Cambridge School
Cambridge School
A term loosely applied to English philosophers who have been influenced by the teachings of Professor G. E. Moore (mainly in unpublished lectures delivered at the Cambridge University, 1911-1939). In earlier years Moore stressed the need to accept the judgments of “common sense” on such matters as the existence of other persons, of an “external world”, etc. The business of the analytical philosopher was not to criticise such judgments but to display the structure of the facts to which they referred. (Cf. “A defense of common-sense in philosophy,” Contemporary British Philosophy, 2 (1925) — Moore’s only discussion of the method.) Such analysis would be directional, terminating in basic or atomic facts, all of whose constituents might be known by acquaintance. The examples discussed were taken largely from the field of epistemology, turning often about the problem of the relation of material objects to sense-data, and of indirect to direct knowledge. In this earlier period problems were often suggested by Russell’s discussion of descriptions and logical constructions. The inconclusiveness of such specific discussions and an increasingly critical awareness of the functions of language in philosophical analysis has in later years tended to favor more flexible interpretations of the nature of analysis. (Cf. M. Black, “Relations Between Logical Positivism and the Cambridge School of Analysis”, Journal of Unified Science (Erkenntnis), 8, 24-35 for a bibliography and list of philosophers who have been most influenced by emphasis on directional analysis.) — M.B.