Sometimes...

The following two (present tense) statements have the same meaning/use:

(1) "I believe it's going to rain"; and
(2) "It's going to rain"

Both (1) and (2) mean the same as (2). — Luke

No, they don't and I've already given the sense in which they don't (someone reading their own super-advanced fMRI scan). Another might be a schizophrenic talking about his condition, or someone with lesions in the ventral perception pathway, or any of several psychological conditions that can lead to split perceptions. There are two sense of "I believe" and two tenses (past and present), all four combinations are available to us in our language and the context determines which we might mean.

Okay, but your futuristic examples are not what Wittgenstein meant by his example. I'm trying to explain what he meant with his example.

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”. (PI, p.190) — Isaac

Each and every time one is mistaken - and those situations are innumerable - there are most certainly at least a few true statements about the scenario, that that particular individual cannot say about themselves without sounding absurd, despite the fact that others can say without issue. That is the scenario put forth by Moore. — creativesoul

There's no mistake, not really. Someone might say "It's raining but I don't believe it" in frustration or amazement (for example, if it hasn't rained for a long time but rains heavily the day of an outdoor wedding). In that case there's no mistake, of course. The speaker isn't actually standing in the rain without believing it's not raining. Someone may express the fact that they were mistaken by saying "It's raining, but I didn't believe it was."

In Moore's example, when it's said of MacIntosh that he doesn't believe or doesn't think it's raining, is that statement being made of MacIntosh while MacIntosh is standing in the rain, or watching it rain? In that case, he's not mistaken; he's not making an error, and we wouldn't say that of him. Something's seriously wrong with him.

If it's raining and MacIntosh tell us he doesn't think it is while MacIntosh is sitting with us in a windowless room, then he'd be mistaken.

There's no circumstance, however, where we would say "It's raining but I don't believe it is" unless there was something seriously wrong with us, or unless we're playing games. There is no truth to the statement. It sounds absurd because it would never be said by a normal person in a normal situation, but nor would it ever be thought true. It might be thought to be a statement made by someone seriously ill, but that obviously isn't what Moore intends. I think there is no paradox because there is nothing "true" about Moore's contrivance.

Pointing out that another is mistaken is a comparison between the way things were, are, or will be and another's false, contradictory, and/or otherwise problematic belief(s) about that. We cannot knowingly hold false beliefs. Pointing out one's own mistake(in present tense while making it) would require that.

That's the issue in a nutshell.

Your first and last paragraph are in direct conflict with one another.

Your first and last paragraph are in direct conflict with one another. — creativesoul

Well, if you think statements (1) obviously not intended to be taken as literally true, and (2) which refer to what was believed in the past, are the same as statements (3) to be treated, according to Moore, as literally true and (4) which refer to what is believed now, I suppose that would be correct.

Each and every time one is mistaken - and those situations are innumerable - there are most certainly at least a few true statements about the scenario, that that particular individual cannot say about themselves without sounding absurd, despite the fact that others can say without issue. That is the scenario put forth by Moore.
— creativesoul

There's no mistake, not really — Ciceronianus the White

There most certainly is in Moore's scenario. One is mistaken about the weather. Another points it out. Moore wonders why one cannot say the same things about themselves. That's what I've been talking about... with the last few posts in particular.

A bit of philosophy that has passed into general usage is, given a fictional world such as a novel or a movie or a video game, to distinguish between the perspective of fictional characters who (in their fictional way) dwell in that world and our own perspective as outsiders. This isn't hard but I'm going to give an example anyway. Here are two answers to the question, 'Does Santa fly around the world in a helicopter delivering toys on Christmas Eve?':

(1) No, it's a sleigh pulled by eight (sometimes nine) magic reindeer who can fly;
(2) No, because Santa Claus doesn't exist, so he doesn't fly around in anything.

Both are defensible answers, and which is preferred depends on circumstances.

*

Now, you have a story about how the world doesn't really include objects we refer to and talk about using words; these so-called 'objects' are all artifacts of our mental models of reality, created and continually updated by our brains automatically, without our awareness much less our intervention.

Let's say you're right -- it's the standard view in the cognitive sciences these days, I hear, and I have no cause to challenge it. We all inhabit a virtual reality.

But this is not what you and I, or you and @Luke, have been disagreeing about, I believe. It's that when (in-world) I (in-world) asks (in-world) you to (in-world) put the (in-world) book (in-world) on the (in-world) table, you're inclined to tell me that there isn't really a 'table', that the 'table' is in-world and that what I'm talking about is part of a model of reality instantiated in my brain somehow.

Well that's true, right? And didn't I just admit as much?

