Moore’s Paradox

Abstract

There is no doubt that the distinction drawn by Jonathan Cohen between the concepts of belief and acceptance is an important one.¹ Certain long-standing philosophical problems seem remarkably more tractable once this conceptual clarification has been achieved, and I should go so far as to say that Cohen’s book is testimony to, and a great advertisement for, the utility of analytical philosophy. For example, the phenomenon of self-deceit (a real phenomenon rather than a philosophical contrivance) is extremely curious and recalcitrant both philosophically and psychologically. But, once we see, with Cohen, how a belief that p can be put on the back burner while at the same time a person is accepting not-p, the matter of self-deceit becomes vastly clearer (p. 141 ff.). Typically, a person who plays the stock market believes, deep down, that the only person likely to win is the stockbroker, yet, driven by greed, accepts the stockbroker’s forecast that he, the punter, will make stupendous financial gains. And one could use Cohen as a guide to good parenting: accept what your child says, even though you don’t believe a word of it. Again, the use that Cohen makes of his distinction to mollify both sides of the modern dispute between symbolic and connectionist modellers of the mind (p.53ff.) is, to my mind, greatly illuminating. And yet.......