Moore's Paradox: New Essays on Belief, Rationality, and the First PersonMitchell S. Green, John N. Williams Clarendon Press, 2007 M01 11 - 247 pages G. E. Moore famously observed that to assert, 'I went to the pictures last Tuesday but I don't believe that I did' would be 'absurd'. Moore calls it a 'paradox' that this absurdity persists despite the fact that what I say about myself might be true. Over half a century later, such sayings continue to perplex philosophers and other students of language, logic, and cognition. Ludwig Wittgenstein was fascinated by Moore's example, and the absurdity of Moore's saying was intensivelydiscussed in the mid-20th century. Yet the source of the absurdity has remained elusive, and its recalcitrance has led researchers in recent decades to address it with greater care.In this definitive treatment of the problem of Moorean absurdity Green and Williams survey the history and relevance of the paradox and leading approaches to resolving it, and present new essays by leading thinkers in the area.ContributorsJonathan Adler, Bradley Armour-Garb, Jay D. Atlas, Thomas Baldwin, Claudio de Almeida, André Gallois, Robert Gordon, Mitchell Green, Alan Hájek, Roy Sorensen, John Williams |
Contents
II MOORES PARADOX AND KNOWLEDGE | 51 |
III MOORES PARADOX BELIEF AND ASSERTION | 115 |
IV MOORES PARADOX AND CONSCIOUSNESS | 163 |
V ARGUMENTS FROM MOORES PARADOX | 215 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
acceptance account of Moorean argument assertor assumption believe that not-p believe that q believe that Syracuse believing 9 BI[P Cambridge claim commissive commitment consciously believing content-related reason contradiction contradictory beliefs Davis was re-elected discovered Neptune distinction distributes over conjunction don’t believe doxastic entails epistemic epistemology Evans’s principle example express fact false belief first-person G. E. Moore governor of California grammatical Gray Davis believes hold implies incoherence inconsistent infer instance intention interpretation irrational irrationality iteration justified in believing knowledge linguistic logical manifest mentally assents Moore sentence Moore-absurd Moore’s Paradox Moorean absurdity Moorean assertion Moorean belief Moorean Pretense Moorean sentence omissive one’s oneself Oxford Philosophical plutocracy pragmatic Preface Paradox premise probability pronoun propositional attitude question raining rationally believe re-elected governor second conjunct semantic Shoemaker Shoemaker’s sincere Sorensen speaker meaning speech act Suppose supposition theoretical rationality theory thought true truth University Press utterance Wittgenstein York