I don’t see any pragmatic defect on the part of those by my account. The extra bits besides just “I believe P” are adding back in (some of) the impressive force that the “I believe” took away from just “P”. — Pfhorrest

That's an interesting take. But if the function of "I believe..." in "I believe P" primarily is to take away some of the pragmatic force from just "P", shouldn't "I strongly believe..." take away even more?

It seems to me that there may be a better account of the pragmatic force of "I believe ...", which I already sketched (following Brandom) but maybe should flesh out a little more in a direction Brandom himself might or might not endorse.

One way to make more obvious both the meaning and the pragmatic-perspectival character of "...believe(s) that ..." might be to make explicit its epistemic-perspectival character. Bare unqualified assertions that are simply meant to inform an interlocutor don't need modifiers like "I believe that..." or "I know that..." because they are typically offered in contexts where there is an assumed shared epistemic background between the speaker and listener. The speaker may be offering simple testimony to P, which she may know on some ordinary and unproblematic empirical or testimonial basis that the listener has no special ground or reason for challenging. The claim is expected to be believed by the listener (and impart knowledge upon her) by default.

If the claim that is being made rather has the form: "I know that P", this may make explicit that I take myself to be in a unique epistemic position to know it and therefore that I am in a position to justify my grounds for believing it to a listener that isn't herself yet in a position to take my word for it by default. Something more than mere assertion is required for her to be brought to share my epistemic perspective. When I want to acknowledge that the listener takes herself to be knowing that P while I myself am withholding any such claim to knowledge, because I believe her epistemic grounds to be faulty, then I can claim that she (merely) believes that P. So, in short, "X believe(s) that P" is closely equivalent to "P appears to be known to be true from the epistemic perspective of X". Although our capacity for knowledge is fallible we sometimes are in a position to know things to be true while at the same time recognizing that other wrongly take themselves to know them to be false.

So, on that view, "I strongly believe that P" means roughly: "I take myself to know that P and I have very little doubt that I am mistaken about knowing it" whereas "You strongly believe that P" means roughly "You take yourself to know that P and you have very little doubts that you are mistaken about knowing it". That difference in perspective explains, I think, why qualifying an assertion with the modifier "...believe(s) that..." can both be used to stress what one takes to be the good standing of one's epistemic credentials (when used first-personally) or be used to bring into question (and thereby attempt to weaken) someone else's credentials (when used third personally).

Curious that , , and seem to be vehemently agreeing with each other...

Curious that ↪Michael, ↪Pfhorrest, ↪Pierre-Normand and ↪Srap Tasmaner seem to be vehemently agreeing with each other... — Banno

I think we're agreeing that Moore's paradox is instructive and suggestive rather than it being merely trivial or no puzzle at all. We aren't quite all on the same page regarding what it is exactly that it is suggestive of.

@Isaac thinks it overthrows the correspondence theory of truth with a single blow. That's a bit more vehement than anything I've posted.

Isaac throws out reality every second day. Perhaps some form of idealism goes with his predilection for psychology. But plainly there is a simpler solution. Hence he writes things such as:

The problem here is caused by the contradiction between a philosophical commitment to correspondence theory, and the actual psychological reality that the truth of a statement is always a judgment and always based on the belief of the person doing the judging. — Isaac

...confusing truth and belief.

It's not the truth of a statement that is a judgement; the judgement is whether one accepts the statement. Issac doesn't accept this, and hence finds himself in all sorts of bother.

We aren't quite all on the same page regarding what it is exactly that it is suggestive of. — Pierre-Normand

Sure. Not sure that the differences are substantive. There seems to be agreement that, roughly, if one does not believe what one asserts, then one is being infelicitous.

I've looked for the original article from Moore. It seems to be "Reply to my critics", but I've not been able to acquire a PDF. Going back to the source of a philosophical meme such as this can be informative - often they have moved on over time, ending up a long way from their original purpose. See what it's like to be a bat and the tram problem for other instances.

(( I couldn't find it online either. Curious bit of history in the SEP article that Church seemed to have recently seen Moore's thing when he anonymously gave Fitch the horrifying paradox that bears his name. ))

...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, — Michael

So...

