Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 7 of 7
Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Moore’S Paradox And The Priority Of Belief Thesis, John N. Williams
Moore’S Paradox And The Priority Of Belief Thesis, John N. Williams
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
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. …
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
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
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.
Moore’S Paradox, Truth And Accuracy, Mitchell S. Green, John N. Williams
Moore’S Paradox, Truth And Accuracy, Mitchell S. Green, John N. Williams
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
G. E. Moore famously observed that to assert ‘I went to the pictures last Tuesday but I do not 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. Krista Lawlor and John Perry have proposed an explanation of the absurdity that confines itself to semantic notions while eschewing pragmatic ones. We argue that this explanation faces four objections. We give a better explanation of the absurdity both in assertion and in belief that avoids our four objections.
Moore's Paradox, Defective Interpretation, Justified Belief And Conscious Belief, John N. Williams
Moore's Paradox, Defective Interpretation, Justified Belief And Conscious Belief, John N. Williams
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
In this journal, Hamid Vahid argues against three families of explanation of Moore-paradoxicality. The first is the Wittgensteinian approach; I assert that p just in case I assert that I believe that p. So making a Moore-paradoxical assertion involves contradictory assertions. The second is the epistemic approach, one committed to: if I am justified in believing that p then I am justified in believing that I believe that p. So it is impossible to have a justified omissive Moore-paradoxical belief. The third is the conscious belief approach, being committed to: if I consciously believe that p then I believe that …
Moore's Paradoxes, Evans's Principle And Self-Knowledge, John N. Williams
Moore's Paradoxes, Evans's Principle And Self-Knowledge, John N. Williams
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
I supply an argument for Evans’s principle that whatever justifies me in believing that p also justifies me in believing that I believe that p. I show how this principle helps explain how I come to know my own beliefs in a way that normally makes me the best authority on them. Then I show how the principle helps to solve Moore’s paradoxes.
Wittgenstein, Moorean Absurdity And Its Disappearance From Speech, John N. Williams
Wittgenstein, Moorean Absurdity And Its Disappearance From Speech, John N. Williams
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
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 …
Moorean Absurdity And The Intentional 'Structure' Of Assertion, John N. Williams
Moorean Absurdity And The Intentional 'Structure' Of Assertion, John N. Williams
Research Collection School of Social Sciences
No abstract provided.