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.
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Notes
Lawlor and Perry define (2008, 422) an utterance u of the form (1) as true if there exists a proposition P and a person x such that
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i
x is the speaker of u
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ii
x’s utterance of P in u expresses P
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iii
P is true
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iv
x does not believe P
So my utterance ‘It is raining but I do not believe that it is raining’ is true if there is a proposition < It is raining > and a person, i.e. myself, such that
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i
I am the speaker of ‘It is raining but I do not believe that it is raining’
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ii
My utterance of ‘It is raining’ in ‘It is raining but I do not believe that it is raining’ expresses the proposition
<It is raining>
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iii
<It is raining> is true
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iv
I do not believe <It is raining>
An utterance u of the form (2) is true if there exists a proposition P and a person x such that
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v
x is the referent of ‘N’ in u
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vi
P in u expresses P
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vii
P is true
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viii
x does not believe P
So my utterance ‘It is raining but N doesn’t believe that it is raining’ is true because there is a proposition P, namely <It is raining> and a person, e.g. N, such that
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v
N is the referent of ‘N’ in the utterance ‘It is raining but N doesn’t believe that It is raining’
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vi
‘It is raining’ in ‘It is raining but N doesn’t believe that it is raining’ expresses <It is raining>
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vii
<It is raining> is true
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viii
N does not believe <It is raining>.
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i
Green (2007c) provides a fuller treatment.
Wittgenstein observes that ‘under unusual circumstances’, the sentence, ‘It’s raining but I don’t believe it’ could be ‘given a clear sense’ (1980b, §290). Indeed he gives two consecutive examples of non-absurd uses of such sentences. The first is when delighted by the imminent arrival of a friend, I exclaim in excited amazement, ‘He’s coming but I still can’t believe it!’ (1980a, §485). The second is of a dispassionate railway announcer who is convinced that a train will not arrive. Under orders, he announces its arrival and adds, ‘Personally I don’t believe it’ (1980a, §§486-87). Wittgenstein’s point is that the appearance of the absurdity in speech is not guaranteed by a mere utterance of a sentence of Moore’s forms, as opposed to its assertion. For further discussion of this point, see Green and Williams (2007, Introduction).
Another such case arises when I sarcastically repeat your claim that the pubs are closed and add, ‘I don’t think!’ No absurdity arises because we both know that I am not asserting both halves of the content of my utterance but only quoting your assertion in order to deny it.
For the sake of simplicity of exposition, we assume that the existence of God is logically possible. To avoid this assumption we could say instead that the assertion is possibly true by the assertor’s lights.
‘God will know that I am an atheist’ might appear absurd until we stipulate that I assert it in the knowledge that I am about to take a pill, perhaps under duress, that will reverse my religious beliefs. ‘I will have no beliefs’ might be part of my sensible avowal of my own mortality.
Perhaps Moore has such a case in mind in explicitly distinguishing between the uttering of words assertively and making an assertion (Baldwin 1993, 207).
For similar examples see Williams (2006, 237) and Pelczar (2007, 116). We are not committed to the claim that assertions of the form of (2) can never be absurd. You might be able to sensibly judge that my assertion is absurd if you justifiably believe or know that I justifiably believe or know that I am N.
‘In ordinary life, a situation is absurd when it includes a conspicuous discrepancy between pretension and aspiration or reality: someone gives a complicated speech in support of a motion that has already been passed; a notorious criminal is made president of a major philanthropic foundation; you declare your love over the telephone to a recorded announcement; as you are being knighted, your pants fall down.’ This characterization from Nagel (1979, 13) is more inclusive than the one we will give, but we will only need the less inclusive characterization in what follows.
Following Richard Foley (1979) it might be objected that epistemic rationality does not require that one’s beliefs all be true. For example, some claim the preface paradox to be case in which rationality demands inconsistent beliefs. That claim is controversial. To avoid this controversy, we could say instead that a norm of theoretical rationality is that one should not hold a self-falsifying belief. Thus if one can discern with no empirical investigation that one’s belief is self-falsifying then that belief will be in severe violation of the norms of theoretical rationality, and thus absurd.
The claim that assertions show beliefs needs more defense than we can give here. See Green (2009, 2007a, and 2007c) for elaboration and defense.
Appropriate conditions involve exclusion of such considerations as time constraints and processing effort.
Opacity of reference in belief also occurs in Crimmin’s case, (1992) as discussed by Hájek and Stoljar (2001). For example, Superman informs me that I’m acquainted with him when he is disguised as some other person, whom I think idiotic. However, he does not tell me who this other person is. Moreover, I accept his words on the strength of his reliability and intelligence. I now seem compelled to acknowledge my acceptance of his news with the reply, ‘I mistakenly believe that you are an idiot’. Williams (2006, §10) argues in a similar way to Rosenthal (2002) that the appearance of absurdity is an illusion.
We thank the referee for detailed and insightful criticism.
References
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