in itself, how can we have images or representations of the rose’s red colour? But why can’t an idea or image itself be red, even though we do not perceive a mental sensation in the way we perceive an external rose. After all, we can have a table made of wood, but we can also have a table made of steel. Similarly, a knife can open a can, but so too can a can-opener. In that sense, the knife too would be a can-opener, though its material and form would be quite unlike, say, a genuine can-opener.

But surely Moore is wrong when he argues that we don’t have some kind of mental image in mind. He argues that when we have a sensation of red it is just ‘to be aware of something red’. But that rose is not red. The redness of that rose depends on the sensation of red, as it were. Without sensations of red, that rose would not be red. What we are ‘aware of’, to use Moore’s words, is, in fact, not something that is red. The rose is only red when it is perceived. The rose has a certain molecular configuration that eventually causes the sensation of red, but the rose itself is neither red nor any other colour. Moore is wrong, therefore, to believe that we somehow have the red rose, or the redness of the rose, in consciousness, as it were. This seems like a ridiculous claim, but it is the only way out for Moore. When we perceive something, we do indeed perceive something, but that something is not red. Without this something, we would not have the sensations in the first place. But that something is not a red rose. Indeed, it may not even be a rose if we take away, in the idealist manner, all its secondary qualities.

Is it not also the case, it follows, that we do not perceive something that intrinsically smells a certain way? No, because smells too depend on sensations: the sensations of certain smells. These smells are not in the object itself either. However, again, the molecular configurations, etc., that cause the sensation of smell, may well exist in the rose itself. However, if all the rose’s attributes that depend on mind are stripped away, then perhaps what’s left, if anything is left, is not rightly called a ‘rose’.

The thing that we are ‘aware of’ is not how it is when we are aware of it when we are not aware of it. We are aware of something, but that something is not as it is when we are not aware of it.

So the empiricists were correct. We cannot ‘get outside the circle of our ideas and sensations’. It is because of this that Moore offered us an unbelievable escape from our sensations, etc. Indeed, it is even hard to make sense of Moore’s position.

Moore argues that to have a sensation is ‘already to be outside the circle’. In a certain sense, Moore is quite correct to argue this. If there were no things outside the ‘circle’, then we would not have our sensations in the first place, according to certain empiricists. The sensations we have are the final effect of objects external to consciousness. But does this acknowledgement automatically get us ‘outside the circle’? Not really. All we have admitted is that sensations may depend on things that are not themselves sensations. But this acknowledgement does not, in and of itself, get us outside the circle. Our only access to the ‘outside’ is via sensations. And sensations are mental. Sensations may hint at the outside, but they do not deliver the outside as it is independently of sensations. We can only know the outside by relying on what occurs in the mind. And if this is the case, then perhaps we never get to the outside, in any real sense. The sensation of a red rose simply tells us, as it were, that there is something outside. However, it does not tell us what this outside is like. It only tells us what the outside is like when we are aware of it or when we perceive it.

Finally, how can Moore ‘know something’ that is not ‘part of [his] experience’ if he can only know that something through his experience of it? Moore seems to be making the mistake that because he can prove, so he thinks, that there are externals or objects, then he must be able to know these externals, or know them as they are and not as they are when fused, as it were, with mentality, which is itself also the result of brain processes, other physiological processes and chemical reactions that are not the externals themselves. Because he refuses to deny the existence of the external world, Moore simply assumes that he is aware of these external objects, or even aware of them as they are in themselves. This conclusion is a vulgar type of realism. So, again, the contents of experience are, well, contents of experience, they are not the things that cause the experience. But we only know the causes of our experiences through our experiences. Therefore we do not know the causes of our experiences. That is the idealist argument as well as the traditional empiricist argument. However, the idealist, after extra reasonings, denies the reality of these external causes too.

A Sensation is not a Sense Datum

This position, that we do not experience two books but, instead, two ‘coloured patches existing side by side’, is the antithesis of those philosophers who believe that we genuinely perceive objects, not sense data. It must follow, then, that we actually ‘infer’ that there are two books on the shelf. That is, we do not actually perceive two books on the shelf.

Moore attempts to distinguish the terms ‘sensation’ and ‘sense datum’. In perception, we could be referring to either

‘my experiencing of’ a colour patch

the colour patch itself

when we use the word ‘sensation’ to refer to these things. But can this distinction actually be sustained? Moore is making a distinction between the experience of a colour patch and the colour patch ‘itself’. But there are no colour patches in themselves. Colour has to be perceived. Therefore colour patches must be perceived. Without perception, the books are simply not coloured at all. Though the books could be seen as the causes of our colour experiences.