No. Because in-world I lives in a world that has actual tables and actual books to put on them. In-world, these things are all quite real. It's the whole point of having the model. It's the whole reason our brains generate the virtual reality to start with. The tables in in-world-I's world aren't artifacts of the in-world-model of the in-world-world in in-world-I's in-world brain; they're just tables.

And you accept this too, not just in unguarded or non-philosophical moments, but even here in this discussion every time you say 'brain' instead of saying 'more or less invariant features of reality that we keep track of using the label "brain".' But even that wouldn't do -- look how many words there were used with their in-world meanings! It's all of them.

...Here are two answers to the question, 'Does Santa fly around the world in a helicopter delivering toys on Christmas Eve?':

(1) No, it's a sleigh pulled by eight (sometimes nine) magic reindeer who can fly;
(2) No, because Santa Claus doesn't exist, so he doesn't fly in anything.

Both are defensible answers, and which is preferred depends on circumstances. — Srap Tasmaner

This is worthy of it's own thread.

Because in-world I lives in a world that has actual tables and actual books to put on them. In-world, these things are all quite real. It's the whole point of having the model. It's the whole reason our brains generate the virtual reality to start with. The tables in in-world-I's world aren't artifacts of the in-world-model of the in-world-world in in-world-I's in-world brain; they're just tables. — Srap Tasmaner

I completely agree with you, but this is exactly what I've been trying to argue all this time, sentences which cross worlds [hierarchies of models] can only really be made sense of in very careful contexts.

Have you ever read a fantasy story to a child? There's been some experimental work on this, as well as just anecdotal evidence. Children have a limit of acceptability in fantasy stories. You'll be telling a story about a flying carpet (fine, no problem) then say, "and then I ate carpet and flew home", they'll invariably say something along the lines of "That wouldn't work, you need to sit on the carpet for it to fly you home, it won't work if you eat it!" - The story is treated as a purported model with it's own rules (most of which are simply our rules). There's just a higher level model above it within which it's just a story. Sentences which cross models or break out of models aren't easy to make sense of.

If I say "pass the salt" I don't need to explain the whole inference-model, my dining-companion's model is sufficiently similar that my words have the expected result. Which I think is what you're saying. But then you seem to think this an answer or counter to my position here, and I'm not sure how that works. Answers in either world make sense, answers which cross worlds are more difficult to understand "It's a sleigh pulled by eight reindeer but reindeer can't fly so they'll have to run really fast", wouldn't make sense.

That's the trouble with Moore's paradox (or the solutions to it) that I'm trying to explain. "It's raining" is 'in-world' as you put it, your 'rain' is similar enough to my 'rain' that we can just talk about rain and its properties without getting into how they're modelled in the brain. Fine.

"I believe it's raining" (taken as a psychological statement) is not in the same model as "It's raining", it's talking about how the model of 'raining' is being formed - by my believing it to be the case. Truth values, when treated as simple correspondence, then go further the other way, treating the in-world as if it were the only one and there is no story "Santa is real and that's all there is to it". This constant crossing of worlds without any note given to the fact that we're doing so is what causes the confusion.

If we're in the shared model where "It's raining" just means that in-world clouds are dropping in-world water, then "I believe it's raining" is not truth-evaluable by me. My beliefs about this model are assumed to be the case, that's the game we're playing when we talk about stuff in-world. We can't talk about Santa in-story and simultaneously talk about the properties of the writer of the story.

If we're in the next model up, where the real world is not directly accessible to us and we can talk about "my beliefs about it", then "It's raining" is not truth-evaluable. We've no idea if it's actually raining or not, and even the very concept of rain is just a shared model which may be slightly different in each mind sharing it.

What those analysing Moore's paradox as having two conflicting truth values are doing is trying to have both, exactly what you've just shown does not make sense (except in very careful circumstances).

If one wants to claim that "It's raining" has a truth value within that world-model. It's true iff it's raining. Then there's no problem with doing that, but we can't then simultaneously talk about our beliefs about whether it's raining and evaluate such propositions by the same standard. Our beliefs about whether it's raining are the authors of the story in which it's raining.

It is not 'my' approach, but what Moore already suggested...and I haven't ever seen a better explanation than the one he gave. It fits into a more general pattern of speech acts – sincerity (even knowledge, perhaps) is a general condition on most assertion, but that sincerity isn't what one asserts. Moore's Paradox isn't interesting because the problem itself remains 'unresolved,' but because it tipped analytic philosophers off to the fact that we imply multiple things in multiple ways when we speak, often over and above the narrow content of what's asserted. As Banno suggests, this was important because, along with the discovery of presupposition and implicature, it helped pave the way for a better semantics embedded within a logic of speech acts.

