Consuelo Preti

This chapter is an account of how the intellectual atmosphere at Cambridge was shaped in the nineteenth century. There was a robust presence of what was then known as mental science in philosophical study at Cambridge, a line of influence in this story that has received limited attention. The focus is on debates concerning psychologism and anti-psychologism in the study of philosophy and psychology on the continent and at Cambridge, before and during Moore’s student days. Hermann Lotze and Franz Brentano were greatly influential on Moore’s teachers G. F. Stout and James Ward, who also engaged with F. H. Bradley at Oxford in lively disputes in the nature of logic, metaphysics, and psychology. These influences are examined in order to set the stage for the discussion and analysis of Moore’s undergraduate work (1894–1896) and his post-graduate philosophical achievements (1897–1899).

Moore’s early philosophical development can be traced to the developing mental science of the day and its impact on the study of the moral sciences at Cambridge. But this also intersected with the development of the ethical views that are more traditionally associated with Moore. Chapters 1 and 2 argue that philosophy (moral science) at Cambridge in Moore’s day was a blend of logic, psychology, metaphysics, and ethics, which must be understood in a host of expressly nineteenth century ways. Thus, Moore’s introduction to philosophy at Cambridge cannot be characterised as stemming uniquely from the influence of Bradleyan Absolute Idealism. Chapter 3 makes the case that the anti-psychologistic perspective that played such a large role in the study of philosophy at Cambridge was no less featured—and no less influential on Moore—in the ethical views of his teacher Henry Sidgwick. This chapter examines not only Sidgwick’s views on Kant and on the nature of ethics, but also the evidence for Sidgwick’s influence via Moore’s lecture notes, essays, and other surviving material.

Moore began a study of Kant’s ethical philosophy in his 1897 and 1898 Trinity Fellowship Dissertations, which ultimately formed the groundwork for his monumental Principia Ethica (1903). Standard accounts do not situate Principia Ethica in its own historical context, however. In Chap. 4, Moore’s Trinity Fellowship Dissertations are given careful examination, casting new light on the origins of Moore’s theory of judgment, a theory whose defining role on the origins of analytic philosophy cannot be overstated. Moore’s Principia Ethica evolved from ideas that were first manifested in Moore’s earliest Apostles’ papers, developed through his Trinity Fellowship dissertations, and refined through his Elements of Ethics lectures (1898–1899). This great work of early twentieth century ethics is thus shown to be the culmination of Moore’s early philosophical investigations.

This chapter is an examination of the evidence of the effects of the continental Psychologismusstreit on Moore’s introduction to mental science and moral science via his teachers. Moore’s teachers were influential mental scientists in their own right, but their critical approach to continental idealism, particularly in their discussions of Kant, is an important element in an account of Moore’s early philosophical development. This chapter examines the influences on Moore’s thought via surviving archival material, including Moore’s lecture notes and essays. The focus is on giving an account of the way in which an act/object distinction—or an act/content/object distinction—had begun to surface explicitly in the mental science and philosophical literature of the late nineteenth century, along with a deepening awareness of a gap between the logical and metaphysical properties of mental states and their purely psychological ones that began to take hold across a variety of disciplines on the continent and in Britain.

Analytic Philosophy: An Interpretive History explores the ways interpretation shaped the analytic tradition, from Frege to Dummet. It offers readers 17 chapters, written especially for this volume by an international cast of leading scholars. Some chapters are devoted to large, thematic issues like the relationship between analytic philosophy and other philosophical traditions such as British Idealism and phenomenology, while other chapters are tied to more fine-grained topics or to individual philosophers, like Moore and Russell on philosophical method or the history of interpretations of Wittgenstein’s _Tractatus_. Throughout, the focus is on interpretations that are crucial to the origin, development, and persistence of the analytic tradition. The result is a more fully formed and philosophically satisfying portrait of analytic philosophy.

Early Analytic Philosophy: An Inclusive Reader With Commentary contains the most important readings in the development of the analytic tradition in philosophy. Featuring primary source material accompanied by introductions and commentaries, it brings together work by thinkers at the origins of the tradition. Beginning in the 1890s with F.H. Bradley and ending in the 1950s with W.V.O Quine, each chapter includes readings from a particular thinker or movement. Background information and further reading recommendations appear alongside discussion of the main ideas in the readings. Covering well-known figures such as Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and G.E. Moore, this reader also highlights the central role of neglected figures, such as E.E. Constance Jones and her logical writings, and L. Susan Stebbing's work on analysis and scientific discourse.

