Unit 5 Moore’s on Refutation of Idealism

UNIT 5: MOORE’S ON REFUTATION OF

IDEALISM
UNIT STRUCTURE
5.1 Learning Objectives
5.2 Introduction
5.2.1 G.E.Moore
5.2.2 Idealism
5.3 Refutation Of Idealism
5.3.1 Moore’s Criticism on Kantian Idealism
5.3.2 “The Refutation of Idealism”
5.3.3 Moore’s Criticism On Absolute Idealism
5.4 Criticism
5.5 Conclusion
5.6 Let us sum up
5.7 Further Reading
5.8 Answers to Check Your Progress
5.9 Model Questions

5.1 LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After going through this unit, you will be able to :

l define idealism and its core principle
l explain Moore’s criticism on Kant’s idealism
l define the different meaning of esse is percipi
l discuss Moore’s distinction between object and object of
sensation
l explain Moore’s refutation of idealism
l explain Moore’s criticism on Absolute Idealism

5.2 INTRODUCTION

Moore’s refutation of idealism started with his critical response to

Kantian idealism. He argues that Kant’s conception of morality as

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founded on a priori principles of practical reason is untenable. He was

also critical of Hegel’s Absolute idealism and his views that were
endorsed by Bradley and Mc Taggart, with whose works Moore was more
familiar. Moore’s most famous argument against idealism are contained
in his paper ‘The Refutation of Idealism’. It is an argument against the
one claim that all Idealists according to Moore considers necessary to
their position – the claim that “esse is percipi” ( to be is to be perceived).
Moore in this paper aim to prove that this claim is false in all the sense ever
given to it. Moore’s final critical response to idealism concerns his rejection
of the Absolute Idealism or the philosophy of monism that characterised
British idealism. He argues that idealist conception of organic whole is self-
contradictory and its internal realtion involves a logical fallacy.

5.2.1 G.E. Moore

George Edward Moore (1873-1958) was an important

British philosophers of the first half of the twentieth century. He
was one of the trinity of philosophers at Trinity College Cambridge
( the others were Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein) who
founded the analytic tradition in philosophy. He was Professor of
Philosophy at the University of Cambridge and the editor of the
influential journal Mind. Moore’s paper ‘The Refutation of
Idealism’(1903) was originally published in Mind in 1903. It was
Moore’s most famous criticisms of idealism. Among other
Moore’s most famous works includs his book Principia Ethica,
(1903)and his essays, ‘A Defence of Common Sense’, (1925)
and ‘A Proof of the External World’ (1939).

5.2.2 Idealism

Idealism is a philosophical doctrine which asserts that

reality is fundamentally mental or immaterial. Idealist maintained
that knowledge is not independent of mind. They assign crucial
importance to ideal or spritual. There are different types of
idealism namely subjective idealism , objective idealism, absolute
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idealism and transcendental idealism . Beginning with Kant,

German Idealists such as Hegel, Fichter, Schelling and
Schopenhauer dominated nineteen-century philosophy. This
tradition, which emphasized the mental or ‘ideal’ character of all
phenomena, birthed idealistic and subjectivsit schools ranging
from British Idealism to phenomenolism to existentialism .

5.3 MOORE’S REFUTATION OF IDEALISM

Moore was antagonistic towards the idealism that dominated

British philosophy. He believe that there is too much dogmatic
slumbering in the camp of the idealists. One of the most important parts
of his philosophical development was his break from the idealism. His
revolt against idealism came between 1898 and 1903 when Moore
published the first major anti-idealist essay especially ‘The Nature of
Judgment’ (1899) which comes largely from his 1898 Dissertation and
‘The Refutation of Idealism’ (1903). His final aspect of critical response
to idealism is found in the paper ‘External and Internal Relations’ ( 1919).

