Talk:Moore's paradox

How the hell is this a paradox worthy of discussion? It's like complaining that your ice cream is too warm. What the hell do you gain from studying something so absurd? Since no one would ever truthfully tell you the capitol of NY is Albany but they dont believe it (just like no one would ever complain that their ice cream is too warm), then what is the point? - ME

At 61, I started looking at philosophy for some stuff I'm writing on visualizitions - got all excited about Kant - stuff I guess I knew before but forgot - but now I'm thinking letting college kids major in philosophy is like handling a loaded gun to a toddler - look at Wiggenstein's relatives, acquaintances, and colleagues. Also, are we absolutely sure Wiggenstein wasn't being tongue in cheek or damning with very faint praise? It all sounds tongue-in-cheek or just really obsessive and probably self-destructive after a certain point. Also, woudn't melted ice-cream be too warm? YAC (talk) 04:50, 3 May 2008 (UTC)

The point is, among other things: (1) we might gain an understanding of the nature of content, absurdity and nonsense; (2) It might shed light on the nature of lying, and the differences between truthful assertion, honest assertion, open assertion and qualified assertion. Moreover, (3) the view that no-one would ever believe that their ice-cream is too warm is bizarre. Sure no-one in THIS world would likely ever reasonably believe it, but there are some crazy people out there and an infinite number of possible worlds in which it is a perfectly sensible thing to believe. Believing a Moorean sentence is certainly not like believing that one's ice cream is too warm.18:09, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Somewhere I read the sentence, "If there were a verb meaning to incorrectly believe (some proposition), it would have no attested first-person present indicative." Wittgenstein? --FOo 01:39, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I misbelieve that this is false. :-) --Army1987 22:09, 9 August 2005 (UTC)

However, the first person equivalent, "I believe p" seems to function not as a description of me, of the fact that I believe p; rather, it functions simply as an affirmation of p itself. If I'm committed to affirming "p", then I'm committed to affirming "I believe that p", and vice versa. No. If I say "p is true" I mean that I'm quite certain that p is true. If I say "I believe that p is true" i mean that in my opinion p is true, but I acknowledge that I may be wrong.

Sorry not to update the entry, but: There are at least 2 versions of Moore's paradox. (1) p but I don't believe that p. (2) p but I believe that not p.

Also consider: (3) My atheism angers God.

The paradox is about the absurdity of either thinking to oneself such propositions or asserting such sentences (e.g. in speech) to another, and consists in trying to come up with a reasonable explanation as to why there should be some propositions that each of us ourselves cannot think to ourselves and sentences that assert to another without such absurdity, even though the state of affairs, described in the third-person, are contingent truths and indeed pretty much always true (i.e. we are, as a matter of contingent fact, always ignorant as to the truth of a proposition p or have a false belief that p.

(1) and (2) are the syntactic versions of the paradox, bled of content.

Prof. Roy Sorensen (in his book Blindspots) has argued that when we consider the semantic content of the sentences, we can consider (3) as Moore-paradoxical (relative to the person thinking or asserting it).

But the problem can be also treated as a problem about how we relate to certain kinds of mental properties, namely, our own.

"If there were a verb meaning to incorrectly believe (some proposition), it would have no attested first-person present indicative." 

but he is says something rather more like "...would have no significant first person..." The quotation is from Wittgenstein in his Philosophical Investigations,pt. 2., X.

I ain't no user but I believe that I am.

---

(1) "It is raining" and (2a) "I don't believe that it is raining" or (2b) "He doesn't believe that it is raining." Furthermore both (2a) and (2b) are equally compatible with (1), in that they can be simultaneously true. However, any given person seems debarred from consistently uttering (1) and (2a) together.

There is a difference between the fact "It is raining" and someone stating "It is raining", which is short for "I believe(know) it is raining" which is incompatible with "I don't believe it is raining". Of course the solution to the paradox is simple: The speaker is lying in either (1) or (2a) =) --Xeeron 17:43, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

---

I made some slight changes today. Wittgensteinians think that the lesson is that the first-person, present tense use of 'believe' is special but for reasons I've added, it isn't generally accepted that this is the lesson of Moore's Paradox. The edit made the paragraph less POV since the point made in that paragraph is a matter of controversy. It's also worth pointing out that there seem to be practical versions of the paradox. W never said (but should have) that if there was a verb that meant to bring about accidentally, it wouldn't have a significant first-person use in the present tense.

As a general remark, I think that this post needs something to clarify the notion of 'contradiction' and something about what is essential to something's being a Moorean absurdity. Apart from the Wittgensteinians, Moorean absurdities are not contradictions in the ordinary sense since the propositions these statements express may well be true. Solving the paradox, if I understand the literature, is a matter of explaining the contradiction.

