Philosophical Studies

by G. E. Moore

I think, perhaps, the point I want to insist on can be brought out in this way. I have just said that we have pointed out one particular one, and that the most important, among the conceptions for which the term "reality" may stand; and that is an excusable way of saying what we have done. But it would, I think, be more correct to say that we have pointed out one particular, and that the most important, usage of the terms "real" and "unreal," and that one of the peculiarities of this usage is that it is such that the terms "real" and "unreal" cannot, when used in this way, be properly said to stand for any conception whatever. I will try to explain what I mean. We have said that what "Lions are real" means is that some particular property or other—I will say, for the sake of brevity, the property of being a lion, though that is not strictly accurate, does In fact belong to some-thing—that there are things which have it, or, to put it in another way, that the conception of being a lion is a conception which does apply to some things—that there are things which fall under it. And similarly what "Unicorns are unreal" means is that the property of being a unicorn belongs to nothing. Now, if this is so, then it seems to me, in a very important sense, "real" and "unreal" do not in this usage stand for any conceptions at all. The only conceptions which occur in the proposition "Lions are real" are, on this interpretation, plainly, (1) the conception of being a lion, and (2) the conception of belonging to something, and perfectly obviously "real" does not stand for either of these. In the case of the first that is obvious; but it is worth while pointing out that it is also true of the second.

For if "is real" did stand for "belongs to something," then the proposition "Lions are real" would stand, not for the assertion that the property of "being a lion" belongs to something, but for the assertion that lions themselves are properties which belong to something; and it is quite obvious that what we mean to assert is not any such nonsense as this. "Real," therefore, does not, in this proposition, stand for the conception of "belonging to something" nor yet, quite plainly, does it stand for the conception of "being a lion." And hence, since these are the only two conceptions which do occur in the proposition, we may, I think, say that "real," in this usage, does not stand for any conception at all. To say that it did would be to imply that it stood for some property of which we are asserting that everything which has the property of "being a lion" also has this other property. But we are not, in fact, asserting any such thing. We are not asserting of any property called "reality" that it belongs to lions, as in the proposition "Lions are mammalian" we are asserting of the property of "being a mammal" that it belongs to lions. The two propositions "Lions are real" and "Lions are mammalian," though grammatically similar, are in reality of wholly different forms; and one difference between them may be expressed by saying that whereas "mammalian" does stand for a property or conception, the very point of this usage of "real" is that it does not.

To return to Mr. Bradley. "Time is unreal" ought to mean, according to me, "Temporal facts are unreal," in the sense I have tried to explain. And I cannot help thinking that this which he ought to mean is, in part at least, what Mr. Bradley does mean when he says "Time is unreal," though possibly be also means something else as well. But if so, it is quite clear, I think, that what he means is inconsistent with its being true that Time exists or that there is such a thing as Time. To say that Time exists or that there is such a thing, is to assert at least, that there are some temporal facts: it may assert more than this, but it does assert this, at least. And this, we have seen, is exactly what is denied when it is said that Time is unreal. "Time is unreal" just means "Temporal facts are unreal," or "there are no temporal facts," or "Temporal facts do not exist." And just this is also what is meant by "Time does not exist" or "There is no such thing as Time." There is, in fact, nothing, else for these expressions to mean. What, therefore, Mr. Bradley ought to mean and (according to me) does mean by "Time is unreal" is, in fact, inconsistent with what he ought to mean by "Time exists" or by "Time is." And yet plainly he does not think that it is so. Is it possible to explain why he should have failed to perceive the inconsistency?

I think his failure can be explained as follows. It may have been noticed that, in the passages I quoted from him, he insists in one place, that to deny that appearances exist is not merely false but self-contradictory, and in another appeals to the principle that "any deliverance of consciousness is but a deliverance of consciousness" in support of his contention that what is a fact need, nevertheless, not be real. And the fact that he does these two things does, I think, give colour to the suggestion that the reason why he thinks that what is unreal may yet exist, and be a fact, and be, is the following. It is undoubtedly the case that, even if temporal facts are unreal, i.e., there are no such things, we can and do think of them, just as it is undoubtedly the case that, though unicorns are unreal, we can and do imagine them. In other words, "temporal facts" and "unicorns" are both quite certainly "deliverances of consciousness," at least in the sense that they are "objects of thought"; being "objects of thought" they are, in a wide sense, "appearances" also, and I cannot help thinking that Mr. Bradley supposes that, merely because they are so, they must at least BE. "How" (I imagine he would ask) "can a thing 'appear' or even 'be thought of' unless it is there to appear and to be thought of? To say that it appears or is thought of, and that yet there is no such thing, is plainly self-contradictory. A thing cannot have a property, unless it is there to have it, and, since unicorns and temporal facts do have the property of being thought of, there certainly must be such things. When I think of a unicorn, what I am thinking of is certainly not nothing; if it were nothing, then, when I think of a griffin, I should also be thinking of nothing, and there would be no difference between thinking of a griffin and thinking of a unicorn. But there certainly is a difference; and what can the difference be except that in the one case what I am thinking of is a unicorn, and in the other a griffin? And if the unicorn is what I am thinking of, then there certainly must be a unicorn, in spite of the fact that unicorns are unreal. In other words, though in one sense of the words there certainly are no unicorns—that sense, namely, in which to assert that there are would be equivalent to asserting that unicorns are real—yet there must be some other sense in which there are such things; since, if there were not, we could not think of them."

