Moore's Paradox

I would not know what someone meant if he said it. I know what it means to believe something that is false, if that is what you have in mind.

Just because I know what it means to be dead, doesn't mean I know what someone would mean when he asserted that he was dead.

Why doesn't it?

You know what "I own a dog" means. So when I say "I own a dog" you know what it means.

He would mean "I am dead". What's so difficult?

Except I might find it hard to understand how, if it were true, he could utter it. Wouldn't you? The same thing is true about uttering the problem sentence.

If he's dead, yea it would be hard to utter it...

If it's raining, not such a problem...

"It is raining, but I don't believe it"

See you just uttered/typed it. That wasn't so hard, was it?

Ken, do you see an important difference between "I am dead" and Moore's sentence? If not, I fail to see what you're on about. With "I am dead" the bugger's either daft or putting you on, no paradox, end of story.

And in the case of Moore's example? The speaker claims it is raining, but also claims it is false? And that isn't daft?

As I pointed out, what is said could easily be true. But what is problematic is the saying of it. Just as, the proposition, "I am dead" could easily be true, but what is problematic is the saying of it. There is no missing information. It is that the truth conditions for a proposition are not the same as the conditions for the utterance of the proposition, and sometimes they may conflict; as in the instance of the example.

If there is an implicit "I believe" then the statement reads

"I believe it is raining and I don't believe it"

And that can't be true

The missing information, the implicit "I believe" is the only thing that makes the utterance absurd while still allowing the proposition to be true.

There have been plenty of times when I saw something that was actual and at the moment of seeing it I didn't believe in its actuality. At these times I usually search for explanations for what is happening other than the actual thing that is happening.

So the utterance of this type of proposition can be true.

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But that would be "I see that it is raining but I don't believe it." Very different from "I believe that it is raining but I don't believe it." First proposition could be true. Second proposition cannot be true.

G.E. Moore once remarked in a lecture that although it makes no sense to say, "It is raining, but I don't believe it", it can nevertheless be true that it is raining and I don't believe it. How can saying what can be true make no sense?

If I am searching for explanations other than what I am seeing then it is not correct for me to say that "I am seeing that it is raining but I don't believe it." For, in this case, "It is raining" would need to be externally verified.

But Kenneth states in non-propositional terms that "it can be true that it is raining and I don't believe it". And this I believe can really be true. And this is what I meant even though I don't have a specific proposition to express it.

But, I think you are correct Deckard. The utterance cannot be that "It is raining but I don't believe it". Because, as I said, the condition of rain can obtain as a fact only if its actuality originates from outside of the person who doesn't believe that it is raining.

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"I believe that it is raining but it isn't." It would be perfectly absurd, claimed Moore, to say this or its like. But why? After all, it is clearly possible that I should believe that it is raining when it is not, that others should realise and remark on the error I make. Why should my doing so myself be somehow absurd?

Yes indeed. In the case of "I am dead" I suggested that the statement was perfectly understandable, merely false. No paradox, no mystery.

I am wondering what it is about Moore's example that you find paradoxical.

There is no assertion that it is not raining.

G.E. Moore once remarked in a lecture that although it makes no sense to say, "It is raining, but I don't believe it", it can nevertheless be true that it is raining and I don't believe it. How can saying what can be true make no sense?

I believe that there is an assertion that it is not raining in the example sentence you've provided: "It is raining, but I don't believe it."

Let us suppose that it is Ken who has said, "I don't believe it is raining." And Barbie tells you that "Ken does not believe it is raining."

In the first sentence, Ken is making an expression of belief. In the second, Barbie is making an ascription of belief.

We can sensibly go on to ask Barbie whether or not it is raining, but we cannot do that with Ken. The ascriber of the belief that p takes no stand on p. But the one expressing a belief does take the stand that p.

There is a tendency in philosophy to treat all sentences the same, as if they were all, for example, some type of description. Moore should have considered the assertoric force of expressions of belief.

To sort this out, it might be easier to look at "I am dead".

The paradox arises from Plato's insistence that there is only one language-game. In that case, I am dead literally means that I am dead, and in that metaphysical frame I cannot possible be saying that while the proposition is true.

In Wittgenstein's language-games, "I am dead" just means that I am no longer a player in that game, that I am metaphysically (relative to that language-game) dead, but not otherwise. For example, that I have lost and I am now out of the game.