Fictionalism and Moore's Paradox

Abstract

Many philosophers strive for a thin ontology but are nevertheless unwilling to curtail ordinary and scientific talk that carries apparent commitment to the entities they reject. As Carnap put it, such a philosopher speaks with an uneasy conscience, ‘like a man who in his everyday life does with qualms many things which are not in accord with the high moral principles he professes on Sundays.’ To appear less hypocritical he may, of course, tell us openly what he is doing and invite us to join him. But then it is hard to see why he is not advocating the absurd position that we should assent to sentences of the form ‘There areFs but I don't believe that there areFs.’ This is a simple objection, and there is a simple answer to it. But the answer is not available to everyone. I will argue that defenders of a particular version of fictionalism are in trouble with Moore's paradox. The bad news for fictionalism in general is that this particular version is the one that best deals with the Quine-Putnam challenge.

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