Talk:George Edward Moore
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article is part of the Philosophy WikiProject, an attempt at creating a standardised, informative, comprehensive and easy-to-use Philosophy resource. Please read the instructions and standards for writing and maintaining philosophy articles. |
 |
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page. | ||
| ??? | This article has not yet received a rating on the Project's quality scale. Please rate the article and then leave a short summary here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article. [FAQ] | ||
This article demonstrates a failure to grasp the meaning of the Open Question Argument. The Open Question Argument claims that, given a definition "x = y", if it is still meaningful to wonder, "This thing has y, but does it have x?", then the definition is incorrect. This relies on the idea of open and closed questions. Consider the following definition: "A bachelor is an unmarried man." This definition does not fall to the Open Question Argument, since it's never an open question to say, "Well, Fred is a bachelor, but is he an unmarried man?" This question is closed; it is obviously true. This is just what the two phrases "bachelor" and "unmarried man" mean. Moore considers the definition (slightly rephrased), "A 'good' thing is a thing we 'desire to desire'". He then claims (quite correctly) that you can certainly wonder, "Well, I desire to desire this action, but is it good?" Then, provided the structure of the Open Question Argument is valid, he has shown that the definition is not correct. Moore then claims that all meaningful definitions of "good" fail in the same way. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 140.180.149.249 (talk • contribs) .
Mores "Proof of an External World" is so ridiculous and ill-conceived that it does not deserve mentioning in a philosophy article. His "intuition" is not even an argument. Apparently, he never found the time to read Descartes Meditations, which were published in the 17th century. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Kikl (talk • contribs) .
- Given that it's his most famous work, and widely influenced other philosophers as well, I think it's patently ridiculous to assert that it should not be mentioned. You may have your own idiosyncratic opinions on what ought to be discussed in philosophy, but Wikipedia is not the place to advocate them. --Delirium 02:07, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Influences
In the "Influences" section Bradley and McTaggart are mentioned. Moore certainly had read Bradley's book and he had McTaggart as a teacher, but im not sure he was influenced in his works by them.--Greece666 22:26, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