---

To simply say that the speaker must be lying in either part 1 or 2a/b doesn't satisfy the fact that it can be considered a true paradox rather than a physical error whether intentional or not. Consider, that part 1 is just an affirmation of something which is recognised to be true. part 1 is affirmed by the speaker as a statement to alert others to a form in which they would understand. such as; "it is raining." part 2 then simply has to be the affirmation of what the speaker believes to be true rather than a conveyed message, universally believed to be true.

_____ I made some quite substantial changes, hope that's ok with everyone. I took out some of the stuff on the 'Wittgensteinian' strategy, made it shorter and more compact, and also divided the entry into sections. 17:54, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

"It has since become de rigeur [sic] to remark on the alleged fact that Wittgenstein considered this peculiar sort of absurdity to be Moore's most worthwhile contribution to philosophy." -This is from the first paragraph of the article. Other than the obvious misspelling, it seems to be a rather ridiculous sentance. To rephrase this, the sentence says that (using wikipedias definition of 'de rigueur'), "it has since become necessary and proper to state the unproven fact that...". Am I the only one who thinks that sounds stupid? Please make the change if you agree. --Heyitspeter 22:03, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

I think 'unproven fact' is an oxymoron and I think 'the statement Wiggenstein is alleged to have made' is better than 'alleged fact'; 'alleged fact' may be correct but it almost seems like an upside down redundancy - I'm groping here, can anyone help me out?YAC (talk) 15:33, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

hallucinations?

OK, I think the sentence "There is a pink elephant hurtling ... but I do not believe it." is not a Moore's sentence because the assertion "p" is different in the first and second case. The statement "There is a pink elephant hurtling" refers to the hallucination as a mental model, i.e.: there is a pink elephant *inside the mind* of the person hallucinating; the sentence "but I do not believe it" is a different assertion, namely that "I do not believe there really is a pink elephant in front of me". Is this a notable example mentioned by a notable philosopher or is it someone's original research? I think it should be removed. The example given has the syntax or a Moore's sentence but not the semantics. Alex.g 15:59, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Exceptions?

Maybe this falls under the hallucination scenario, but what if I live in a place where it hasn't rained for ten years. Then a heavy rain starts: (1) I'm sure I'm awake but I can't believe I'm not dreaming, so even though I "know" it's raining outside, I don't "believe" it. (2) Same scenario but I'm inside away from a window. I know it's raining, but I can't believe it unless I'm actually seeing it.

Real world scenario: Our cat went missing for two weeks. We had about given up and we hear her loudly meowing across the yard and finally coming in thru the kitty door just as we arrive. It's too dark to tell for sure, but I say her name - which I was trying to avoid so as not to raise my wife's hopes. When we got the light on, we knew it was her, but we just couldn't believe it.

Another read world scenario: Over the years at various times I've gotten my belly fat down to a certain point and invariably I just can't envision it any better so one way or another I pork back up. Five years ago I discovered an 'exercise' that's so much fun I do it as much as I can. I can't believe my belly fat will get smaller than it is now, but I know that it will because it's already gotten smaller than I could ever "believe" before. In other words, the exercise is doing what I "know" it can do, even though I can't really "believe" it.

I'm not saying these are exceptions. I'm asking for opinions on why they are not.

May 10 - I think scenario (2) can be thrown out because you can't really "know" it's raining unless you're seeing it, even if you just turned away(?) —Preceding unsigned comment added by YetAnotherCommenter (talk • contribs) 05:15, 11 May 2008 (UTC) YAC (talk) 16:11, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Jun 2 - I guess this fascinates me because I can't let it go. If you can never be sure you're not dreaming, then how can you "know" anything, and if you can't "know" anything, then how can Moore's paradox even arise? That Wiggenstein, so shallow. Look at the contriubions to absurdity I've made right here. YAC (talk) 18:48, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Hume and Problem of Induction

David Hume claimed that even though induction is not justified, he himself believed in it. Is that an example of this paradox? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.45.155.21 (talk) 02:07, 11 May 2008 (UTC)

They're popping up everywhere

Isn't Bush's cocaine conundrum an example?

And the writers of Miami CSI were undoubtedly checking if watchers were paying attention in the re-run we saw last night. A couple has bailed out their murdering con-person daughter and Kathryn and the bald stubby cop guy know they helped her get in the wind. Kathryn says "She played you, where ever you think she is, she isn't. (Pause) So tell us where she is, and you won't go to jail."

Philosophy - you can't live with it, can't live without it.YAC (talk) 15:18, 2 June 2008 (UTC)