5.3.1 Moor’s criticism on Kantian Idealism

Moore was critical of Kant’s idealism . He assused Kant

of bluring the distinction between ‘the psychological faculty of
making judgments and inferences’ on the one hand and that
which is ‘true and objective’ on the otherhand. The first is
psychological while the seoncd is rational and objective. That is,
it is a distinction between thought on the one hand and what is
objective or real on the other. This distinction, Moore maintains,
‘cannot be either done away or bridged over’. He attack Kant for
wrongly regarding the truth of the a priori principles of morality, as
constituted by the structure of the rational will. That is Kant
account of the a priori embodies a radical confusion of sound
logic and irrelevant psychology. Moore rejected Kantian
conception of the a priori as a muddles form of subjectivism or

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psychologism. Hence Kantian conceptions of the a priori

priciples of practical reason is untenable. Moore extended this
line of thought to a general criticsm of Kant’s conception of the a
priori.
Moore’s criticism of Kantian account of idealism as
implicited in his crticism of a priori knowledge can be formulated
in two ways . First , he accuses Kant of trying to bridge over the
gulf between a thought and its truth. Second, Kant cannot
account for the necessity of his synthetic a priori principles. This
is because the principle of a priori, must be themselve either
contingent or necessary. If they are contingent, they cannot
provide a basis for the necessity of the a priori principles and if
they are necessary, then there must be synthetic a priori
principles characterising these necessities . These a priori
principles cannot be explained by refernce to the mind’s opeation.
It could not therefore be a logical basis from which their necessity
could be deduced.

CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

Q 1: Write the name of the philosopher

who is associated with the essay ‘Moore’s
Refutation of Idealism’
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Q 2: Write the definition of idealism.
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Q 3: Who are Q 3:Who are known as the trinity of
philosophers?
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Unit 5 Moore’s on Refutation of Idealism

Q 4: Write the name of the book in which Moore reaction

against idealism.
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Q 5: What are the different types of idealism?
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5.3.2 ‘The Refutation of Idealism’

In this essay Moore rejected the core principle of idealism

and offered a distinctly realistic alternative. He claimed that
idealist simply assume without evidence the truth of their most
important principle. The essay is a respond to the metaphysical
idealism advocated by F.H Bradley and George Berkey. According
to Moore every form of idealim, relies on the principle expressed
by Berkeley , “esse est percipi” or “ to be is to be perceived”.
This belief that, everything is an object of expereince in some
mind. That is, existence of an object depends upon its being
perceived by some mind. Berkeley even postulates the existence
of God as a supreme being who perceives all object, at all time,
thus ensuring their contineous existence.

The Idealist Thesis:

Moore formulated the idealist argument as follow : since
A is B and B is C and C is D, therefore A is D. Here the first step
A is B is “esse is percipi” and the last step, A is D is that “ reality
is spritual”. By the chain of inference of the sort “ esse is percipi”,
idealist according to Moore begins from “ to be is to be perceived”
through expereince to that “reality is spritual’. Moore task was to
dispute the idealist support for this single most trivial proposition
namely “esse is percipi” that will subsequently refute an argument
for the idealist thesis that ‘reality is spritual’. Here it may be noted
that Moore aim is not to argue that the idealist thesis that reality

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is spiritual is false. He is rather arguing that (any or all) arguments

based on the claim that “ to be is to be perceived” are flawed.
That is Moore is not here to refute the idealist thesis . He is only
refusing the idealist argument for that thesis . This, he does so,
not by showing that the claim “ esse is percipi” is false, but by
showing that the idealist way of arguing for that claim leads to
contradiction.

Meaning of esse is percipi:

Moore begins by examining the meaning of ‘esse is
percipi’. According to him, there are atleast three sense of ‘esse
is percipi’. First the words ‘esse’ and ‘percipi’ have precisely the
same meaning. That is the word ‘esse’ is used to signify nothing
either more or less than the word ‘percipi’. The two words are
precisely synonyms. For example it is analogous to ‘bachelors
are unmarried adult human males’. Hence esses is absolulety
identical with what is meant by percipi. Second, the meaning of
‘percipi’ is part but not all of the meaning of ‘esse’. For example
it is analogous to ‘ bachelors are male’. This is a relation of
analytic containment. Third, is a relation of synthetic necessity. It
is synthetic because it is a claim about the world and the nature
of reality and not merely about the way we use words or
concepts. It is necessity because it is a claim whose negation is
in a sense ‘ inconveivable’. Here, esses is percipi asserts that
wherever you have x you also have percipi and that whatever has
the property of x also has the property that it is experinced.
When idealist philosophers say ‘esse est percipi’ Moore’s
questions is : what reason have they for saying so? The idealist
means that ‘esse’ is necessarily ‘percipii’. This means that being
perceived is a necessary condition for existence. To this Moore
questioned , what is the sort of necessary connection they assert
between ‘esse’ and ‘percipi’? The sort of necessary connection
they assert is that which exist between a thing and its qualities.

