Moore's paradox

Not to be confused with Langford–Moore paradox or Moore's law.

Moore's paradox concerns the apparent absurdity involved in asserting a first-person present-tense sentence such as "It is raining, but I do not believe that it is raining" or "It is raining, but I believe that it is not raining." The first author to note this apparent absurdity was George E. Moore.[1] These 'Moorean' sentences, as they have become known, are paradoxical in that while they appear absurd, they nevertheless

  1. Can be true;
  2. Are (logically) consistent; and
  3. Are not (obviously) contradictions.

The term 'Moore's paradox' is attributed to Ludwig Wittgenstein,[2] who considered the paradox Moore's most important contribution to philosophy.[3] Wittgenstein wrote about the paradox extensively in his later writings,[a] which brought Moore's paradox the attention it would not have otherwise received.[4]

Moore's paradox has been associated with many other well-known logical paradoxes, including, though not limited to, the liar paradox, the knower paradox, the unexpected hanging paradox, and the preface paradox.[5]

There is currently not any generally accepted explanation of Moore's paradox in the philosophical literature. However, while Moore's paradox remains a philosophical curiosity, Moorean-type sentences are used by logicians, computer scientists, and those working with artificial intelligence as examples of cases in which a knowledge, belief, or information system is not modified in response to new data.[6]

  1. ^ Moore, G. E. (1993). "Moore's Paradox". In Baldwin, Thomas (ed.). G. E. Moore: Selected Writings. London: Routledge. pp. 207–212. ISBN 978-0-415-09853-3.
  2. ^ Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1953). Philosophical Investigations. Section II.x. Blackwell Publishers. p. 190.
  3. ^ Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1974). von Wright, G. H. (ed.). Letters to Russell, Keynes and Moore. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.
  4. ^ Wittgenstein, Ludwig (1980). Anscombe, G. E. M.; von Wright, G. H. (eds.). Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology, Volume I. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. ISBN 978-0-631-12541-9.
  5. ^ Sorensen, Roy A. (1988). Blindspots. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-824981-8.
  6. ^ Hendricks, Vincent F.; Symons, John (2006). "Where's the Bridge? Epistemology and Epistemic Logic". Philosophical Studies. 128 (1): 137–167. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.330.3026. doi:10.1007/s11098-005-4060-0. ISSN 0031-8116. S2CID 11014804.


Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).