It is therefore tempting to conclude that there isn't anything wrong with the propositional content of Tom's assertion. There must be something more to the evaluation of a speech act of assertion beyond the evaluation of the truth of its content. By now, that may seem to be obvious that it must be so, but there is considerable disagreement regarding the characterization of the missing ingredient. — Pierre-Normand
People can assert things that they don't believe. That's why there's nothing wrong with the sentence "it is raining and I don't believe that it is raining". The only problem is when you infer from this that the speaker believes the sentence to be true, but then the problem is with your inference, not with the sentence itself. — Michael
the speaker's intention to induce ("impress") a belief in the recipient of her language act. It replaces this intention with incurred commitments within the language game. While asserting Moore's proposition, those incurred commitments are inconsistent regardless of the speaker's hopefulness in inducing a belief in her interlocutor. — Pierre-Normand
Belief is a relation between an individual and a statement. — Banno
An assertion will be sincere iff the person asserting pbelieves pvocally also asserts p mentally. — Banno
But so is assertion. Neither relation is clear enough to merit distinguishing it axiomatically from the other. — bongo fury
What?...vocally also asserts p mentally. — bongo fury
since you've agreed to distinguish assertion from belief just on its being vocal. — bongo fury
How many other unspoken speech acts are you aware of? — Banno
"Beliefs" are just assertions dressed in unhelpful mental woo. Better and sufficient to deal with,
It's raining, but I don't assert that it is. — bongo fury
I'm recommending translating the mental talk into speech talk. — bongo fury
Talk about human reference which uses theoretical terms implying mental entities such as beliefs. — bongo fury
What is a "commitment within the language game" other than the same thing as what I've termed "impression"? When you take a stance, commit yourself to that stance, on affirming or denying some statement, what exactly are you doing, other than endorsing that affirmation or denial of that statement as the thing to be done? — Pfhorrest
Saying something like "it is raining and I don't believe that it is raining" is playing the game of language wrong. — Michael
What? Talk about human reference? As in, "Peter", "Jane"? — Banno
Do you suppose that beliefs sit in your mind like you sit in your comfy chair? — Banno
What you had termed "expression" is similar to the act of incurring a commitment by making an assertion. — Pierre-Normand
I can totally believe that X is true but that you don't believe X. — Pfhorrest
We're supposed to (in ordinary situations) infer that the speaker believes his assertions, and so an assertion from which we infer contradictory beliefs doesn't make sense (in the casual sense of the phrase). — Michael
So why are we 'inferring' from listening to speech acts, but not 'inferring' from other perceptions? You seem to want my perception of water hitting the roof to be some kind of direct transfer of world-fact into my brain, yet speech acts are inferred. I can't see why you'd make such a distinction. — Isaac
Hence, if Mac asserts both that it is raining and also that he does not believe that it is raining, we can conclude that he is being insincere. — Banno
Why does Moore say/think it would be said? — Ciceronianus the White
I think that this consequence is intuitively acceptable; it is not a natural use of language to describe one who has said that p as having, for example, "implied," "indicated," or "suggested" that he believes that p; the natural thing to say is that he has expressed (or purported to express) the belief that p. He has of course committed himself, in a certain way, to its being the case that he believes that p, and while this commitment is not a case of saying that he believes that p, it is bound up, in a special way, with saying that p.
I meant (and thought I said) for impression to be the speech-act equivalent to ordinary full assertions, and expression to be something less than that. — Pfhorrest
On this account you’re describing, what is the practical difference between saying “X” and saying “I think that X”?
On my account, the former is an ordinary assertion that X, which impresses an opinion, pushes it at others in a way that isn’t welcoming of disagreement; while the latter is merely expressing the speaker’s opinion, showing us what they think without any pressure to agree.
Such an account, I think, would threaten to make assertions of the form: "I very strongly believe that P; I'm pretty sure you are wrong to deny it" or "I don't merely believe it strongly, I know it for sure" pragmatically defective, if not outright inconsistent. On Brandom's account, they're not problematic at all. — Pierre-Normand
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