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That is, the relation of blue to the consciousness of blue is

conceived to be exactly the same as that of the ‘colour’ blue to the
blue ‘bead’. Now if the relation is between a thing and its qualities,
then it follow that to say ‘ a thing is’ means that ‘it is perceived’.
This is because if a thing exists, its qualities must exist. Moore
argue that this however is an error.

Object and Object of Sensation :

According to Moore, idealist is led into this error by an
analysis of experience into two and only two constituents namely-
content and existence. For Moore there should be a third
constituents in expereince namely, a unique element called
consciosuness . In other word a unique relation of consciousness
to the “object”. This relation of knowing is unique and it is present
in the sensation of ‘blue’ or in any independent thing of which ‘I am
aware’. In other words ‘sensation of blue’ is like consciousness or
awareness of blue which is different from the object of
awareness. That is ‘object of sensation’ is a distinct element in
sensation, different from the ‘object’ itself. That is on this view, the
‘sensation of blue’ is different from an object, a blue bead or a
blue beard , just as the object blue bead is different from the
object blue beard. This is because the ‘sensation of blue’ contains
consciosuness where as the object blue bead or blue beard does
not . In other words the existence of blue object is quite distinct
fom the existence of the sensation of blue object.
Now a sensation of blue differs from a sensation of green
because blue and green are different ‘object of sensation’.
However a sensation of blue resembles a sensation of green
because both are cases of consciousness. Again conscionsess
which sensations of blue and sensations of green have in
common is different either from blue or green. To say that the
consciouness of blue exist and the consciousness of green exist,
is to say that consciousness also exists. Now consciousness is

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obviously mental and at time the sensation of blue exists in my

mind and at some time it does not . But the point is, if the
sensation of blue includes both consciousness and blue, then
when the sensation of blue exists in my mind three different
alternative arises. That is either :
a) consciouness exists alone;
b) blue exists alone;
c) consciousness and blue exist.
To say (b) is to say something different from (c). and to
say that they are the same is to contradict oneself. That is to say
that the sensation of blue exists and the sensation of green exists
is to say that consciousness also exists, for it is consciouness
which is common to both sensations. It is consciousness in virtue
of which both are sensations. Now since consciousness is a
necessary element in sensation, (b) cannot be the case. Then
either (a) or (c) is the case. Therefore the existence of blue (b),
cannot be the same thing as the existence of the sensation of
blue. We are therefore left with either (a) or (c), but not both
together. From this it follow that the object of sensation must be
different from the sensation itself. This is because to claim that
blue is the same as consciouness plus blue, is to claim that a
part is the same as a whole of which it is only part, or else to
identify it with something which it is not, namely the other parts.
Whenever we have a sensation, consciousness and its
object exist together. Since consciousness and its object always
exist together, philosophers according to Moore has fail to
realised that we can distinguished the consciousness (of blue)
from the object (blue) just as we can distinguish a sensation of
blue from a sensation of green. Now consciousness is obviously
mental, but there is no reason whatsoever for concluding that the
blue must also be mental. This argument does not provide the
ground for concluding that the object blue is not mental. But it
remove the ground for concluding that it is mental. Hence this
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argument destroys idealism by destroying one of the strongest

reasons for beleiving that blue is mental.

