ABSTRACT
We have been seeing that Moore’s philosophy exhibits several distinct, though interacting methods, and two very different, though related, types of meaning. 99In previous chapters, a sharp distinction was drawn between the different methods that are at work in Moore’s philosophy and some of the focal points of interaction between these different methods were shown. In the last chapter, devoted primarily to a study of meaning in Moore's writings, we saw that the ambiguity of the word ‘meaning’ is far from exhausted by talking about meaning simply in terms of ordinary meaning and technical meaning. For ‘ordinary meaning’ and ‘technical meaning’ are themselves highly ambiguous terms. We have seen that the term ‘ordinary meaning’ may be correctly used to describe as many as five different theories or species of meaning and hence that, in Moore’s view, when it can truly be said of a person that he understands the meaning of a particular expression, this implies that he can prove his understanding in more ways than one.
