Bloomsbury's Prophet

Description: Canonized as the plain mans philosopher and the defender of common sense G. E. Moore is one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. But Moores role as Bloomburys prophet has remained a mystery. How could the plain mans philosopher influence those legendary members of the Bloomsbury group--Lytton Strachey and John Maynard Keynes for example--who could never be characterized as plain men? With this book well-known contemporary philosopher Tom Regan solves the mystery. Relying on Moores published and unpublished work Regan traces the development of Moores moral philsophy up to and through his seminal work Principa Ethica (1903). Regan offers a radical reinterpretation of Principa. Contrary to the standard interpretation that works central theme is the liberation of the individual not dreary conformity to the rules of conventional morality. The Bloomsberries lived Moores philosophy--the same philosophy subsequent generations have misunderstood. At once literary and scholarly Bloomsburys Prophet challenges received opinions not only about Principa and Moore but about Bloomsbury itself. Endorsements: . . . an entertaining provocative and philosophically interesting book. --William L. Rowe Purdue University Regan presents a new and unfamiliar portrait of G. E. Moore. Principa Ethica will never seem the same again. -- James Rachels University of Alabama at Birmingham . . . serves as a welcome corrective to the typical approach to Moores early ethical theory. This book should help direct Moore studies for years to come. -- John OConnor About the Contributor(s): Tom Regan is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at North Carolina State University and author of The Case for Animal Rights.