Key works |
See Moore 1962 and Moore 1952 for initial discussion, and the essays in Green & Williams 2007. For an influential derivation-based approach, see Shoemaker 1995. The language version of the paradox typically receives a pragmatic explanation. Pragmatic explanations tend to maintain that the defectiveness is owed to the speech act of assertion requiring the speaker to believe or know what they assert (Searle & Vanderveken 1985, Williamson 2000). However, some pragmatic explanations attempt to assimilate the defectiveness to something else like Grice's Maxim of Quality. See Benton 2016 for critical discussion. A few semantic solutions have been defended as well (Gillies 2001, van Elswyk 2021). The paradox has been claimed to carry significant implications for many debates. Examples include expressivism (Woods 2014), moral motivation (Cholbi 2009), consciousness (Rosenthal 1995), and self-knowledge (Shoemaker 1995, Fernández 2007, Barnett 2021). A recurring question is whether Moorean conjunctions are always defective, or whether some variants are acceptable (Sorensen 1988, Crimmins 1992, Turri 2010, Pruss 2012, Hinchman 2013). |