Moore's paradox is a paradox in which certain kinds of belief or assertion, such as a belief that ?it is raining and I do not believe that it is raining?, are irrational despite involving no obvious contradiction in what is believed. But is there a parallel paradox involving other kinds of attitude, in particular desire? I argue that certain kinds of desire would be irrational to have for similar, distinctive reasons that having Moorean beliefs would be irrational to have. Hence, (...) I argue that such desires, a desire that ?one have a particular desire that was frustrated? or a desire that ?some state of affairs obtain about which one was indifferent?, are a parallel Moorean paradox of desire. I further argue that this analogous paradox has implications for practical reasoning, in particular by presenting a problem for instrumentalism about the objects of desire. (shrink)

The traditional and prevailing definition of lying is that lying is some variation or combination of: “an untruth told with intent to deceive.” I establish that this is the case, and that, as a result, contradictions and injustices arise. An alternative definition is proposed which is shown to avoid these difficulties. It is also shown that and how on the new definition the alleged “Liar paradox” is easily dissolved.

Quite a few scholars claim that many implicata are propositions about the speaker's epistemic or doxastic states. I argue, on the contrary, that implicata are generally non-epistemic. Some alleged cases of epistemic implicature are not implicatures in the first place because they do not meet Grice's non-triviality requirement, and epistemic implicata in general would infringe on the maxim of quantity. Epistemic implicatures ought to be construed as members of a larger family of implicature-like phenomena.

According to judgment internalism, there is a conceptual connection between moral judgment and motivation. This paper offers an argument against that kind of internalism that does not involve counterexamples of the amoralist sort. Instead, it is argued that these forms of judgment internalism fall prey to a Frege-Geach type argument.

G. E. Moore famously pointed out that all sincere assertions of the form ‘p, but I don’t believe that p’ are inherently absurd. John Turri strongly disagrees with the consensus evaluation of such assertions as inherently absurd and offers a counterexample according to which it is possible to say ‘Eliminativism is true, but of course I don’t believe it’s true’ sincerely and without any absurdity. I argue in this paper that Turri’s attempt misses the point entirely, for the most natural (...) interpretations of his counterexample are either absurd or do not represent genuinely Moorean assertions. The critical analysis of Turri’s counterexample will enable me to reach the general conclusion that precludes the possibility of omissive Moorean assertions that are inherently non-absurd, at least if we hold that our assertions ought to have some normative function. (shrink)

The main task is to discuss the issue in belief dynamics in which philosophical beliefs and rational introspective agents incorporate Moorean type new information. First, a brief survey is conducted on Moore’s Paradox, and one of its solutions is introduced with the help of Update Semantics. Then, we present a Dynamic Doxastic Logic (DDL) which revises the belief of introspective agents put forward by Lindström & Rabinowicz. Next, we attempt to incorporate Moorean type new information within the DEL (DDL) framework, (...) as advised by van Benthem, Segerberg et al. Though we maintain the principle of “the primacy of new information” from the literature on traditional belief revision theory, several unsuccessful ways are also presented. We then conclude that some special kind of success (weak success) can still be found in those revision processes although absolute success does not hold. At last, the relevant problem of “learnability” is re-considered through weak success. (shrink)

On some formulations of Direct Reference the semantic value, relative to a context of utterance, of a rigid singular term is just its referent. In response to the apparent possibility of a difference in truth value of two sentences just alike save for containing distinct but coreferential rigid singular terms, some proponents of Direct Reference have held that any two such sentences differ only pragmatically. Some have also held, more specifically, that two such sentences differ by conveying distinct conversational implicata, (...) and that a conflation of implicatum with semantic content leads speakers to judge such sentences capable of differing in truth value. It is argued here that this latter defense of Direct Reference employs false explanans, on the ground that speakers conflate semantic content with implicatum only in quite special cases, and we have independent grounds for thinking that sentences reporting speech acts and attitudes are not cases of this sort. (shrink)