Wittgenstein's stab at it can't possibly be right, since 'I believe it's raining' and 'It's raining' don't mean the same. Of course, one can utter the first to convey the second, and this might even be the point of saying it. But to deny the first, we say 'no you don't,' and to deny the second, we say 'no it's not.' And in doing so, we deny very different things. Likewise, the report of what's said is different: 'John said he thinks it's raining' versus 'John said it's raining.' Even in isolation the utterances have quite different pragmatics – 'I believe it's raining' is weaker, in that it implies a hedge, and puts less pressure on the audience on the uptake. Cf. 'I believe it's raining, but I'm not sure if it is,' versus 'It's raining, but I'm not sure if it is.'

There's no circumstance, however, where we would say "It's raining but I don't believe it is" unless there was something seriously wrong with us, or unless we're playing games. There is no truth to the statement. It sounds absurd because it would never be said by a normal person in a normal situation, but nor would it ever be thought true. It might be thought to be a statement made by someone seriously ill, but that obviously isn't what Moore intends. I think there is no paradox because there is nothing "true" about Moore's contrivance. — Ciceronianus the White

I don't think you're getting the point of the example. Everyone, including Moore, agrees it's absurd, that one wouldn't normally say it, etc. That's the whole point – the fact that it's absurd shows something interesting about the relation of belief to assertion, viz. that we commit to believing what we assert, without outright saying that we believe it.

Even in isolation the utterances have quite different pragmatics – 'I believe it's raining' is weaker, in that it implies a hedge, and puts less pressure on the audience on the uptake. Cf. 'I believe it's raining, but I'm not sure if it is,' versus 'It's raining, but I'm not sure if it is.' — Snakes Alive

Obviously I agree with everything in your post, and have said as much, but I've avoided leaning on this particular point because, while it's true that in everyday usage people reach for 'believe' precisely when they want to deny claiming knowledge or certainty, around here 'believe' is usually shoptalk that's just neutral on the confidence with which you believe. The latter is not so much a 'weaker' cognitive verb, as just a limited one. In everyday usage, your first example there ('I believe it's raining, but I'm not sure') is almost redundant. In everyday usage, certainty is sometimes an implicature that can be canceled. ('How many are left?' 'Seventeen -- but don't quote me on that.')

This is all very long-winded, but there is a methodological worry at the end: earlier-days ordinary language philosophy often marshalled evidence for a claim by saying things like 'If that were true, you'd be able to say this, but you can't.' As OLP birthed or transformed into pragmatics, it became clear that reading those cases as questions of 'what makes sense' is not so simple: what makes sense is sometimes what fits the pragmatics rather than what is truth-apt or something.

Such a profound insight. And all that was needed to arrive at it was to pretend that a statement which would not be made was made, and was "true."

Oh no. I've made an assertion I don't believe without saying I don't believe it. That's absurd, isn't it? Why is that?

"I believe it's raining" (taken as a psychological statement) is not in the same model as "It's raining", it's talking about how the model of 'raining' is being formed - by my believing it to be the case. — Isaac

We do get to choose though, and some choices may be better grounded than others in particular circumstances. Where you say '(taken as a psychological statement)', you're simply announcing your choice. I announced mine a few pages ago when I said 'meaning, referring and believing are part of our frame not yours, part of folk psychology, not neuroscience.'

Compare these answers to 'Why do you think it's going to rain?':

(1) Because Channel 5 said ...
(2) Because my neurons ...

In everyday life, and in philosophy, we talk about beliefs having or lacking reasons; in psychology, you're headed for causes or explanations.

If we're in the shared model where "It's raining" just means that in-world clouds are dropping in-world water, then "I believe it's raining" is not truth-evaluable by me. My beliefs about this model are assumed to be the case, that's the game we're playing when we talk about stuff in-world. — Isaac

The presuppositions of our shared model are assumed -- that there's objects, that time passes, that people have beliefs and intentions, and so on -- but obviously people worry all the time about whether their beliefs are true, and they do so within the shared model, accepting those presuppositions.

Our beliefs about whether it's raining are the authors of the story in which it's raining. — Isaac

Our shared beliefs are the author of the story in which it is possible for it to be raining, but an individual can clearly believe it's raining when it isn't. The world in this game is persistent: we change what stories we tell as individuals within it without rebooting the whole shared world every few milliseconds.

So in what sense is my at this moment belief not truth-evaluable by me, just assumed to be the case? Are we all prisoners of our own beliefs? If you believe something, you can do other than assume you're right, deluded though you may be?

