George Edward Moore (Moore George Edward)

(1873-1958)
Born in London on November 4, 1873. In 1898-1904 member of the Board of Trinity College, Cambridge University, from 1911 he lectured on ethics, and since 1925 professor of philosophy at Cambridge. In 1940-1944 he taught at several American colleges and universities, and then returned to Cambridge. In 1921-1947 Moore - Editor-in 'Mind' ( 'Mind'). In 1918 he was elected a member of the British Academy of Sciences, in 1951 awarded the Order of Merit. Moore died in Cambridge on Oct. 24, 1958.
Moore - one of the most influential thinkers in the contemporary Anglo-American philosophy, this effect is due not only to his proposed method of philosophizing, but a number of concepts, which was associated with his name. Moore's efforts were aimed at the analysis on private, although the fundamental philosophical problems, and he sought to end to understand the meaning of utterances of the philosophers and the assumptions on which rested the truth or falsity of their thesis.

In the sphere of his interests include ethics, epistemology and methods of philosophical analysis. Many of his ideas served as the beginning of entire areas in philosophy, but he later often rejected or seriously modify a his theses.

The main contribution of Moore in ethics was an analysis of the meaning of fundamental ethical concepts - 'good', 'accuracy' and 'debt', especially in the Beginning of Ethics (Principia Ethica, 1903). From his point of view, good is understandable only in the immediate intuition (a so-called. ethical intuitionism). Moore strongly criticized the major ethical systems in an attempt to determine the meaning of 'good' to 'naturalistic' terms of pleasure, utility and others. In his understanding, intuition allows us to see that the good things in life are certain integrity, consisting of aesthetic pleasure, love and friendship.

Moore works on the theory of knowledge allow us to speak of him as a pioneer of the movement, aims at the revival of Platonic realism. Article Refutation of Idealism (The refutation of idealism, . 1903), . published in the journal 'Mind', . been criticized subjectivist theory of knowledge, . such theory Berkeley, . in which the existence of things become dependent on their perception,
. In many essential points Moore remained a realist, although a number of items found his early views of questionable. Article Nature judgments (The nature of judgement, . 1898), . also exerted a great influence on the subsequent development of philosophy and logic, . he was subjected to a detailed analysis and criticism of one of the main assumptions of Hegelianism (in particular, . system F. Bradley), . namely thesis, . that there is no purely external relations,
. According to the absolute idealism, all relations are internal and necessary. The notion of 'internal relations' is based on the holistic theory of the, . that the properties of individual things in a sense secondary to the properties of the universe as a whole, . the same relationship observed between the mind and 'external objects',
. Criticism of the theory of internal relations was held Moore and Bertrand Russell in terms of a so-called. atomistic picture of the world, according to which the world consists of many individuals, relations between which exist or not exist by virtue of accidental circumstances.

Moore's work on the method of philosophy, have drawn attention to the role of linguistic analysis in the solution of philosophical problems. Moore tried to show that a number of traditional problems can not be authentic, since they arise from the incorrect use of everyday language. He also defended the position of common sense and the Scottish School T. Reed. Fruitful for many branches of philosophy was proposed by them in this regard, the distinction between understanding the meaning of such judgments of common sense, like 'The earth existed for many years', and the ability to conduct a correct analysis of the meaning of

. Among the publications of Moore's note also Philosophical Research (Philosophical Studies, . 1922); Some of the main problems of philosophy (Some Main Problems of Philosophy, . 1953); philosophical works (Philosophical Papers, . 1959), The Book of common places, . 1919-1953 (Commonplace Book, . 1919-1953, . 1962).,