Paradox of analysis
The paradox of analysis (or Langford–Moore paradox)[1] is a paradox that concerns how an analysis can be both correct and informative. The problem was formulated by philosopher G. E. Moore in his book Principia Ethica, and first named by C. H. Langford in his article "The Notion of Analysis in Moore's Philosophy" (in The Philosophy of G. E. Moore, edited by Paul Arthur Schilpp, Northwestern University, 1942, pp. 319–342).
Not to be confused with Moore's paradox.Proposed resolutions[edit]
One way to resolve this paradox is to redefine what is an analysis. In explaining the paradox, a potential analysis is assumed to be a relation between concepts rather than the verbal expressions used to illustrate them. If the verbal expression is part of the analysis, then we shouldn't expect complete intersubstitutivity even in cases of correct analyses. However, this response seems to move the notion of analysis into mere linguistic definition, rather than doing interesting work with concepts.
Another response is to bite the bullet and just say that correct analyses are uninformative — which then raises the question of what positive cognitive notion should be used instead of this one, if any.
One further response would be to take Willard Van Orman Quine's position and reject the notion of conceptual analysis altogether. This is a natural response to the rejection of the analytic–synthetic distinction.
Origins[edit]
The paradox is a reformulation[2] of Meno's paradox from Plato's dialogue of the same name: Any new knowledge is either the same as what is already known, and therefore not informative, or else different from what is already known, and therefore not verifiable (or reachable by analytic logic).