This is just to say that you actually believe what you believe. I also actually bend at the waist and allow the chair to support me when I sit. That's neither a consequence nor an explanation; it's just what sitting is. Your at this moment belief is not truth-evaluable by you not because you are prisoner of your at this moment mental model, but because you have already evaluated its truth. You've already put a check in the T box, so your pencil is no longer hovering between the T and the F. And you might change that, but at this moment the T box does have a check. That's just what believing is.

Because when we're not mistaken, we're not mistaken. When someone else is not mistaken, they're not mistaken. According to Moore, in the first case there's a mistake. In the second case, there is no mistake.

Tiny additional point: folk psychology freely mixes reasons and explanations, especially when the mental state in question includes emotions as well as beliefs.

'Say, Lefty -- why does Tex hate Canadians so much?'
'Canadian killed his pa.'
'Mmm. I still say, that's no justification for judging a whole country.'

around here 'believe' is usually shoptalk that's just neutral on the confidence with which you believe. — Srap Tasmaner

The problem is we're talking, presumably, about normal English, not the specialty language of philosophers. I wouldn't really trust the specialty language, either – we can't just destroy the use of a verb by professional fiat, and we're always in danger of returning with our insights to use the word normally again, therefore drawing inferences we were never licensed to.

Another difference – 'I believe it's raining' typically implies that the speaker does not see that it is raining. 'It's raining' implies no such thing – we might see it, we might not. These nuances are crucial in evaluating these things. We can't just throw these words around.

As OLP birthed or transformed into pragmatics, it became clear that reading those cases as questions of 'what makes sense' is not so simple: what makes sense is sometimes what fits the pragmatics rather than what is truth-apt or something. — Srap Tasmaner

I think that in this case, the semantics is indeed different, which is why the pragmatics is different. It's true that at this time people weren't so good at distinguishing different levels of implication, but the discovery of Moore's Paradox was part of the process of sorting that out a little better. You can see Wittgenstein here as making the mistake you outline – he saw that 'I believe it's raining' and 'it's raining' are often used for similar illocutionary purposes (true) and therefore concluded that in some sense they must 'mean the same' or 'be used the same way' (false, once we look more carefully, and at a wider array of examples).

Note a methodological weakness in the Wittgensteinian claim is that we're unable to explain why 'I believe it's raining' has a similar effect sometimes to 'it's raining,' but we can't explain why this tendency goes away when the tense or person shift. Wittgenstein notes this, but so far as his comments go, it's a complete accident that these functions differ in such systematic ways. But it's not an accident – there is a reason why the first person present tense for these verbs is what triggers the oddity, precisely because 'believe' means the same in all these contexts, but only when one commits to not believing what one is saying at that time does it become odd, due to the constraints on normal assertion.

Such a profound insight. And all that was needed to arrive at it was to pretend that a statement which would not be made was made, and was "true." — Ciceronianus the White

Well, it would be true. Think of it this way. If I say 'John thinks it's raining, but it's not,' there's really no issue. And suppose I'm right: it isn't raining, but John thinks it is. Then I've said something straightforwardly true. But if John were to report this same thing, how would he say it? Well, he'd say 'I think it's raining, but it's not.' He said the same thing as I did, but there is something wrong with the way he said that thing. The reason is that if he says it, he must commit to his own belief in what he denies believing. There's no such restriction on me if I say it.

And so, it's not just about what we say and whether it's true – there are additionally norms governing who says that very same thing, and in what circumstances. In this case it's because we typically commit to believing what we assert, though we don't say that we believe it in making this commitment.

Oh no. I've made an assertion I don't believe without saying I don't believe it. That's absurd, isn't it? Why is that? — Ciceronianus the White

I'm not really understanding what this has to do with the scenario. You may not be following.

The hypothetical John's statement would be "true" only to the same extent it would be "true" that he thought it was raining while aware it wasn't. But that wouldn't happen. So it would be as "true" as something that wouldn't happen would be "true."

Agreed across the board.

Do you have a way of fleshing out 'commitment'?

Didn't I say the same thing as him, though? And isn't what I said true?

people worry all the time about whether their beliefs are true, and they do so within the shared model, accepting those presuppositions. — Srap Tasmaner

I don't see how they do. Within the model (where we talk about certain well-accepted shared beliefs as real objects fo the world), when I'm getting wet from standing outside and I can see droplets of water falling from the sky, so I really 'worry about' whether my belief that it's raining is true? I can see people worrying about certain edge cases, but not in the main. Notwithstanding that, my locus of attack here is the notion that Moore's paradox is solvable without questioning correspondence theory. If people are concerned whether their beliefs correspond to states of the (in-story) world, then there's no paradox. If "It's raining" means 'the socially agreed in-world state is that of raining', then Macintosh might very well disagree with that, he could quite logically say "It's raining, but I don't believe it is" by substitution, it just means the same as "The socially agreed in-world state is that of raining, but I don't agree" - a perfectly common situation.

