Abstract

Many interpreters have come up with a very reductive picture of the methodology of G. E. Moore. They have either failed to see the complete range of methods that are present in his philosophy, or else they have conflated several methods into one. As a result, they have come up with a correspondingly reductive picture of Moore's goals as a philosopher. In this regard it has been common to accord Moore's philosophy a merely negative or refutational value, while completely overlooking its whole positive or constructive content which consists of a categorial description of the universe through conceptual and propositional analysis. All of this is due, in part, to the fact that philosophical method is a subject which does not receive extensive and systematic treatment from Moore. Moore is far more interested in practicing his methodology than in discussing it. ;This Dissertation seeks to do justice to the richness and complexity of Moore's overall philosophical methodology and to evince the logical structure both of his refutations and his analyses. By the richness of Moore's methodology it is meant that his methodology is multidimensional, consisting of a whole array of methods which are irreducible one to the other. And by the complexity of Moore's methodology it is meant that these methods, though distinct, are interdependent, that they interact with each other both in the realm of refutation and in the realm of analysis. ;In addition to there being a plurality of philosophical methods in Moore's work, it is argued that there are two types or categories of meaning. Each of these types of meaning subdivides into a whole set of species or theories of meaning which, for exegetical purposes, can be grouped under the headings of "ordinary" and "technical." In this Dissertation, meaning is shown to be of crucial methodological significance for Moore, insofar as two of these theories of ordinary meaning provide Moore with the appropriate subject matter upon which he performs a variety of philosophical analyses. Genuine methods of analysis are identified, distinguished both from one another and from "pseudo-analytical" procedures, and systematically reconstructed along basic Moorean premises