Moore then makes the incredible claim that ‘it is not the essence of a sense-datum to be perceived’. What on earth does Moore mean by this claim? Of course, what gives rise to sense datum still exists or occurs without being perceived, but the sense datum itself, say, of a colour patch, could hardly exist when not perceived. Perhaps what Moore meant that in a counterfactual situation if you were to stand in front of the two books, you would immediately experience two colour patches. That is, to paraphrase Mill, there is the ‘permanent possibility’ of experiencing two colour patches when one does perceive the two books. But till then, there quite simply is no colour patch. So Moore makes the distinction between ‘sensation’ and ‘sense datum’ that the former, evidently, is a matter of experience. The latter, on the other hand, can exist when not perceived. So ‘sensation’ is unequivocally an experience-word, whereas ‘sense datum’ is not. However, at this point it is still hard to decipher what Moore means by ‘sense datum’.

Perception as Proof of Two Hands

Moore is absolutely right when he argues that we ‘are much more confident that what confronts us exists than we are that Hume’s principles are correct’. However, this is far from being a philosophical statement about the actual existence, or type of existence, of something in front of us. It is simply a psychological fact about us. It is not a statement about the nature of the thing in front of us or how we come to know it. Of course we are ‘confident’ that the object in front of us exists, but so too was Hume, as he said on many occasions. The problem is whether or not we have a philosophical proof that the object in front of exists. The other problem that still faces the philosopher is how, or if, we come to know this object as it is when not perceived or seen. Comments about our psychological pre-dispositions to believe that things exist have no purchase on any philosophical discussions about these philosophical issues.

When Moore talks of ‘proof’, what does he mean by that word? He says that he can prove that he has two hands by simply holding them up and looking at them. But what kind of proof is that? It is certainly not a philosophical proof. Simply seeing the hands in front of us does not prove that they are as we perceive them to be or that they actually exist in the way we perceive them to exist. Nor does the visual data alone tell us that such representations correctly reflect the nature of our hands or of reality generally. Moore seems to be saying something of the utmost straightforwardness. That is, if he can see his two hands in front of him, then his hands must exist and must also exist as they are seen to exist. What more proof do we need? What does the sceptic want? But what we see, so many philosophers say, and what is, are two different things. And proof and perception are not identical things either. If they were, then what I see when under the influence of LSD must necessarily exist. Two train lines must converge in the distance. A stick in the water must really be bent. Optical illusions must also reflect realities (e.g., Escher’s never-ending staircase).

The Hand and its Sense-Data

It seems strange to say that the surface of a hand is ‘no more than a compendious name for a series of actual and possible sense-data’. Surely the hand is not made of sense-data. However, we can only get to the hand through the sense-data that emanate from the hand in front of us. There is something there other than the sense-data. However, what we perceive and what there is are two different things. And if what we see depends on sense-data, and is in a sense constructed by sense-data, then what there is when no one perceives the hand cannot be rightly called a ‘hand’. What is there un-perceived may be so different from what is perceived that we have no right to call the un-perceived thing a ‘hand’. All our data about hands come from sense-data. When the thing is not perceived, therefore, will not be like the data we perceive. Indeed, there will be no data at all because there will be no one to treat the thing as having data of some kind.

The fact that there are always ‘possible’ sense-data may have lead Moore to believe that sense-data are not dependent on actual perception. That is, even now, when no one is looking at the object, that object has sense-data emanating from it. The possibility here is that if we were to perceive the said object, then we can be pretty sure of the kinds of sense-data that the object will deliver up to our sensory receptors.

The Analysis of Concepts

I cannot see how offering an identical concept to an original concept can be called a ‘correct analysis’ of that concept. Surely there is no actual analysis being carried out here.

If concepts can never run free of expressions, as Moore himself admits, then perhaps one conclusion could be that concepts are expressions. Or, at the least, if concepts are in some way independent of all expressions, it is still nevertheless the case that we cannot use them, or even know anything about them, unless they are clothed in expressions of various kinds.

Moore on Neurophysical Inferences

Isn’t Moore correct about this? That is, any inferential processes that do occur are to be found at the neurophysical level. They are not epistemic processes. I do not infer the nature of my surroundings from the character of my sensations. I perceive objects as objects, events as events, and so on. There is no epistemic gap between my beliefs about objects and events in the world, and those objects and events themselves. Of course there is a causal gap that includes the transfer of light, nerve impulses, etc. However, we are not aware of any of this. So it’s the province of neuroscience, not of epistemology or philosophy generally.