Moore's paradox

Moore's paradox concerns the apparent absurdity involved in asserting a first-person present-tense sentence such as "It is raining, but I do not believe that it is raining" or "It is raining, but I believe that it is not raining." The first author to note this apparent absurdity was George E. Moore. These 'Moorean' sentences, as they have become known, are paradoxical in that while they appear absurd, they nevertheless

  1. Can be true;
  2. Are (logically) consistent; and
  3. Are not (obviously) contradictions.
Not to be confused with Langford–Moore paradox or Moore's law.

The term 'Moore's paradox' is attributed to Ludwig Wittgenstein, who considered the paradox Moore's most important contribution to philosophy. Wittgenstein wrote about the paradox extensively in his later writings, which brought Moore's paradox the attention it would not have otherwise received.

Moore's paradox has been associated with many other well-known logical paradoxes, including, though not limited to, the liar paradox, the knower paradox, the unexpected hanging paradox, and the preface paradox.

There is currently not any generally accepted explanation of Moore's paradox in the philosophical literature. However, while Moore's paradox remains a philosophical curiosity, Moorean-type sentences are used by logicians, computer scientists, and those working with artificial intelligence as examples of cases in which a knowledge, belief, or information system is not modified in response to new data.

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