Russell, Moore, Idealism and Knowing What One Is Talking About

ABSTRACT The topic addressed is persistent difficulties in writings on Russell and early Moore, of stating what it is one has in mind when thinking what there is. If propositions, whether before or after the multiple‐relations theory of judgement, are made up of the things themselves, then propositions cannot be the content of thought. In arguing for realism, Russell and Moore cannot open up a problem of the external world, as that would fail to refute idealism, but neither can they accept intermediary senses or ideas as these risk differing from what there is, precluding knowledge (cf. the Mont Blanc correspondence between Frege and Russell). Given Moore's and Russell's rejection of psychologism, what is left is an external relation of acquaintance as fully adequate representationism, as a condition on realism if we can be said to know what we are thinking and speaking about.