The problem, according to you, is trusting a speaker. And someone mentioned irony earlier...

'tis odd. The main reference in SEP's biographical article is to Philosophical Investigations, II(x)!

A friend provided a copy of Replies to my critics, which I am investigating.

The root source seems to be

The strange thing is that philosophers should have been able to hold sincerely, as part of their philosophical creed, propositions inconsistent with what they themselves knew to be true; and yet, so far as I can make out, this has really frequency happened

from A Defence of Common Sense

Now I had previously taken this to be an early reference to self-deception (@Isaac?); but it seems I may be mistaken.

his predilection for psychology — Banno

It's no mere predilection, the pay's better.

It's not the truth of a statement that is a judgement; the judgement is whether one accepts the statement. Issac doesn't accept this, and hence finds himself in all sorts of bother. — Banno

The sum total of which thus far seems to consist only of the scorn of internet philosophers. If there's some other bother you suspect I might actually be forewarned of...

The root source seems to be

The strange thing is that philosophers should have been able to hold sincerely, as part of their philosophical creed, propositions inconsistent with what they themselves knew to be true; and yet, so far as I can make out, this has really frequency happened

from A Defence of Common Sense — Banno

I thought it was Wittgenstein's letters. His letter to Moore gives a better account I think.

I should like to tell you how glad I am that you read us a paper yesterday. It seems to the that the most important point was the absurdity of the assertion "There is a fire in this room and I don't believe there is".

His criticism is equally pertinent here.

If I ask someone "Is there a fire in the next room?", and he answers " I believe there is", I can't say "Don't be irrelevant, I asked you about the fire, not about your state of mind!"

The absurdity of suggesting that "there's a fire in the next room" is about one thing and "I believe there's a fire in the next room" is about another.

(The reference in PI seems to just assume we know the paradox already.)

Maths Tutor: "Williams! What is three times seven?"
Williams: "Sir! I believe three times seven is twenty-one, sir."
Tutor: "Don't be irrelevant, Williams. I asked you about the product of three and seven, not your state of mind, which I assure you is of no interest to me or to anyone else."
Williams: "Sir?"
Tutor: "I have no interest in what you believe, Williams, which is I why did not ask you, 'What do you believe the product of three and seven is?'"
Williams: "Yes, sir. It's twenty-one, sir."
Tutor: "Andrews! Is Williams correct?"
Andrews: "I thin-- yes, sir. It's twenty-one."
Tutor: "Good! Now, we'll have no more of this 'believe' business in my classroom, is that clear?"
All: "Yes, sir!"

Oh, but young Williams's maths tutor is concerned precisely with Williams's state of mind, you might complain; his one job is to make sure Williams holds the right beliefs. Is that the only interpretation? Couldn't we also say the tutor's job is to ensure that Williams gives the correct answer when asked a direct question? I can just hear Wittgenstein describing this scenario as "training".

Wittgenstein's remark, by refusing to acknowledge the de dicto/de re distinction, has another little oddity:

Wittgenstein: "Is there a fire in the next room, Williams?"
Williams: "No, sir."
Wittgenstein: "Show it to me."
Williams: "Sir?"
Wittgenstein: "The fire I asked you about, Williams. Where is it?"
Williams: "There is no fire, sir."
Wittgenstein: "Don't be absurd, Williams. Would I have asked you about something that doesn't exist?"
Russell [ entering ]: "I believe, dear Wittgenstein, that young Williams here [ pats Williams on the head and winks at him ] is trying to say that the next room is such that if something is in it, it is not a fire."
Wittgenstein: "Oh shut up, Russell."

The "aboutness" of a sentence is not always a simple matter. What one can and can't say is almost never a simple matter. Why then should we expect to reach simple conclusions about what one can and can't say about what?

Couldn't we also say the tutor's job is to ensure that Williams gives the correct answer when asked a direct question? I can just hear Wittgenstein describing this scenario as "training". — Srap Tasmaner

Indeed. I could get a dog to bark 'sausages' everytime he's asked 'what's for dinner' but that wouldn't make the dog's utterances any more about my dinner. We'd like to be able to deny that the dog's talking about my dinner, but on what grounds? I'd say on the grounds that he's not thinking of my dinner when answering, but if we're to somehow bypass mental states as gateways to the objects of sentences, then I'm not sure what defence is left us. Apparently, my dog must indeed be talking about my dinner!