This book remedies the absence in the history of analytic philosophy of a detailed examination of G. E. Moore’s philosophical views as they developed between 1894 and 1902. This period saw the inauguration of analytic philosophy through the work of Moore and Bertrand Russell. Moore’s early views are examined in detail through unpublished archival material, including surviving letters, diaries, notes of lectures attended, papers for Cambridge societies, and drafts of early work, in order to revise the established view that the origin of analytic philosophy at Cambridge was an abrupt split from F. H. Bradley’s Absolute Idealism. Traditional accounts of this period have highlighted the anti-psychologism of Frege’s logic but have not explored the impact of this movement more broadly. Anti-psychologism was a key feature of the work of Moore’s teachers on the nature of the mind and its objects, in their interpretation of Kant, and in ethics. Moore’s teachers G.F. Stout and James Ward were significant contributors to the late 19th century debates in mental science and the developing new science of psychology. Henry Sidgwick’s criticisms of Kant and Bradley and his leading work in ethics were key influences on Moore. Moore’s Trinity Fellowship Dissertations are essential historical evidence of the development of Moore's new theory of judgment, a theory whose defining role in the origins of analytic philosophy cannot be overstated. Moore’s study of Kant in his dissertations ultimately formed the groundwork for his Principia Ethica, which evolved from ideas that manifested in Moore’s earliest Apostles’ papers, developed through his dissertations, and were refined through his Elements of Ethics lectures. This monumental work of early twentieth century ethics is thus shown to be the culmination of Moore’s early philosophical development.

G. E. Moore's fame as a philosopher rests on his ethics of love and beauty, which inspired Bloomsbury, and on his 'common sense' certainties which challenge abstract philosophical theory. Behind this lies his critical engagement with Kant's idealist philosophy, which is published here for the first time. These early writings, Moore's fellowship dissertations of 1897 and 1898, show how he initiated his influential break with idealism. In 1897 his main target was Kant's ethics, but by 1898 it was the whole Kantian project of transcendental philosophy that he rejected, and the theory which he developed to replace it gave rise to the new project of philosophy as logical analysis. This edition includes comments by Moore's examiners Henry Sidgwick, Edward Caird and Bernard Bosanquet, and in a substantial introduction the editors explore the crucial importance of the dissertations to the history of twentieth-century philosophical thought.

I argue that the familiar picture of the rise of analytic philosophy through the early work of G. E. Moore and Bertrand Russell is incomplete and to some degree erroneous. Archival evidence suggests that a considerable influence on Moore, especially evident in his 1899 paper ‘The nature of judgment,’ comes from the literature in nineteenth-century empirical psychology rather than nineteenth-century neo-Hegelianism, as is widely believed. I argue that the conceptual influences of Moore’s paper are more likely to have had their source in the work of two of Moore’s teachers, G. F. Stout and James Ward. What may be called an anti-psychologism about psychology characterizes the work of these and other psychologists of the period. I argue that the anti-psychologism that is the main aim of Moore’s early theory of judgment is an adaptation of this notion, which is significantly dissimilar from the notion defended by Bradley, traditionally thought to have been a key influence on Moore.Keywords: G. E. Moore; Bertrand Russell; Propositions; Anti-psychologism; Early analytic philosophy; G. F. Stout.

This paper begins with an exposition the apparent tension between externalist theories of content and common-sense belief/desire psychology, with a view to resolving the conflict between these two views. The second part of the paper is a criticism of Fodor’s reformulation of Twin Earth type cases.I argue that this attempt to mitigate the damage such cases do to the tenability of folk psychological explanation cannot work, because Twin Earth cases pose a metaphysical problem for content and explanation, not a nomological one, as Fodor argues. I discuss this in detail, by arguing that Twin Earth cases are illustrations of a metaphysical appearance/reality distinction for content.The paper concludes with a strategy for blending content externalism with a robust folk psychology: one that centers on the distinction between causation and causal explanation.

Externalistic theses about the nature of content appear to have untoward consequences for the role of content in folk pscyhological causal explanation. Given the predominance of Twin Earth formulations of externalism, however, the explanatory role problem is often construed as the problem of content's failure to supervene on intrinsic states of the head. In this paper I argue that this is misleading. The most general formulation of externalsim is shown to be independent of any supervenience claims. The result is that all concepts can be shown to be both externalist in individuation and irrelevant in causal explanation, whether or not they fail to supervene on intrinsinc states.

