Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 11 of 11
Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network
Moore’S Paradox In Belief And Desire, John N. Williams
Moore’S Paradox In Belief And Desire, John N. Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
Is there a Moore’s paradox in desire? I give a normative explanation of the epistemic irrationality, and hence absurdity, of Moorean belief that builds on Green and Williams’ normative account of absurdity. This explains why Moorean beliefs are normally irrational and thus absurd, while some Moorean beliefs are absurd without being irrational. Then I defend constructing a Moorean desire as the syntactic counterpart of a Moorean belief and distinguish it from a ‘Frankfurt’ conjunction of desires. Next I discuss putative examples of rational and irrational desires, suggesting that there are norms of rational desire. Then I examine David Wall’s groundbreaking …
Moore’S Paradox And The Priority Of Belief Thesis, John Williams
Moore’S Paradox And The Priority Of Belief Thesis, John Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
Moore’s paradox is the fact that assertions or beliefs such as Bangkok is the capital of Thailand but I do not believe that Bangkok is the capital of Thailand or Bangkok is the capital of Thailand but I believe that Bangkok is not the capital of Thailand are ‘absurd’ yet possibly true. The current orthodoxy is that an explanation of the absurdity should first start with belief, on the assumption that once the absurdity in belief has been explained then this will translate into an explanation of the absurdity in assertion. This assumption gives explanatory priority to belief over assertion. …
The Completeness Of The Pragmatic Solution To Moore's Paradox In Belief: A Reply To Chan, John Williams
The Completeness Of The Pragmatic Solution To Moore's Paradox In Belief: A Reply To Chan, John Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
Moore’s paradox in belief is the fact that beliefs of the form ‘p and I do not believe that p’ are ‘absurd’ yet possibly true. Writers on the paradox have nearly all taken the absurdity to be a form of irrationality. These include those who give what Timothy Chan calls the ‘pragmatic solution’ to the paradox. This solution turns on the fact that having the Moorean belief falsifies its content. Chan, who also takes the absurdity to be a form of irrationality, objects to this solution by arguing that it is circular and thus incomplete. This is because it must …
The Completeness Of The Pragmatic Solution To Moore's Paradox In Belief: A Reply To Chan, John N. Williams
The Completeness Of The Pragmatic Solution To Moore's Paradox In Belief: A Reply To Chan, John N. Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
Moore’s paradox in belief is the fact that beliefs of the form ‘p and I do not believe that p’ are ‘absurd’ yet possibly true. Writers on the paradox have nearly all taken the absurdity to be a form of irrationality. These include those who give what Timothy CHAN calls the ‘pragmatic solution’ to the paradox. This solution turns on the fact that having the Moorean belief falsifies its content. CHAN, who also takes the absurdity to be a form of irrationality, objects to this solution by arguing that it is circular and thus incomplete. This is because it must …
Moore-Paradoxical Assertion, Fully Conscious Belief And The Transparency Of Belief, John N. Williams
Moore-Paradoxical Assertion, Fully Conscious Belief And The Transparency Of Belief, John N. Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
I offer a novel account of the absurdity of Moore-paradoxical assertion in terms of an interlocutor’s fully conscious beliefs. This account starts with an original argument for the principle that fully conscious belief collects over conjunction. The argument is premised on the synchronic unity of consciousness and the transparency of belief.
The Surprise Exam Paradox: Disentangling Two Reductios, John N. Williams
The Surprise Exam Paradox: Disentangling Two Reductios, John N. Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
One tradition of solving the surprise exam paradox, started by Robert Binkley and continued by Doris Olin, Roy Sorensen and Jelle Gerbrandy, construes surprise epistemically and relies upon the oddity of propositions akin to G. E. Moore's paradoxical 'p and I don't believe that p.' Here I argue for an analysis that evolves from Olin's. My analysis is different from hers or indeed any of those in the tradition because it explicitly recognizes that there are two distinct reductios at work in the student's paradoxical argument against the teacher. The weak reductio is easy to fault. Its invalidity determines the …
Moorean Absurdity And The Intentional 'Structure' Of Assertion, John N. Williams
Moorean Absurdity And The Intentional 'Structure' Of Assertion, John N. Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
No abstract provided.
Justifying Circumstances And Moore-Paradoxical Beliefs: A Response To Brueckner, John N. Williams
Justifying Circumstances And Moore-Paradoxical Beliefs: A Response To Brueckner, John N. Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
In 2004, I explained the absurdity of Moore-paradoxical belief via the syllogism (Williams 2004): (1) All circumstances that justify me in believing that p are circumstances that tend to make me believe that p. (2) All circumstances that tend to make me believe that p are circumstances that justify me in believing that I believe that p. (3) All circumstances that justify me in believing that p are circumstances that justify me in believing that I believe that p.
Moore's Paradoxes And Iterated Belief, John N. Williams
Moore's Paradoxes And Iterated Belief, John N. Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
I give an account of the absurdity of Moorean beliefs of the omissive form (om) p and I don’t believe that p, and the commissive form (com) p and I believe that not-p, from which I extract a definition of Moorean absurdity. I then argue for an account of the absurdity of Moorean assertion. After neutralizing two objections to my whole account, I show that Roy Sorensen’s own account of the absurdity of his ‘iterated cases’ (om1) p and I don’t believe that I believe that p, and (com1) p and I believe that I believe that not-p, is unsatisfactory. …
Wittgenstein, Moorean Absurdity And Its Disappearance From Speech, John N. Williams
Wittgenstein, Moorean Absurdity And Its Disappearance From Speech, John N. Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
G. E. Moore famously observed that to say, "I went to the pictures last Tuesday but I don't believe that I did" would be "absurd." Why should it be absurd of me to say something about myself that might be true of me? Moore suggested an answer to this, but as I will show, one that fails. Wittgenstein was greatly impressed by Moore's discovery of a class of absurd but possibly true assertions because he saw that it illuminates "the logic of assertion". Wittgenstein suggests a promising relation of assertion to belief in terms of the idea that one "expresses …
Moore's Paradox: One Or Two?, John N. Williams
Moore's Paradox: One Or Two?, John N. Williams
John N. WILLIAMS
Discussions of what is sometimes called 'Moore's paradox' are often vitiated by a failure to notice that there are two paradoxes; not merely one in two sets of linguistic clothing. The two paradoxes are absurd, but in different ways, and accordingly require different explanations.