Implications of Moore’s arguments :

Three consequences follow from this :

i) when i have a sensation of blue, my awareness is related to
something outside. Therefore the idealists problem of how
we are to get out of our circle of ideas does not arise. This
is because to have a sensation is already to be outside it.
ii) Blue ( or any colour) exists in the same sense as my
expereince of it exists.
iii) The object has exactly the same nature both when we are
aware of it and when we are not aware of it. Knowing
therefore makes no difference to the object known.
If the analysis of Moore is right, it would follow that, the
relation of knowing is ‘external’ to the object known and the
subject that knows.that is in having a sensation, we are oputside
the circle of our own ideas and thus reach out to something which
is independent of our expereince of it. Henceforth there is no
reason to think that the proposition esse is percipi is true and no
reason to think that all objects depend for their existence upon the
mind to think about them .
Lastly Moore made a distinction between object of
sensation and content . According to Moore object of any
sensation or mental expereicne is distinct from content . This is
because, content can be the content of a perception, thoughts
and volitions. That is, I can perceive something blue, I can think
of something blue or I can will somehting to be blue. In all thses
cases, the content may be the same. That is, the content is,
indeed, something distinct from the particular expereince of it .

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CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

Q 6: What is the main essay of idealism?
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Q 7: What is meant by esse is percipi?

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Q 8: Is esse necessarily percipi?
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5.3.3 Moore’s criticism of Absolute idealism

The final aspect of Moore’s critical respond toward

idealism concerns his rejection of absolute idealism . Moore’s
criticsm on Absolute idealism is especially characteristic of
Bradley’s idealism according to which reality exists as an organic
whole that are essentially inter related. Hence the Absolute is the
one real thing. This is also called the theory of monism which was
characteristic of Britsh idealism . Moore’s paper on ‘External and
Internal Relation’ (1919) focus on the idealist conception of
internal relations which is the core of monist thesis.
First Moore began by characterising an organic whole as
the whole that would not be what it is but for the existence of the
parts, and the parts would not be what it is but for the existenbce
of the whole. Moore maintianed that the concept of an organic
whole is self-contradictory. He starts by introducting the
assumption that the parts of an organic whole ‘contian analytically’
the whole of which each is a part. If so, it follow that the parts
are not even ‘distinct object of thought’.
Second, Moore critisied the internal relations of Absolute
idealism. Absolute idealism requires that since everything is part
of an organic whole, there is a necessary connection between
every aspect of things and therefore all relations must be internal.
Moore’s argument against this thesis starts from the claim that it

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conflicts with our common snese conviction that things are not
essentially inter-related . This is because a change to one thing
in one respect does not necessitates changes to everything else.
Moore when on to show that the thesis that all relations are
internal involves a logical fallacy. He inferred from Leibniz’ Law,
the uncontentious principle that things which differ in their
relations must differ in their identity too. The argument applying
Morre’s concept of entailment runs as follows:
1. Leibniz’ Law states that
xRy entails (z = x ’! zRy),
where ‘’!’ is the truth-functional conditional
2. Since entailment is a necessary connection, one might infer
xRy ’! Necessarily (z = x ’! zRy)
3. From (2) one can immediately infer xRy ’! Necessarily (x
= x ’! xRy)
4. Since x = x is itself a necessary truth, one can now infer
xRy ’! Necessarily (xRy) which expresses the thesis that all
relations are internal.
Moore present here a sophisticated piece of informal
modal logic. He observes that the step from (1) to (2) is invalid.
It confuses the necessity of a connection with the neccisity of the
consequent.
How far Morre’s argument is acceptable is a questioned .
Critic argues that Bradley’s reason for his Absolute idelaism do
not involve the model fallacy that Moore identifies. This is becasue
Bradley’s dialectic rest on a diiferent thesis about the inadequacy
of thought as a representation of reality, and thus that one has to
dig rather deeper into Bradley’s idealist metaphysics both to
extract the grounds for his monism and to exhibit what is wrong
with it.

