Moore’s Paradox, Truth and Accuracy

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 exp...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: GREEN, Mitchell S., WILLIAMS, John N.
Format: text
Language:English
Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2010
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/970
https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/2225/viewcontent/auto_convert.pdf
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Institution: Singapore Management University
Language: English
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Summary: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.