Contrary to appearances, semantic innocence can be claimed for a Fregean account of the semantics of expressions in indirect discourse. Given externalism about meaning, an expression that refers to its ordinary sense in an opaque context refers, ultimately, to its "references"; for, on this view, the reference of an expression directly determines its meaning. Externalism seems to have similar consequences for the truth-conditions of analytic sentences. If reference determines meaning, how can we distinguish a class of sentences as true in virtue of meaning alone? The paper closes by hinting at an account of analyticity from an externalist perspective.

Semantic externalism is the view that meaning is at least partly determined by reference. This suggests that the classic philosophical distinction between truth in virtue of meaning alone and truth in virtue of the world may need reconsideration. If all sentences are true in virtue of reference it is difficult to see how we can distinguish some sentences from others as true in virtue of the world-independent, purely semantic entities that their truth-conditions involve. I argue, to the contrary, that semantic externalism instead exposes significant problems with the orthodox view about meaning that underlies the orthodox view about analytic truth, and I offer an account of analyticity from the perspective of semantic externalism. On this view, the truth-value of analytic sentences will not be distinguished from those of synthetic sentences. The truth-conditions of an analytic sentence are, however, to be distinguished from what makes it "analytic". This account is one that revokes the customary world-independence of analytic sentences, but does not sacrifice their unique modal and epistemic features

This brief text assists students in understanding Fodor's philosophy and thinking so they can more fully engage in useful, intelligent class dialogue and improve their understanding of course content. Part of the Wadsworth Notes Series, (which will eventually consist of approximately 100 titles, each focusing on a single "thinker" from ancient times to the present), ON FODOR is written by a philosopher deeply versed in the philosophy of this key thinker. Like other books in the series, this concise book offers sufficient insight into the thinking of a notable philosopher, better enabling students to engage in reading and to discuss the material in class and on paper.

Semantic externalism is the view that meaning and mental content are determined by relations to the world of objects and properties outside the physical boundaries of the subject of mental states. What you mean by your words--what you're thinking when you're thinking about something--is essentially constituted by the world at large. It has become customary to formulate externalism in terms of so-called twin earth cases--cases where content do not supervene on inner states, but this formulation can be shown to be too limited to be of any great use in characterizing a theory of mind. A more general formulation of externalism is defended in chapter 1, one that characterizes all content. ;That externalism has untoward consequences for belief-desire psychology is a familiar point, but, given the predominance of twin earth formulations, the problem of content's explanatory role is often construed as the problem of content's failing to supervene. In chapter 2 we argue that this is a mistake. Externalism in its most general formulation has consequences for all content in explanation, not just content that fails to supervene on inner states. If content is externalistically individuated, then content is redundant in causal explanation. In chapter 2 we examine the redundancy problem and consider the options for its solution. ;Part one of chapter 3 concerns the further--unnoticed--consequence of externalism that requires a reconsideration of Davidson's charge that Fregean semantic theories fail the test of 'semantic innocence.' If meaning is partly determined by reference, then what an expression refers to in an opaque context, is, ultimately, its reference. Part two of chapter 3 concerns the consequences of externalism for analytic truth. If meaning is partly determined by reference, a question arises as to what becomes of the classical philosophical distinction between analytic and synthetic truth; between 'truth in virtue of meaning alone' and 'truth in virtue of meaning and the world.' Chapter 3 concludes with an account of analytic truth from the perspective of semantic externalism

Moore and Russell’s philosophical and personal paths through the early years of the twentieth century make a fascinating chronicle. Some of this story is familiar; but material from the unpublished Moore papers adds new and forceful detail to the account. It is a commonplace by now that Russell and Moore were not friends, although they maintained a long professional association. Their most intellectually intimate phase came early on, reaching a peak in 1897–99. But I show that during this period Moore developed an indisputable antagonism toward Russell, which I argue was motivated by a form of intellectual self-preservation from the Russellian juggernaut. This paper examines aspects of the development of their views and their relationship between 1894 and 1901.

ON KRIPKE, like other titles in the Wadsworth Philosopher's Series, offers a concise, yet comprehensive, introduction to this philosopher's most important ideas. Presenting the most important insights of well over a hundred seminal philosophers in both the Eastern and Western traditions, the Wadsworth Philosophers Series contains volumes written by scholars noted for their excellence in teaching and for their well-versed comprehension of each featured philosopher's major works and contributions. These titles have proven valuable in a number of ways. Serving as standalone texts when tackling a philosophers' original sources or as helpful resources for focusing philosophy students' engagements with these philosopher's often conceptually daunting works, these titles have also gained extraordinary popularity with a lay readership and quite often serve as "refreshers" for philosophy instructors.