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CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

Q 9: Define monism?
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Q 10 : Is there a necessary internal relation between part and
whole?
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Q 11: Is the concept of organic whole self-contradictory?
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5.4. CRITICISM

In his paper on ‘The Refutation of Idealism’, Moore begins his

criticism against idealist with the statement aserting that the universe is
spiritual. His definition of spiritual included all objects in the universe that
includes chairs, tables and mountians. Here it can be argued that Moore
has taken for granted the existence of the subject and assumes that the
idealist argues that the object is in reality like the subject. Moore does not
consider the possibility of an idealistic perspective according to which
neither subject nor object may lay claim to real existence. Moore has
infact misunderstood the nature of the metaphycial thesis offered by
idealist.
Second criticism is directed against the three interpretaiton Moore
offered for the ‘esse is percipi’. His three interpretaiton are namely 1)
that the words “esse” and “percippi” are synonymous; (2) that esse is not
absolutely identical with what is meant by percipi, however the former
includes the latter as a part of its meaning and (3) that “whereever you
have esse you also have percipi that whatever has the property x also
has the property that it is expereinced”.
According to Moore the idealist interpretaion of esses is percipi
necessirily fits into the third alternative. Whatever is, is expereince. First

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this implies that esse is percipi necessarily requries a distinction

between an experiencer and an expereinced. This requires an
acceptance of the subject-object duality. Second it also assume that the
reality is a whole, in which part of which is not experienced. But if
expereince is the expereince of objects, and if we then take the object
away, there is no expereince. That is experience is empty. On the other
hand, if there is no object, we are not taking anything away but merely
asserting only what it is .
The third major criticism of Moore’s argument is directed towards
Moore’s distinction between consciousness and object of sensation.
According to Moore, we have in every sensation two distinct terms (1)
‘consciousness’, in respect of which all sensations are alike and (2)
somehting else, in respect of which one sensation differs from another
. He calls this second term the ‘object’ of a sensation. According to this
analysis there are two distinct elements in sensation, namely
consciosduness and the object of consciousness. But the question is
are there really two disitnct elelemts in sensation. According to the critic
the only way to settle the case is by appealing to introspection. That is,
it is on the basis of introspection that one can check whether or not there
is a duality within sensation.
Moore arrived at his conslucison that there are two distinct
elements because consciousness is a name given to all cases of
sensation on the ground that while individual sensations differ from each
other, they all nontheless share in common the characteristic of being
sensations. Hence if individual sensations differ from each other, and yet,
are all equally consciousness then it follows for Moore that each
sensation differs from each other sensation qua content. For Moore,
since individual sensation differ from one another, and all are equally
conscious, it follows that consciousness is something distinct from its
contents. Moore also analysis sensation or ideas as
“a case of ‘knowing’ or ‘being aware of’ or ‘experiencing’
somehting”. According to the critic, this anaysis assume sensation as a
case of subject knower “knowing” an object. That is sensation in this
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analysis is different from the object known. Later on Moore analysis the
sensation like ‘I am aware of blue’ to mean both my awareness has to
blue as well as being of blue. That is Moore admits that awaress can
be blue as well as being of blue.
The critic argues that if awareness is blue then it makes no sense
to say that it can be of blue as well. If awareness is of a blue then we
need not become aware of it . The critic argues that the only possible
alternative is that it is not a blue awareness of which we a re becoming
aware, but it is a blue simpliciter of which we are becoming aware. If this
is is the case, then we must first have the blue before knowing it. But
this, even on Moore’s acount is not possible. Hence there follows two
alternative. First , if there is already a blue awareness there would seem
to be no need to become aware of it or else why do we refer to it as a
blue awareness. Second, if it is a blue simpliciter, we could have a
sensation without knowing. But his Moore himself does not allow.
What Moore intends in this analysis is to assert that sensation is
comprised of two distinct elements, consciousness and the object of
consicouness. To have a sensation is already to be aware of something
which is other than consciousness. But the critic point is that , Moore’s
anaysis is dependend upon his having access to that to which, he has
no access, namely a blue in itself. If the blue Moore speaks about is a
blue awareness , then he would not have to become aware of it . In this
case there are not two items, consciousness and its object . If on the
other hand, the blue Moore speaks about is that of which he muct
become aware before he can know it as blue, then it must be that he can
have a blue before he knows it as blue. But this is impossible because
the question is how could one ‘have a blue” wihtout knowing it was blue.
Hence the only alternative according to the critic must be that, “having a
blue” is discovering a blue awareness. In other word, blue and
consciosness of blue are not two distinct elements, but one. If this is the
case, Moore’s argument for ‘The Refutation of Idealism’ is not actually an
argument for the ‘refutation of Idealism’ but rather an argument on its
behalf.
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5.5 CONCLUSION

