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
It'sraining[on fire in the next room] but I don't assert that it is [on fire in the next room] — bongo fury
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). — Isaac
but only in terms of what I intend each to do in the world — Isaac
at no point did I say we don't have access to the world, merely that we don't access it when making propositions. — Isaac
So, because we use sensory responses to detect rainfall, we cannot talk about that which we're detecting? — creativesoul
So if I propose "I had oysters for lunch", am I talking about oysters, or something else - perceptions, brain states, beliefs or whatever?
I say oysters.
And if that's the case, how is it that my proposition does not "access the world"? — Banno
One thing that frustrates me about philosophy is that it seems, to my untrained impression, to be sometimes trying to bridge a divide which there is no need to bridge, where each side merely butts up to the other seamlessly. — Isaac
I found that difficult to follow. — Banno
But then I don't see much use in the type/token distinction. It seems to me to introduce unnecessary metaphysical entities. — Banno
Arguably, no statement is ever entirely bereft of any illocutionary force, and [such that it?] might be considered a "dud ticket". But we use them quite routinely when doing logic, so I'm not too concerned about that. — Banno
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. — Isaac
the risk of inducing apoplexy in banno et al, — Isaac
I think Peirce would say, similarly, that we shouldn't pretend in philosophy that a paradox is presented by describing as true a statement which nobody would make about himself/herself, let alone make at all, in any circumstances which resemble what takes place in the life of humans. What we learn from such a fabrication, beyond the fact that it is clearly a fabrication (which can be determined with very little effort) can only be a fabrication itself. — Ciceronianus the White
y girlfriend similarly asked why anyone would say anything like the statement in question, and I said in response that they wouldn’t, because it would be such an odd thing to say, but the interesting question, what makes for the paradox, is WHY is it such a weird thing to say about oneself that nobody would ever say it, but it’s not at all weird to say about others? — Pfhorrest
The sentence isn't "I say it's raining, but I don't believe it's raining", it's just "It's raining, but I don't believe it's raining." — Pfhorrest
They say nothing about themselves. The say something about the weather. — Ciceronianus the White
Why is it something no one would ever say? — Srap Tasmaner
Then you agree the Moore sentence is not a contradiction. So what's wrong with it? Why is it something no one would ever say? — Srap Tasmaner
If we want to see if the nature of this artificial problem gives us a frame we didn't already have, a map we weren't already making use of, then we'd be foolish to judge the results by whether things look the same as they do through the frame we're already using. — Isaac
We would say “It’s raining” when we do not believe it is raining whenever we would intend to lie to another about what the given state of affairs is. But since acknowledging one is lying while actively lying defeats the very intention of lying which one is engaged in, and since we in practice cannot experience intending to lie while simultaneously intending not to lie (this being a contradiction), saying “It’s raining, but I don’t believe it’s raining” is something no one would ever say in earnest.
But, then, in so arguing I find that the statement, “It’s raining, but I don’t believe it is,” is contradictory in terms of the intentions it implies on the part of the speaker who so affirms. — javra
It doesn't say "I say it's raining" because "I" clearly is speaking, saying, that it's raining. It isn't necessary to say you're speaking when you're speaking. That in itself would be peculiar.
When someone says it's raining, they merely say that. They say nothing about themselves. The say something about the weather. — Ciceronianus the White
I can easily say "I say P but I don't believe P"; I'm just telling you I'm lying when I say P. — Pfhorrest
Moore's paradox can be put like this: the expression "I believe that this is the case" is used like the assertion "This is the case"; and yet the hypothesis that I believe this is the case is not used like the hypothesis that this is the case...
...the statement "I believe it's going to rain" has a meaning like, that is to say a use like, "It's going to rain", but the meaning of "I believed then that it was going to rain", is not like that of "It did
rain then"...
..."But surely 'I believed' must tell of just the same thing in the past as 'I believe' in the present!" — Wiitgenstein PI p190
If, however, "I believe it is so" throws light on my state, then so does the assertion "It is so". — Wiitgenstein PI p190
Moore himself is reported to have said the sentence is "an absurdity for psychological reasons" - According to Wittgenstein's report of the lecture.
Despite the herculean efforts of most posters here to avoid any psychological talk and focus on the 'say-ability' of the sentence, this was never the object of the paradox. The object of the paradox was entirely psychological - according to Moore. — Isaac
Wittgenstein expresses his dissatisfaction with Moore’s resolution of the paradox
in the letter he wrote immediately after the meeting of the Moral Sciences Club:
‘To call this, as I think you did, “an absurdity for psychological reasons” seems to me
wrong, or highly misleading. (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!”)’ (Wittgenstein, 1995: 315–16)
You appear to suggest that Moore, Wittgenstein and Ramsey were in agreement on this. However, according to Marie McGinn, Wittgenstein did not agree with Moore about this: — Luke
But that just perpetuates the claim with which Wittgenstein expressly disagrees: that the paradox is "an absurdity for psychological reasons". — Luke
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