The "aboutness" of a sentence is not always a simple matter. What one can and can't say is almost never a simple matter. Why then should we expect to reach simple conclusions about what one can and can't say about what? — Srap Tasmaner

At the risk of inducing apoplexy in banno et al, one element I do consider fairly simple about sentences is that their cause is either autonomic, or arising from models in our brain constituting our beliefs. The rain cannot cause me directly to form the words "it's raining". Barring some form of conditioning, whatever the weather is doing, it's effects must first travel through those parts of my brain responsible for forming beliefs prior to prompting me to utter the words. Given that, it's difficult, despite the complexity, to see how any proposition could be about anything other than some belief of mine. That is unless, as I suspect banno might like us to believe, those cortices have no effect whatsoever and simply pass the unadulterated effects from the world to our speech. Given the enormous effort we go to to make and maintain them, this seems unlikely.

If you want to tell a causal story about why we say what we do, you should probably also have a story that gets you from facts to meanings, or you never get "aboutness" at all. (Quine and Grice, to name two, both have such stories.)

Supposing that you can get aboutness here, how do you pick which cause in your chain is the one the utterance was about?

Suppose you've conditioned your dog to say "sausages" given a certain stimulus. The pathways are there, just waiting for it. (Making a hash of the neuroscience.) When that stimulus shows up and your dog says "sausages", isn't it more natural to single out that stimulus, or the event of its occurring, as of special importance, rather than whatever happened in your dog's brain? (Still not clear that cause would be what an utterance is about.)

As for whether your dog is talking about your dinner, even Ryle would have little trouble with that. A single conditioned response it's just not how we judge competence at understanding or producing meaningful speech.

That difference in perspective explains, I think, why qualifying an assertion with the modifier "...believe(s) that..." can both be used to stress what one takes to be the good standing of one's epistemic credentials (when used first-personally) or be used to bring into question (and thereby attempt to weaken) someone else's credentials (when used third personally). — Pierre-Normand

I would like to hear if anyone else here thinks that “I believe...” strengthens rather than weakens an assertion, because that sounds very unusual to me. Even “I strongly believe that P” sounds weaker than just “P” to my ear. I asked my English major girlfriend her opinion, within letting her know mine first, and she said the same thing.

In any case, whatever specific wording conveys whatever specific force, the point of my impression/expression distinction is just that there is a difference in force there, where one can express a belief without fully asserting its truth, or impress it upon others. The later normally implies the former, but in the case of dishonesty doesn’t necessarily have to.

Supposing that you can get aboutness here, how do you pick which cause in your chain is the one the utterance was about? — Srap Tasmaner

Well, on pain of being unable ourselves to say what our own utterances are about, it had better be something we have access to during the construction of those utterances, and that isn't the state of the world, only our inferences of it.

Either way, it would seem odd if we ourselves were not responsible for picking out what our own utterances were 'about'. And again, if we're to do that, from what selection do we have to choose? Not states of the world. Those are not in our minds, and we wish to be able to say for ourselves what our sentences are about. All we have then to select from are the inferences about those states, our beliefs.

I would like to hear if anyone else here thinks that “I believe...” strengthens rather than weakens an assertion, because that sounds very unusual to me. Even “I strongly believe that P” sounds weaker than just “P” to my ear. I asked my English major girlfriend her opinion, within letting her know mine first, and she said the same thing. — Pfhorrest

I wouldn't say either that "I believe(s) that..." has the primary function to strengthen the force of an assertion either, only that it can do so and its ability to do so can easily be accounted for (when it does) on the basis of what it is that I take to be the primary function of that predicate (as used either first- ,second-, or third-personally). And that's to stress that what is thereby being pragmatically modified (the bare assertion made by X, or that X stands ready to rationally defend such a belief when prompted to do so) is supported by X's specific epistemic perspective. In different contexts, such an act of alluding to the specificity of someones epistemic perspective can both function to raise doubt about it or to point out its privileged or authoritative status.