The point is that the paradox only works as odd in this sense if one takes the view that "It's raining" is truth-evaluable, not only in a way separate to "I believe it's raining", but in a way where one could not reasonably believe otherwise (hence the oddity of saying so). This is not the state of shared assumptions you're now describing, one could reasonably believe otherwise in that case.

If "It's raining" is about the state of some external world, then we have the question of how that state caused us to form the sentence without passing through models of belief (which them become the object of the sentence, lest the object be something we're not even in control of).

If "It's raining" is about those of my beliefs which are shared and unquestioned in society (the 'stroy' we all inhabit), then we have the problem that it's perfectly reasonable to question that story, something akin to "I've been brought up to believe in God, but I don't think I do believe"

If, however, we simply accept that for certain classes of belief, in certain contexts of use, "I believe it's raining" is simply the same as "It's raining" and the same as "It's true that it's raining", then the paradox is solved Macintosh is saying "I believe it's raining, I believe it isn't raining" which is a contradiction, McGillicuddy is saying "Macintosh believes it's raining, I don't believe it's raining" which is not a contradiction". Wittgenstein's objection to this solution I've covered above with Luke, is only a problem if one mixes one of the many other senses in which "I believe" could be used, many of which would also make sense in the present tense, as has been shown here (A description of a psychological state, an expression of uncertainty, an expression of surprise...)

an individual can clearly believe it's raining when it isn't. — Srap Tasmaner

in what sense is my at this moment belief not truth-evaluable by me — Srap Tasmaner

Your at this moment belief is not truth-evaluable by you not because you are prisoner of your at this moment mental model, but because you have already evaluated its truth. — Srap Tasmaner

All seem to be about the same issue, and I'm not sure what it is you have in mind. By what process do you imagine I go about evaluating the truth of my beliefs that would not simply constitute the updating of my mental model?

If, however, we simply accept that for certain classes of belief, in certain contexts of use, "I believe it's raining" is simply the same as "It's raining" and the same as "It's true that it's raining", then the paradox is solved Macintosh is saying "I believe it's raining, I believe it isn't raining" which is a contradiction, McGillicuddy is saying "Macintosh believes it's raining, I don't believe it's raining" which is not a contradiction". Wittgenstein's objection to this solution I've covered above with Luke, is only a problem if one mixes one of the many other senses in which "I believe" could be used, many of which would also make sense in the present tense — Isaac

Wittgenstein agrees that this contradiction is the source of the paradox; he just finds this explanation to be not comprehensive enough. The point I've been trying to get across to you - Wittgenstein's point - is that, in the context of use you describe above, the pair of statements "I believe it's raining" and "It's raining" both have the same meaning. But why doesn't the same paradox arise for the same pair of statements in the same context in the past tense? In the past tense, the same pair of statements do not have the same meaning (as each other).

in the context of use you describe above, the pair of statements "I believe it's raining" and "It's raining" both have the same meaning. But why doesn't the same paradox arise for the same pair of statements in the same context in the past tense? In the past tense, the same pair of statements do not have the same meaning (as each other). — Luke

The pair of statements "I believe it's raining" and "It's raining" have different meanings in different contexts, we agree on that much I think.

Each meaning in each context has a past, present and future tense. So if there were two meanings, A and B, Wittgenstein is comparing present tense A with past tense B. Understandable because we hardly ever use meaning B in the present tense, and we hardly ever use meaning A in the past tense, but we could do, neither are logically impossible.

As I said:

The hypothetical John's statement would be "true" only to the same extent it would be "true" that he thought it was raining while aware it wasn't. But that wouldn't happen. So it would be as "true" as something that wouldn't happen would be "true."

For me, there are problems with describing what wouldn't happen as "true."

We're not describing an action or event as true (which I don't think makes much sense), but what someone said. Whether or not 'it would happen' isn't the relevant point. The point is that if it did happen, he would have said something true.

We know this because he said the same thing that I did, namely that it's raining, but John thinks it's not.

You can also show this another way. If I say, 'It's raining, but John thinks it's not,' and John says, 'agreed,' or 'that's right,' he has equally said something very bizarre. Yet he has done so just by agreeing with exactly what I already said. Yet I said something obviously true – so what's strange is not what I said, but that fact that John is the one saying it or agreeing to it.

he point is that if it did happen, he would have said something true. — Snakes Alive

Sorry, but I don't think the statement "X is the case, but I don't think X is the case" is a true statement.