Although Moore’s refutation of idealism is highly questionable and

his essay on The Refutation of Idealism is uncharitable to idealism, the
idealist’s postion is untenable in a radical sense. In a few words it may
be summaried that Moore confuse what the idealist is attempting to do.
He argues that the idealist contradicts himself in his thesis that the object
of expereince is inconceivable apart from the subject because it means
that that the idealist thinks ‘yellow’ is ‘absolutely identical’ with ‘the
sensation of yellow’. But the question is how can ‘yellow’ be ‘absolutely
identitcal’ with ‘the sensation of yellow?’ In other words, how can ‘yellow’
be ‘absolutely identical’ with the sensation of itself?
Idealist implicitily has to presuppose the necessary distinction
between ‘yellow’and ‘the sensation of yellow’ , if he is to offer a coherent
account of the identity of colour sensation. This leads to contradiciton
because the idealist is implicitely presuppoisng what he explicitily denies.
That is it conflicts with to our common snese thinking about the world.
For example that in our ordinary langauge or conceptual scheme, ‘yellow’
is not distinguished from ‘the sensation of yellow’. Hence it may be
concluded that although there is lapps in Moore’s account of refutaion of
idealism, idealism simply does not provide th best explanation of how we
expereince reality. Moore himself later expressed that his essay on The
Refutation of Idealism was ‘very confused’ and embodied a ‘good many
down-right mistakes’. Nevertheless Moore’s break with idealism with his
refutation of idealism remains a decisive significance in the development
of analytic philosophy .His critique of the idealism helped to break its hold
on Anglo-American thought.

5.6 LET US SUM UP

l Moore’s criticism of idealism is a general criticism against what he

calls modern idealist. He assert that modern idealist are bound
together by a chain of inference that begin from the thought or

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expereinced of the phrase ‘esse is percipi’. That is all idealist

argument starts from ‘to be is to perceice (or think or expereince)’
to ‘reality is spiritual’. Moore in the essay on ‘The Refutation of
Idealism’ attemp to refute this line of reasoning by attaching the
claim that esse is percipi, which originated from Berkeley.
l Moore begins by examining the meaning of esse is percipi. He
argues that what is meant here is that esse includes percipi. That
is, the predicate ‘exist’ is to be defined as ‘is perceived’ plus some
additional x. That is being perceived is a necessary but insufficient
condition for existence. Moore’s task is to argued that this is not so.
l The crux of the argument is that idealist cannot consistently hold
that blue is simply identitical with the sensation of blue. Just
because sensation involves consciousness plus a certain content,
and the two always exist together it soes not follow that they are
inseparable. In fact the point is that they are separable . That is
blue is separable from the sensation of blue . That is blue is
different from the senation of blue. This is because, all of our
sensations are modes of conscionsess, they must have certain
commonalities, certain properties of consciousness qua
consciousness. Hence sensation of blue is similar to sensation of
green because both has the common elelment namely
consciousness. However sensation of blue is different from
sensation of green because the objects of sensations are different
, one is blue , the other is green. The point is that blue is the object
of our sensation and it cannot be strictly identitical with the
sensation ( of blue). What we have in this sensation is that there
exists the awareness of blue that is certainly knowable.
l Now awareness is mental, therefore awareness of blue is also
mental. According to Idealist awareness of blue entials the
existence of blue . Moore thinks that this is inconsistent. This is
because awareness of blue is awareness of my own mental
states and it does not justify the conclusion that blue exists. It also
does not justify the conclusion that blue is mental.

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