Philosophical Studies · G. E. Moore
THE CONCEPTION OF REALITY
The only further argument I shall bring in favour of my view that he does mean what he ought to mean will take the form of an answer to one possible argument which might be brought against it. When I nave explained what he _ought_ to mean by saying that "Time is unreal," it will be quite clear that this is something which is in fact incompatible with the truth of the propositions that Time _is,_ or _exists,_ or _is a fact._ And it might be urged that the fact that it is thus incompatible is a strong argument against the view that Mr. Bradley does mean what he _ought_ to mean, since, if he had meant it, he could hardly have failed to perceive that what he meant _was_ inconsistent with these propositions, whereas, as we have seen, he certainly does not perceive this. I have an answer to that argument, which consists in giving an explanation, which I think a plausible one, as to how he could come to think that the propositions are _not_ inconsistent, when in fact they are.
What, then, _ought_ Mr. Bradley to mean by "Time is unreal"? What would most people mean by this proposition? I do not think there is much difficulty in discovering what sort of thing they would mean by it. Of course, Time, with a big T, seems to be a highly abstract kind of entity, and to define _exactly_ what can be meant by saying of an entity of that sort that it is unreal does seem to offer difficulties. But if you try to translate the proposition into the concrete, and to ask what it _implies,_ there is, I think, very little doubt as to the sort of thing it implies. The moment you try to do this, and think what it really comes to, you at once begin thinking of a number of different _kinds_ of propositions, all of which plainly must be untrue, if Time is unreal. If Time is unreal, then plainly nothing ever happens before or after anything else; nothing is ever simultaneous with anything else; it is never true that anything is past; never true that anything will happen in the future; never true that anything is happening now; and so on.
You can at once think of a considerable number of kinds of propositions (and you could easily add to the list), the falsehood of all of which is plainly implied by saying that Time is unreal. And it is clear, also, that to say that the falsehood of all propositions of these kinds is implied is equivalent to saying that there are no facts of certain corresponding kinds--no facts which consist in one event happening before another; none which consist in an event being past or future, and so on. That is to say, what "Time is unreal" implies is that, in the case of a large number of different _properties_ which are such that, if they _did_ belong to anything, what they belonged to would be facts having some common characteristic, which we might express by calling them "temporal facts," the properties in question do, in fact, belong to nothing. It implies that the property of being a fact which consists in one event following another belongs to nothing; that that of being a past event belongs to nothing, and so on.
And why it implies that all those different special properties belong to nothing is, I think we may say, because what it _means_ is that the general property which I have called that of being a "temporal fact" belongs to nothing. To say that the property of being a temporal fact belongs to nothing _does imply_ that such special properties as that of being a fact which consists in one event following another, or that of being a fact which consists in something being past, also belong to nothing; in exactly the same way as to say that the property of being "coloured" belongs to nothing _implies_ with regard to the special properties "being red," "being blue," etc., that they also belong to nothing. We may, then, I think, say that what "Time is unreal" _means_ is simply "The property of being a temporal fact belongs to nothing," or, to express this in the way in which it would be expressed in ordinary life, "There _are_ no temporal facts." And this being so, we have explained the usage of "unreal," where it is predicated of Time with a capital T, by reference to a much more common and perfectly familiar usage of the term.
The use of "is unreal" in the phrase "Time is unreal" has been defined by reference to its use in the phrase "Temporal facts are unreal." And its use in this phrase is, so far as I can see, exactly the same as in hosts of phrases with which we are perfectly familiar; it is, I think, _the_ commonest and by far the most important use of the term "unreal." The use is that in which we use it when we say, "Unicorns are unreal," "Griffins are unreal," "Chimæras are unreal," and so on. It is the usage in which unreal is equivalent to "imaginary"; and in which to say "Unicorns are unreal" means the same as "There are no unicorns" or "Unicorns do not exist." In just the same way the proposition "Temporal facts are unreal," into which we have translated "Time is unreal," means the same as "There are no temporal facts," or "Temporal facts do not exist," or "Temporal facts are imaginary." I think, then, that what Mr. Bradley _ought_ to mean by "Time is unreal" can be defined by reference to one particular usage of the word "real" --or, if you like to put it that way, to one particular one among the conceptions for which the term "reality" may stand. And this particular conception seems to me to be by far the commonest and most important of those for which the term does stand. I want, therefore, before going on, to dwell a little upon its nature; although I daresay that all that I have to say is perfectly familiar and perfectly well understood by every one here. Of course, it has often been said before, but I think it is still very far from being generally understood.
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.
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. [1] _Appearance and Reality_ (2nd edn.), p. 35. The Italics are mine. [2] _Op. cit._ pp. 131-2.
Ideas discussed in this chapter
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