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Moore and the Paradox of Analysis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

David O'Connor
David O'Connor
Affiliation:
Seton Hall University
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Extract

In 1942, replying to a criticism put to him by Langford, G. E. Moore confessed that he was unable to solve the paradox of analysis. But while conceding inability to solve the puzzle Moore offered the following suggestion, which he did not further develop: I think that, in order to explain the fact that, even if ‘To be a brother is the same thing as to be a male sibling’ is true, yet nevertheless this statement is not the same as the statement ‘To be a brother is to be a brother’, one must suppose that both statements are in some sense about the expressions used as well as about the concept of being a brother. But in what sense they are about the expressions used I cannot see clearly; and therefore I cannot give any clear solution to the puzzle.

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 57 , Issue 220 , January 1982 , pp. 211 - 221
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1980

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References

1 G. E. Moore, ‘A Reply to My Critics,’ The Philosophy of G. E. Moore, P. A. Schilpp (ed.) (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1968), 666.

2 Lewy, C., Meaning and Modality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976), 69–70.Google Scholar Sometimes I will refer below to (A) in the shorter form, ‘A vixen is a female fox‘.

3 Ibid., 11.

4 Ibid., 10.

5 Ibid., 11.

6 We must distinguish here between an expression which is literally meaningless in the way Lewy has in mind and an expression which is meaningless in the sense of being absurd, paradoxical, obscure, silly and so on. Furthermore, we must distinguish between literally meaningless expressions and ‘bad English‘, i.e. expressions or grammatical constructions which may happen to be misused. Our present concern, of course, is with words and groups of words having no uses at all.

7 Op. cit., 12.

8 Ibid.