On the relationship between speech acts and psychological states

Abstract

This paper defends a theory of speech act that I call concurrentism. It receives support from a psychological study and goes well with evolutionary theory. It sheds light on what the hearer believes when he hears an indicative sentence, what the speaker believes when he says an indicative sentence, what the speaker does after he says an indicative sentence contrary to what he believes, why Moore’s paradox occurs, why it is puzzling to say some variants of Moorean sentences, and why it is not absurd to say other variants of Moorean sentences. It will become clear that other things being equal, we believe that other people speak as they believe, and we speak in accordance with what we believe. It will also become clear that after we speak contrary to what we believe, we keep to ourselves the discrepancy between what we speak and what we believe, ceteris paribus .