Between Thought and Expression develops a unified concept of the rational mind—along with the philosophical method needed to uncover it—through seven self-contained essays on fundamental questions in diverse areas of philosophy.
Variations of Moore's paradox—couplings of independently meaningful statements that somehow fail to make sense—appear across a bewildering array of domains: intentional action, desire, moral urge, aesthetic judgment, and health.The book traces these phenomena along the lines of Moore, and argues that our attitudes in each domain are shaped in part by the thinker's ability to acknowledge them—an ability that, if properly understood, is itself applications of the criterion of appropriateness to which the position is subject.
We do not first form a belief, intention, or desire and then find words to express it; The ability to put an idea into words is part of what makes it the idea it is, and the idea of a rational being is no more specific than his ability to express it.So understanding what someone is saying is not a matter of inferring the speaker's state of mind from the words he or she utters, but rather a matter of understanding the meaning he is trying to convey through them.