Perhaps, it may be thought that the fallacy involved in this argument is too gross for it to be possible that Mr. Bradley should have been guilty of it. But there are other passages in Appearance and Reality—particularly what he says about Error —which look to me as if he certainly was guilty of it. I suppose it will be quite obvious to everyone here that it is a fallacy; that the fact that we can think of unicorns is not sufficient to prove that, in any sense at all, there are any unicorns. Yet, I am not sure that I know myself what is the mistake involved in thinking that it is sufficient, and I am going, therefore, to try to put as clearly as I can, what I think it is, in the hope that somebody may be able, if I am wrong, to correct me.

The main mistake, I suppose, is the mistake of thinking that the proposition "Unicorns are thought of" is a proposition of the same form as "Lions are hunted"; or the proposition "I am thinking of a unicorn" of the same form as "I am hunting a lion"; or the proposition "Unicorns are objects of thought" of the same form as "Lions are objects of the chase." Of the second proposition in each of these three pairs, it is in fact the case that it could not be true unless there were lions—at least one. Each of them does, in fact, assert both with regard to a certain property—which we will call that of "being a lion"—that there are things which possess it, and also with regard to another—that of being hunted—that some of the things which possess the former possess this property too. But it is obvious enough to common sense that the same is by no means true of the first proposition in each pair, in spite of the fact that their grammatical expression shows no trace of the difference. It is perfectly obvious that if I say "I am thinking of a unicorn,"

I am not saying both that there is a unicorn and that I am thinking of it, although, if I say "I am hunting a lion," I am saying both that there is a lion, and that I am hunting it. In the former case,

I am not asserting that the two properties of being a unicorn and of being thought of by me both belong to one and the same thing; whereas, in the latter case, I am asserting that the two properties of being a lion and of being hunted by me do belong to one and the same thing. It is quite clear that there is in fact, this difference between the two propositions; although no trace of it appears in their verbal expression. And why we should use the same form of verbal expression to convey such different meanings is more than I can say. It seems to me very curious that language, in this, as in the other instance which we have just considered of "Lions are real" and "Lions are mammalian," should have grown up just as if it were expressly designed to mislead philosophers; and I do not know why it should have. Yet, it seems to me there is no doubt that in ever so many instances it has. Moreover, exactly what is meant by saying "I am thinking of a unicorn" is not by any means clear to me. I think we can assert at least this: In order that this proposition should be true, it is necessary (1) that I should be conceiving, with regard to a certain property, the hypothesis that there Is something which possesses it, and (2) that the property in question should be such that, if anything did possess it there would be a unicorn. Although this is plainly true, it does not give us completely what is meant by the statement, "I am thinking of a unicorn"; and I do not know what the complete meaning is. It is certainly not that I am conceiving with regard to the property of "being a unicorn," that there is something which possesses it; since I may be thinking of a unicorn, without ever having conceived the property of "being a unicorn" at all. Whatever it does mean, the point which concerns us is that it is certainly not necessary for its truth, that the property of being a unicorn should, in fact, belong to anything whatever, or, therefore, that there should in any sense whatever be a unicorn. And the fallacy I am attributing to Mr. Bradley is that of supposing that, in some sense, it must imply this latter.

This, then, is what I imagine to be at least one of the reasons which have led Mr. Bradley to suppose that the proposition "Time is unreal," must be consistent with the proposition "There is such a thing as Time." Put shortly, it is that he sees (what is perfectly true) that "Time is unreal" must be consistent with "We do think of Time;" he thinks (falsely) that "We do think of Time" must imply, in some sense, "There is such a thing as Time;" and finally, infers (correctly) from this true and this false premiss, that there must be some sense of the proposition "There is such a thing as Time" which is consistent with "Time is unreal."

It follows, then, that if Mr. Bradley means what he ought mean both by "Time is unreal" and by "Time exists," he is contradicting himself when he combines these two propositions. And I have said I feel convinced that he does mean what he ought to mean by the former. But I feel a good deal of doubt as to whether, all the same, he is contradicting himself, because it does seem to me doubtful whether he means what he ought to mean by the latter. The kind of thing which I imagine may be happening to him when he insists so strongly that Time does exist, is a fact, and is, is that, properly speaking, he is not attaching to these phrases any meaning whatever—not, therefore, that which they properly bear. It seems to me very possible that he has so strongly convinced himself of the false proposition that there must be some sense in which, if I think of a unicorn, there must be a unicorn, that wherever he knows the former proposition holds, he allows himself to use the latter form of words, without attaching any meaning to them. What he is really asserting so emphatically may, I think, be not anything which his words stand for, but simply this verbal proposition that there must be some sense in which they are true.