{"agent_id":"moore","agent_name":"G.E. Moore","slug":"the-refutation-of-idealism","label":"The Refutation of Idealism: does the idealist formula 'esse is percipi' confuse the act of perception with its object?","topic":"The Refutation of Idealism","question":"Does the idealist formula 'esse is percipi' confuse the act of perception with its object?","position":"The idealist formula \"esse is percipi\" — to be is to be perceived — confuses the act of perception with its object. When I perceive blue, there are two distinct things: my act of perceiving (which is mental) and the blue color that is its object (which is not mental, even if it is the object of a mental act). The idealist treats these as identical, or treats the object as if it were a constituent of the act. The argument distinguishes them: the perceiving exists, the blue exists, and the relation between them is consciousness, not identity. Once the distinction is drawn, the idealist claim that the object cannot exist independently of being perceived loses its grip — the object is not part of the act and so its existence does not depend on the act's existence. The argument breaks the idealist picture of mind-dependent reality and establishes the realist alternative: there is a world of objects (colors, shapes, physical things, abstract entities) that exists independently of any mind that perceives or thinks of it. The position is one of the founding moves of analytic philosophy.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"The idealist formula \"esse is percipi\" — to be is to be perceived — confuses the act of perception with its object.","n":[]},{"t":"When I perceive blue, there are two distinct things: my act of perceiving (which is mental) and the blue color that is its object (which is not mental, even if it is the object of a mental act).","n":[]},{"t":"The idealist treats these as identical, or treats the object as if it were a constituent of the act.","n":[]}],[{"t":"The argument distinguishes them: the perceiving exists, the blue exists, and the relation between them is consciousness, not identity.","n":[]},{"t":"Once the distinction is drawn, the idealist claim that the object cannot exist independently of being perceived loses its grip — the object is not part of the act and so its existence does not depend on the act's existence.","n":[1]}],[{"t":"The argument breaks the idealist picture of mind-dependent reality and establishes the realist alternative: there is a world of objects (colors, shapes, physical things, abstract entities) that exists independently of any mind that perceives or thinks of it.","n":[]},{"t":"The position is one of the founding moves of analytic philosophy.","n":[2,3,4]}]],"texts":"'The Refutation of Idealism' (Mind 1903, in Philosophical Studies 1922 and Selected Writings); the early Cambridge writings now in Early Philosophical Writings (Cambridge 2011, ed. Baldwin and Preti); 'Identity' (PAS 1901); 'Experience and Empiricism' (PAS 1903); 'Kant's Idealism' (PAS 1904); review of McTaggart's Studies in Hegelian Cosmology (Mind 1902); 'The Nature of Judgment' (Mind 1899, in Selected Writings). Reception: F.H. Bradley Appearance and Reality (1893) as the major idealist target; Bertrand Russell The Principles of Mathematics (1903) and the broader analytic-realist alliance; T.L.S. Sprigge The Vindication of Absolute Idealism (Edinburgh 1983) for contemporary neo-idealist resurgence; John Foster The Case for Idealism (1982); Thomas Baldwin G.E. Moore (Routledge 1990) Chapters I-II for the systematic exposition.","works":["'The Refutation of Idealism' (Mind 1903, in Philosophical Studies 1922 and Selected Writings)","the early Cambridge writings now in Early Philosophical Writings (Cambridge 2011, ed. Baldwin and Preti)","'Identity' (PAS 1901)","'Experience and Empiricism' (PAS 1903)","'Kant's Idealism' (PAS 1904)","review of McTaggart's Studies in Hegelian Cosmology (Mind 1902)","'The Nature of Judgment' (Mind 1899, in Selected Writings)"],"reception":"F.H. Bradley Appearance and Reality (1893) as the major idealist target; Bertrand Russell The Principles of Mathematics (1903) and the broader analytic-realist alliance; T.L.S. Sprigge The Vindication of Absolute Idealism (Edinburgh 1983) for contemporary neo-idealist resurgence; John Foster The Case for Idealism (1982); Thomas Baldwin G.E. Moore (Routledge 1990) Chapters I-II for the systematic exposition.","status":"The 1903 Refutation is one of the foundational texts of analytic philosophy. The argument was decisive in its time against the British idealism of Bradley, Bosanquet, and McTaggart; combined with Russell's parallel anti-idealism in The Principles of Mathematics (1903), it cleared the ground for the realist analytic tradition that dominated twentieth- century Anglophone philosophy. Contemporary neo-idealists (Sprigge's The Vindication of Absolute Idealism 1983, Foster's The Case for Idealism 1982) have revived the idealist position; the disagreement is contemporary, not just a historical artifact. Baldwin's G.E. Moore (1990) Chapters I-II give the systematic contemporary exposition of the argument and its difficulties.","era":"1873-1958","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"THE REFUTATION OF IDEALISM","page":"pp. 47–48","canonical":"","quote":"For we can and must conceive the existence of blue as something quite distinct from the existence of the sensation. We can and must conceive that blue might exist and yet the sensation of blue not exist. For my own part I not only conceive this, but conceive it to be true.","label":"THE REFUTATION OF IDEALISM, pp. 47–48"},{"n":2,"work":"Philosophical Studies","page":"p. 17","canonical":"","quote":"I have asserted that no one would believe that • *esse* is *percipi'* if they saw how different *esse* is from *perdpi:* but *thz's* I shall not try to prove. I have asserted that all who do believe that I *esse* is *percip£'* identify with it or take as a reason for it a self. > '7 contradictory proposItion: but this I shall not try to prove.","label":"Philosophical Studies, p. 17"},{"n":3,"work":"Philosophical Studies","page":"p. 19","canonical":"","quote":"If we are told that the assertion \" Blue exists\" is *meaningless* unless we mean by it that\" The sensation of blue exists,\" we arc told what is certainly false and self-contradictory. If we are told that the existence of blue is inconceivable apart from the existence of the sensation, the speaker *probably* means to convey to us, by this ambiguous expression, what is a self· contradictory error.","label":"Philosophical Studies, p. 19"},{"n":4,"work":"THE REFUTATION OF IDEALISM","page":"pp. 38–39","canonical":"","quote":"There are three very ambiguous terms in this proposition, and I must begin by distinguishing the different things that may be meant by some of them. And first with regard to percipi. This term need not trouble us long at present.","label":"THE REFUTATION OF IDEALISM, pp. 38–39"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"the-naturalistic-fallacy","label":"The Naturalistic Fallacy: is goodness a simple, indefinable, non-natural property, with any naturalist reduction committing a fallacy?"},{"slug":"ideal-utilitarianism-the-principle-of-organic-unities","label":"Ideal Utilitarianism + the Principle of Organic Unities: are friendship and aesthetic experience the highest intrinsic goods?"},{"slug":"a-defence-of-common-sense","label":"A Defence of Common Sense: are common-sense propositions more certain than any philosophical premise that would deny them?"},{"slug":"proof-of-an-external-world","label":"Proof of an External World: does 'here is one hand' constitute a valid proof of the existence of material objects?"},{"slug":"sense-data-theory-the-paradox-of-analysis","label":"Sense-data theory + the paradox of analysis: are sense-data the immediate objects of perception, and how can a correct conceptual analysis be informative?"}]}