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Radical Interpretation and Moore's Paradox
Author(s) -
VAHID HAMID
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
theoria
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.34
H-Index - 16
eISSN - 1755-2567
pISSN - 0040-5825
DOI - 10.1111/j.1755-2567.2008.00013.x
Subject(s) - assertion , appearance of impropriety , epistemology , interpretation (philosophy) , meaning (existential) , pragmatics , philosophy , constraint (computer aided design) , linguistics , implicature , minimalism (technical communication) , psychology , mathematics , computer science , statistics , geometry , theology , programming language
Moore's sentences of the form “P & ∼I believe that P” and “P & I believe that ∼P” are thought to be paradoxical because they cannot be properly asserted despite being possibly true. Solutions to the paradox usually explain the oddity of such sentences in terms of phenomena as diverse as the pragmatics of speech acts, nature of belief or justification. In this paper I shall argue that despite their seemingly different approaches to the problem, there is a single strategy that underlies all such proposals. Having criticized these suggestions, I shall defend my own solution according to which Moorean sentences are defective not because of some associated logical impropriety but because their assertion violates a certain interpretive constraint, viz., the principle of charity, on an adequate theory of meaning.