Moore's Paradox

A Critique of Representationalism

Ulla Schmid

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9783110371031
• eBook ISBN: 9783110392418
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Language in Philosophy

Representationalism grasps the meaning and grammar of linguistic expressions in terms of reference; that is, as determined by the respective objects, concepts or states of affairs they are supposed to represent, and by the internal structure of the content they articulate.
As a consequence, the semantic and grammatical properties of linguistic expressions allegedly reflect the constitution of the objects they refer to. Questions concerning the meaning of particular linguistic expressions are supposed to be answerable by investigating the metaphysics of the corresponding phenomena. Accordingly, questions of the meaning of psychological concepts, are turned into questions of the nature of psychological states. Concerned with Moore's Paradox, representationalist approaches lead into an investigation of the state of affairs supposedly described by Moore-paradoxical assertions, and thus eventually into investigations concerning the metaphysics of belief.
This book argues that this strategy necessarily yields both a wrong solution to Moore's Paradox and an inadequate conception of the meaning of the expression I believe. Turning to the metaphysics of belief is of no use when it comes to understanding either the meaning of the expression 'I believe' or the logic of avowals of belief. Instead, it proposes to focus on the role they play in language, the ways in which they are used in practice.

1 Representationalism and Moore’s Paradox

1.1 Introduction

In this chapter, I provide a general outline of representationalism, which serves to clarify the target of my investigation and is mainly terminological in character (Section 2.1). I focus on the foundational claims of representationalism, that is, those constituting its common theoretical framework, and mention controversies within this framework only in passing, without discussing them in detail or taking a stance in them. Since I will be concerned with the core of the representational theory in what follows, these differences do not affect the force of my argumentation.

At the core of representationalism lies the thesis that the function of the mind is to represent the world, that is, to disclose aspects of it to the subject. The subject forms particular representational states expressing either how the subject takes the world to be (cognitive states) or how he or she would like the world to become (conative states). One consequence of the representationalist assumptions worth highlighting here is that the relation between a person and his or her own states of mind, that is, between the bearer of a particular representational state and the representational state itself, is distinctive.

I introduce next Moore’s Paradox as a challenge to the analogous representationalist assumptions about the meaning of language, in particular the claims that meaningful expressions serve as a means of representing reality, and that the meaning consists in designating a corresponding referent (Section 2.2). Moore’s Paradox arises in connection with assertions such as ‘It is raining, but I don’t believe it’. These are absurd, but not contradictory. This is paradoxical: it is absurd to assert sentences of this kind, although they have a definite meaning and express an empirically possible state of affairs.

On a closer look, Moore-paradoxical sentences consist in a conjunction of two propositions, that p is the case and that I do not believe that p is the case. The first is a statement of facts, the second one a statement concerning the speaker’s own state of mind. These statements are incommensurable with respect to formal-logical criteria. Since the relation between the speaker and his or her own state of mind is supposed to be distinctive, linguistic articulations of one’s own state of mind appear to be asymmetric, compared with assertions about another person’s mental condition. So the prima facie conjecture is that the second conjunct is responsible for the generation of Moore’s Paradox. For this reason, the solution to Moore’s Paradox issued from a representationalist point of view proceeds from the assumption that the second conjunct of a Moore-paradoxical assertion stands at odds with an additional, implicit statement about the speaker’s state of mind.

I then examine three approaches to Moore’s Paradox from within the representationalist framework, the approaches of John Searle, Sydney Shoemaker and Richard Moran (Section 3).² All of them endorse G. E. Moore’s original approach. Moore’s suggestion proceeds from the intuition that one normally believes what one asserts. More technically speaking, by asserting that p is the case the speaker implies that he or she also believes that p is the case. The person who asserts a Moore-paradoxical sentence, accordingly, implies (by the first conjunct) that he or she believes that p is the case, whereas he or she openly asserts that he or she does not believe that p is the case. Thus, the speaker of a Moore-paradoxical assertion is supposed to implicitly assert a contradiction, which is supposed to explain the absurdity of his or her assertion.

Summarising the approaches, I explain why this conclusion necessarily follows from taking for granted the representationalist view of the function of mind and language, and why this conclusion is a false solution to Moore’s Paradox. I close this chapter by surveying the core claims of representationalism once again. This time, I focus specifically on its conception of language, which I will trace back to Frege’s writings.

Notwithstanding wide agreement on the representationalist explanation of both Moore’s Paradox and the absurdity of Moore-paradoxical sentences, Moore-paradoxical assertions are neither formal-logical, nor empirical contradictions. Thus, attempts to solve Moore’s Paradox proceeding from the core claims of representationalism, necessarily fail. In the following chapter, I will argue that this is a good reason for abandoning the representationalist conception of mind and language (Chapter 2). I will suggest an alternative understanding of meaning, which I will defend and clarify in the final chapter (Chapter 3).

