Sunday, February 7, 2010

Moore akratic when paradoxical

Grice writes in _Aspects of Reason_ (Clarendon, 2001, p.73):

"I am going to
be almost exclusively concerned with alethic & practical arguments, the
proximate conclusions of which will be, respectively, of the forms "Acc (|-
p)" and "Acc (!p)".

E.g. "Acceptable (it is the case that it snows)", and
"Acceptable (let it be that I go home)".

We might regard it as a
_sentential_ modifier: to utter "Acceptable (let it be that I go home" will
be to utter "Acceptably, let it be that I go home".

TO ADOPT THIS VIEW WOULD SEEM TO COMMIT US TO
THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF INCONTINENCE;

for since 'accept that let it be that I go home' is to be my rewrite for
'V-accept (will) that I go home', ANYONE x WHO CONCLUDED, BY PRACTICAL
ARGUMENT, THAT 'Acceptable let it be that x go home' would IPSO FACTO will
to go home."

It is here that Grice traces the parallel with what I would
call 'doxastic akrasia':

"Similarly, THOUGH LESS PARADOXICALLY, any one who
concluded, by alethic argument, 'acceptable it is the case that it snows',
would _ipso facto_ judge that it snows.

So, an alternative reading seems
preferable."

--- And Moore, did he read?

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