Moore's Paradoxes and Iterated Belief

• Main Author: WILLIAMS, John N.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2007
• Subjects: Moore's paradox; belief; absurdity; Philosophy
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/149; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/1148/viewcontent/auto_convert.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

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. I explain why it is less absurd to believe or assert (om1) or (com1) than to believe or assert (om) or (com) and show that despite appearances, subsequent iterations of (om1) or (com1) do not decrease the absurdity of believing or asserting them.