Is speranza for real?
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From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
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Sent: 26 May 2015 02:34
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Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Mooreian Paradoxes
We are considering what Alston calls 'armchair philosophising': Moore is
sitting down; Russell is standing up. But do they know it? Or is Alston
dreaming?
In a message dated 5/25/2015 8:14:45 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx writes: "Well, I don't know how Moore knew what Russell was
sure about,at most it could be an argument ad hominem. Perhaps more
importantly, could I not say that I am sitting in a dream, or in BIW scenario,
or whatever ? It's not clear to me that I couldnt say this. Surely if I knew
that I were living in a dream I would go on saying things like 'I am sitting on
a chair', etc."
Well, Moore is asking us to consider a few facts and utterances.
i. It is LOGICALLY possible that I SHOULD HAVE BEEN sitting down now.
(i) certainly does entail (ii).
ii. The proposition that I am sitting down now is not self-contradictory.
But if (ii) did entail
iii. It is logically possible that I AM sitting down now.
it would follow that (i), i.e. .
i. It is logically possible that I should have been sitting down now.
entails (iii):
iii. It is logically possible that I AM sitting down now.
But does it?
We don't think so! Modals are tricky, and I MAY say that "It may be raining"
when I know it IS raining (because if it's raining that's because it may be
raining, but not vice versa -- cfr. Do you ken John Peele? If you know John
Peele, you can know John Peele, but you can NOT know John Peele, "I know John
Peele" is false).
Certainly, if you look at it, from a conversational point of view, it would be
quite an unnatural thing for Moore, when he knew that he was standing up, to
say the latter ("It is logically possible that I am sitting down now"),
whereas it would be quite natural for Moore to say the former ("It is
logically possible that I SHOULD HAVE BEEN sitting down").
Perhaps we can go further and say that, if Moore said the latter ("It is
logically possible that I am sitting down"), Moore should be saying something
untrue, whereas if Moore said the former ("It is logically possible that I
should have been sitting down") he should be saying something true, as he
should.
Just as if Moore said (iv)
iv. I MIGHT HAVE BEEN sitting down now.
when he knew he was standing up, Moore should be saying something true, whereas
if Moore said
v. I may be sitting down now.
under the same circumstances, Moore should be saying something pretty false
(or "pretty and false" as Geary prefers -- "I dislike the adverbial use of
'pretty'").
Even the expression
vi. It is logically possible that p.
if you think of it (cfr. Strawson, "Introduction to Logical Theory") retains
the characteristic which belongs to one ordinary use of the more colloquial
expression
vii. It is possible that p.
versus
viii. It is probable that p.
Namely, that it can only be said with truth by an utterer who, ceteris paribus,
does not know that p is not the case.
That is, if Moore were to say, when he knew that he standing up,
iii. It is logically possible that I am sitting down.
Moore should be implicating that Moore does NOT know that he is not. He would,
that is, be implicating something which, again, if Moore did know that he was
not sitting down, is false.
It's all different, I grant, with Russell, who preferred to stand up
_regardless_, and even for Quine, who believed in truth-value gaps, and found
Moore's prose boring (as compared to the scintillating flow of Grice's
idioms!)
Cheers,
Speranza
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