Publication Type

Journal Article

Version

acceptedVersion

Publication Date

10-2010

Abstract

G. E. Moore famously observed that to assert ‘I went to the pictures last Tuesday but I do not believe that I did’ would be ‘absurd’. Moore calls it a ‘paradox’ that this absurdity persists despite the fact that what I say about myself might be true. Krista Lawlor and John Perry have proposed an explanation of the absurdity that confines itself to semantic notions while eschewing pragmatic ones. We argue that this explanation faces four objections. We give a better explanation of the absurdity both in assertion and in belief that avoids our four objections.

Keywords

Moore, Paradox, Assertion, Belief, Pragmatic, Semantic

Discipline

Philosophy

Research Areas

Humanities

Publication

Acta Analytica

Volume

26

Issue

3

First Page

243

Last Page

255

ISSN

0353-5150

Identifier

10.1007/s12136-010-0110-0

Publisher

Springer Verlag

Additional URL

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12136-010-0110-0

Included in

Philosophy Commons

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