In his account of his philosophical development Russell wrote (1959:54): ‘It was towards the end of 1898 that Moore and I rebelled against both Kant and Hegel. Moore led the way, but I followed closely in his footsteps.’ I want here to describe the route Moore followed in this rebellion against idealism, and then to explore briefly his initial development of central themes arising out of it.

One of the founding myths of analytic philosophy is that Moore and Russell refuted their idealist predecessors by deploying robust common sense and a new logic. As with most myths, there is some truth to this one. On one occasion Moore does make an important point by means of an appeal to common sense, though much of his early philosophy is very far removed from common sense, which he was, indeed, initially inclined to reject (1899a:192). Likewise, Russell's work on infinity was of great importance in clearing away Kant's first antinomy (cf. Russell 1903 :ch. 52). Nonetheless, it is a myth that Moore and Russell refuted Kant, Hegel, and Bradley. No one now believes this to be true of Kant; Hegel is never seriously discussed by Moore and Russell; and though Bradley receives some attention from them, he is usually misunderstood or dismissed without much argument. Moore's famous paper ‘The refutation of idealism’ (1903a) contains no argument that an idealist need have been disturbed by.