When used first personally, the predicate "I believe that..." may function a little bit like the expression "Bring it on!" when challenged to a fight. It could betray that one is confident in one's defensive skills or it could constitute an acknowledgement of the other person's entitlement to her belief that she might win the fight. "Yes, I really believe it to be true" might be though of, similarly, as the acceptance of a challenge to an epistemic fight.

(Edited above to replace "standing" with "perspective")

In any case, whatever specific wording conveys whatever specific force, the point of my impression/expression distinction is just that there is a difference in force there, where one can express a belief without fully asserting its truth, or impress it upon others. The later normally implies the former, but in the case of dishonesty doesn’t necessarily have to. — Pfhorrest

I am holding on on commenting on this part of your post until I'm finished with a paper I'm currently working on. Some friends are waiting...

Well, on pain of being unable ourselves to say what our own utterances are about, it had better be something we have access to during the construction of those utterances, and that isn't the state of the world, only our inferences of it. — Isaac

I'm just not following this. Do we make inferences and form beliefs about the world and its state, even though we don't have access to it?

Moore's first example is of an individual recognizing and describing another individual's mistake. He then moves on to wonder why one cannot say the same thing about oneself. Moore is neglecting to consider some things about all human thought and belief that would otherwise allow him to see where he has went wrong in his comparison. He was not - and is not - alone.

Listen...

Moore's second example is someone recognizing their own mistake, while it's happening, and that - my friends - is humanly impossible.

While we can see someone else's mistake while it's being made, as in the first example, we cannot 'see' that we are making a mistake while in the process of doing so. That is the crucial consideration that needs to be immediately moved and kept in the forefront of this discussion.

It is humanly impossible to knowingly make a mistake; to make a mistake on purpose. It is likewise humanly impossible to knowingly believe a falsehood. We do not realize that we're making a mistake while we're in the process of making them. Moore's present tense verb usage in his second example renders exactly such an impossibility.

We cannot believe both statements at the same time because we cannot recognize that we're mistaken while we are. The only way we can believe both statements at the same time is if we misuse verb tense while accounting and/or describing our own past mistakes.

Isaac's earlier example illustrated this. One could say "Look it's raining, but I do not believe it's raining" while viewing a video of themselves being mistaken. However, and this is key too...

Such talk is the recognition of one's own mistakes, while being made, and even in the cases of viewing a past recording of our own mistakes while they were happening(watching a video of ourselves being surprised by rainfall)... the time sensitive grammatically correct rendering - a true account/self-report - would be "Look, it was raining, but I did not believe it."

I'm just not following this. Do we make inferences and form beliefs about the world and its state, even though we don't have access to it? — Srap Tasmaner

Inferences are formed from our perceptions (formed from our senses). Utterances are not the direct result of our senses (except in very rare cases). So they must arise from our inferences. During the construction of sentences (that being the key caveat) we are not accessing the world. We are accessing our inferences about it.

The absurdity of suggesting that "there's a fire in the next room" is about one thing and "I believe there's a fire in the next room" is about another. — Isaac

There is a distinction between the statement "there is a fire in the next room" and the assertion "there is a fire in the next room.

All we have then to select from are the inferences about those states, our beliefs. — Isaac

Do we make inferences and form beliefs about the world and its state, even though we don't have access to it? — Srap Tasmaner

Indeed; @Isaac seems to go astray here.

Inferences are formed from our perceptions (formed from our senses). Utterances are not the direct result of our senses (except in very rare cases). So they must arise from our inferences. During the construction of sentences (that being the key caveat) we are not accessing the world. We are accessing our inferences about it. — Isaac

This is very strange. It's oddly parallel to Stove's Gem: we only have access to our inferences about the world, and hence we do not have access to the world...

Incipient idealism...

I'll comment Austin to all hereabouts. There you will find both an account of the distinction between a mere statement and an assertion, and learn to re-connect with the real world.

This is very strange. It's oddly parallel to Stove's Gem: we only have access to our inferences about the world, and hence we do not have access to the world... — Banno

x->y->z

Causal separation can smell a lot like causal isolation.

If I told you that x approximates y with error, and that y approximates z with error, one way of reading the processes is that z only approximates x given y. Another way of reading it is that z approximates x using its dependence upon y.