1.2 The Theory of Representationalism

Representationalism is the doctrine that the mind engages with the world by representing it. Despite controversy concerning ontology and epistemology of the mind and concerning the function of representation in detail, the representationalist conception is the common denominator in mainstream philosophy of mind, past and present-from Aristotle to Searle, Descartes to Dretske, Kant to McDowell, Frege to the author of the Tractatus.³ The central ideas captured by representationalism are the ideas of perspectivity, veridicality, and mind-independence. The way in which the world appears to me is different from how it appears to you or to Peter. Similarly, Peter, you and I can have different attitudes towards the same aspect of the world. I represent the world from my perspective, and how I represent the world partly constitutes my perspective on it. Further, the world need not be as it appears to me, to you, to Peter or anybody else, and not as we want it to be or become. We can be wrong in our beliefs, perceptions and assumptions, we can lie to one another, or unintentionally make false statements. Our desires can remain unsatisfied, our wishes wishful thinking, we can fail in carrying out our intentions. My representation of the world is veridical, if I represent it as it is, or if it becomes as I represent it. Still, the world, or reality is as it is, prior to and independently of whether, and how it is represented. It is the object of representation, and as such, objective.

1.2.1 Representation

The notions ‘representation’ and ‘representing’ are used in a relational sense as well as in a functional sense. On the one hand, they designate a two-place relation: a (representational) subject (an individual, or a person) relates to an object (a representational object, or representatum) by representing it. That is, the representationalist conception basically involves a primordial separation or distinction between subject and object, and yet a connection between them established in that the subject represents the object. By means of representation, individual aspects of the world (representational objects) are singled out and (mentally) grasped by an individual (the representing subject).⁴ The outcome of representing an object is that the subject entertains a representational state, or is in a state of representing. The function of token representational states is to represent objects as they are. As functional notions, ‘representation’ and ‘representing’ refer to the aim of token representational states, namely to disclose the representational object to the subject as it is actually constituted, that is, to deliver an accurate description of the object. If they do so, that is, if token representational states are veridical, the fulfil their function to the effect that the subject represents the object as it is. In this case, there is a representational relation holding between the token representational state in question and the respective representational object.⁵

The representationalist theory of mind presumes that the world represented by individuals is ‘objective’. With respect to the ontology of representational objects, it is generally committed to ‘realism’ about the world ‘external’ to the subject. Although the views as to how realism ought to be further elaborated vary, realism minimally involves an ontological claim about representational objects and an epistemological claim about the way they are accessed in representing. The objects of mental representation are real in the sense that they are ontologically mind-independent. Thus, they are individuable independently of whether, in which way and from which perspective they are represented and their boundaries are identifiable by objective criteria.⁶ Further, ‘representation’ denotes a uniform phenomenon, its function is identical for different individuals. The apprehension of representational objects thus is equally perspective-independent as the objects themselves. Under favourable circumstances, mental representation delivers knowledge about the respective representational objects as they really are. The nature of representational objects remains unchanged by being represented. Both claims result from the idea that representational states can be assessed with respect to their veridicality, that is, with respect to whether they represent their objects as they are. The idea of veridicality implies that representational states and representational objects are comparable, which requires that the object represented by a particular representational state is identifiable beyond the respective state. The criteria by which any representational object is identifiable provide for the verifiability of representational states and, accordingly, must be objectively accessible.⁷

An individual subject’s representational states interrelate according to certain principles, adding up to series, or sequences of interrelating representational states, that is, mental processes. The totality of an individual subject’s representational states in this way constitutes an interlocking structure or system, which is regarded as tantamount to, or at least partly constitutive of, the subject’s mind.

The relationship of the notions ‘representation’ and ‘intentionality’ is a matter of disagreement. Sometimes, they are used equivalently (for example, Crane (2003) and Searle (1983)), sometimes the notion ‘intentionality’ is deemed to include, but not be limited to that of representationality, that is, that intentional states contain non-representational elements (for example, Chalmers (2004)), or that there are some forms of intentionality, which do not include representational content at all.⁸

I will use the notions ‘mental states’, ‘intentional states’ and ‘representational states’ interchangeably and sometimes use the notions ‘experiences’ and ‘experiential states’, without denying that at least some representationalist views hold that ‘the mental’ and ‘intentionality’ are not entirely analysable into representational states, and that ‘experiences’ and ‘experiential states’ involve non-representational elements, if they are not considered entirely non-representational.⁹

1.2.1.1 The Two-Component-Model of Representational States

The ideas of perspectivity, veridicality, and mind-independence respond to the commonplace intuitions that the world appears to different people in different ways, that one can take different attitudes towards the same state of affairs, and that the world really is not always as it seems to be. This observation can be formulated like this: In every instance of representation, the world is represented from a certain perspective as being in a certain way. These considerations are unified in a conception of representational states, which lies at the core of representationalism and is shared by all its versions, the two-component model of the mind. This model extends to all kinds of representational states including perceptual experience (as far as this is representational), and particularly applies to intentional and linguistic states.¹⁰

According to the representationalist view, representational states, or mental states, can be analysed into two components, a representational mode, and a representational content. The content of a representat...

Table of contents

• Quellen und Studien zur Philosophie
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Acknowledgements
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• 1 Representationalism and Moore’s Paradox
• 2 Moore’s Paradox Revisited
• 3 ‘I Believe’ in Practice
• 4 Epilogue: The Legacy of Moore’s Paradox
• Abbreviations of the Works of Ludwig Wittgenstein
• Bibliography
• Index