Moore's paradox pits our intuitions about semantic oddnessagainst the concept of truth-functional consistency. Most solutions tothe problem proceed by explaining away our intuitions. But``consistency'' is a theory-laden concept, having different contours indifferent semantic theories. Truth-functional consistency is appropriateonly if the semantic theory we are using identifies meaning withtruth-conditions. I argue that such a framework is not appropriate whenit comes to analzying epistemic modality. I show that a theory whichaccounts for a wide variety of semantic data about epistemic modals(Update Semantics) buys (...) us a solution to Moore's paradox as a corollary.It turns out that Moorean propositions, when looked at through the lenseof an appropriate semantic theory, are inconsistent after all. (shrink)

The paper analyzes the nature and scope of Moore’s paradox, articulates the desiderata of a successful solution and claims that psychological expressivism best meets these desiderata. After a brief discussion of prominent responses to Moore’s paradox, the paper offers a solution based on a theory of expressive acts: a Moorean utterance is absurd because the speaker expresses mental states with conflicting contents in commissive versions of the paradox and conflicting states of mind in omissive versions. The paper presents a theory (...) of expressivism for self-ascriptions of mental states. In addition, it introduces the idea of expressive denegation—the speaker’s expressing the absence of a mental state—as an analysis of negative self-ascriptions of mental states. Some of the consequences of expressivism for avowals are explored. (shrink)

One version of Moore’s Paradox is the challenge to account for the absurdity of beliefs purportedly expressed by someone who asserts sentences of the form ‘p & I do not believe that p’. The absurdity of these beliefs is philosophically puzzling, given that Moorean sentences are contingent and often true; and express contents that are unproblematic when presented in the third-person. In this paper I critically examine the most popular proposed solution to these two puzzles, according to which Moorean beliefs (...) are absurd because Moorean sentences are instances of pragmatic paradox; that is to say, the propositions they express are necessarily false-when-believed. My conclusion is that while a Moorean belief is a pragmatic paradox, it is not just another pragmatic paradox, because this diagnosis does not explain all the puzzling features of Moorean beliefs. In particularly, while this analysis is plausible in relation to the puzzle posed by characteristic of Moorean sentences, I argue that it fails to account for. I do so in the course of an attempt to formulate the definition of a pragmatic paradox in more precise formal terms, in order to see whether the definition is satisfied by Moorean sentences, but not by their third-person transpositions. For only an account which can do so could address adequately. After rejecting a number of attempted formalizations, I arrive at a definition which delivers the right results. The problem with this definition, however, is that it has to be couched in first-person terms, making an essential use of ‘I’. Thus the problem of accounting for first-/third-person asymmetry recurs at a higher order, which shows that the Pragmatic Paradox Resolution fails to identify the source of such asymmetry highlighted by Moore’s Paradox. (shrink)

Is self-knowledge a requirement of rationality, like consistency, or means-ends coherence? Many claim so, citing the evident impropriety of asserting, and the alleged irrationality of believing, Moore-paradoxical propositions of the form < p, but I don't believe that p>. If there were nothing irrational about failing to know one's own beliefs, they claim, then there would be nothing irrational about Moore-paradoxical assertions or beliefs. This article considers a few ways the data surrounding Moore's paradox might be marshaled to support rational (...) requirements to know one's beliefs, and finds that none succeed. (shrink)

Ludwig Wittgenstein once wrote to G.E. Moore that he had stirred up a philosophical wasps’ nest with his paradox, associated with the sentence “I believe it’s raining and it’s not raining”. The problem is that it would be odd for a speaker to assert this thought about herself, although it could be true about her, and although the sentence is well-formed and not contradictory. -/- Making use of the notion of a sentence having sense in a context of significant use (...) (inspired by Ludwig Wittgenstein), the author explores the responses of some of the “wasps” who responded to the paradox, and the background of their reactions. -/- By using the metaphor of philosophizing from within language rather than outside of language the author explores what she calls “the user perspective” on philosophical problems. In this investigation, Moore’s paradox functions as a test case, by which the author elucidates differences in view of the role and powers of philosophical terminology. -/- The contribution of this work is meta-philosophical in being concerned with philosophical method. Its point of departure is in the therapeutic strand of the tradition after the later Wittgenstein. (shrink)