In these terms, it's a question of whether access behaves like a walk or a neighbour in a causal chain. Isolation given a given can be the same thing as access without one.

If you like. I don't see that that helps.

oyster->oyster perception connection in eating->human eating oyster

We cannot eat the oyster in itself as eating is a perceptual interaction = We eat the oyster in itself using a perceptual interaction.

Do you emphasize causal separation given (the middle node in the graph) or that the oyster is eaten (that the middle node on the graph acts on the first node to produce the third)?

One eats oysters. Unless, apparently, one is @Isaac, whereupon, displaced by philosophical contemplation, one only infers or perceives that one eats oysters.

Unless, apparently, one is Isaac, whereupon, displaced by philosophical contemplation, one only infers or perceives that one eats oysters. — Banno

One of those philosophical distinctions pretending it is not, @Isaac throws environmental interventions like eating into the process of perception.

I'm not here to argue that we don't eat oysters, I'm here to point out that a naive realist (among which I count myself) and representational realist (in the sense that we interact with the world only using representational processes) agree on the causal chain of eating oysters.

Yes, well, I drive a car by sitting like so, and moving my arms and legs thus. But moving my arms and legs thus is not driving a car.

There is a distinction between the statement "there is a fire in the next room" and the assertion "there is a fire in the next room. — Banno

Maybe, but only in terms of what I intend each to do in the world, not in terms of the objects of reference in each case, the means by which I select the words 'fire' and 'room' out all the words I know.

This is very strange. It's oddly parallel to Stove's Gem: we only have access to our inferences about the world, and hence we do not have access to the world... — Banno

a) at no point did I say we don't have access to the world, merely that we don't access it when making propositions. I was quite clear about that. We access the world through our senses. We do not form propositions using the the signals coming from our senses.

b) that some philosopher opposed it is not itself an argument, even if he's Australian.

Unless, apparently, one is Isaac, whereupon, displaced by philosophical contemplation, one only infers or perceives that one eats oysters. — Banno

It's not philosophical contemplation. The idea comes from computational neuroscience. Not that I want to get into some 'he said, she said' mundanity, but it is philosophical contemplations that would simplify things for human convenience. It is actual investigations of how the brain works which raise the need for a more complex theory.

Yes, well, I drive a car by sitting like so, and moving my arms and legs thus. But moving my arms and legs thus is not driving a car. — Srap Tasmaner

Yes, but if I hit a wall and then remove the wall, I'm still hitting. What you've shown is that some activities are described including multiple components, whilst others are not. What matters here is which our speech acts are, and fortunately we now have things like magnetic imaging to help us work this out. As fdrake said...

a naive realist (among which I count myself) and representational realist (in the sense that we interact with the world only using representational processes) agree on the causal chain of eating oysters. — fdrake

We're not here arguing about the nature of a causal chain from actual world to speech acts,. Despite banno's protestations, none of us are idealists, we all agree that the external world exists and affects us via our senses. At issue is only where along that chain it is sensible to say the object of the utterance at the end of it is.

The process goes

state of reality>sensory responses>belief that it's raining>belief that I'd be best off telling someone>speech act "it's raining"

That much is pretty much indisputable.

Correspondence theory would have the truth of the final stage measured by the first, but since no one can contemplate, feel or talk about the first without it having passed through at least stages 2 and 3 it seems an unnecessary conceit to pretend it's stage 1 we're talking about. Especially as we cannot, no matter how hard we try, disentangle those stages from our embeddedness in the world (both social and physical).

We could, as I think some do, have 'truth' as being the better approximation to stage 1, which seems viable, but my concern with that is that it is reliant on yet other beliefs about the errors some faulty belief has generated. Simpler to just be honest about the actual real-world use if term 'true', which, to paraphrase Ramsey, it just that belief which would, if acted upon, bring about the expected result.

It's best, I think, to see speech as an act, that it does something. In this sense, the truth of a statement is not so relevant as it's felicity? - (@fdrake, is that the term I'm looking for?).

This resolves the paradox because in the majority of circumstances "it's raining, but I don't believe it is" is simply infelicitous.