the "speak falsely" present first-person singular conjugation

November 15th, 2023

• Moore's paradox helps lend a bit more structure to the nature of the "speak falsely" present first-person singular conjugation joke
  • "It is raining, but I do not believe that it is raining" or "It is raining, but I believe that it is not raining."
  • "this chair will hold me up, but I do not trust it will hold me up"
  • "you're not my mother, but I do not trust that you're not my mother"
    • this is a way to say a precise and important thing, that can totally be true
    • the speaker is asserting that in some sense he knows his interlocutor is not his mother, but that also he fails to actually rest in trust of that fact
    • likewise the capgras delusion thing, which ironically precisely the converse: I could imagine saying "you are my mother, but I do not trust that you're my mother"
  • there's also a difference here between something like social truth that one might be acknowledging and gnown truth