The prisoner's reasoning, which gives rise to the paradox, is able to get off the ground because the prisoner tacitly assumes that on Monday evening, he will (if he is still alive) know S1, S2, and S3 to be true. This assumption seems unwarranted on several different grounds. It may be argued that the judge's pronouncement that something is true can never be sufficient grounds for the prisoner knowing that it is true. Further, even if the prisoner knows something to be true in the present moment, unknown psychological factors may erase this knowledge in the future. Finally, Chow suggests that because the statement which the prisoner is supposed to "know" to be true is a statement about his inability to "know" certain things, there is reason to believe that the unexpected hanging paradox is simply a more intricate version of Moore's paradox. A suitable analogy can be reached by reducing the length of the week to just one day. Then the judge's sentence becomes: You will be hanged tomorrow, but you do not know that.
The prisoner's reasoning which gives rise to the paradox, is able to get off the ground because the prisoner tacitly assumes that on Monday evening, he will (if he is still alive) know S1, S2, and S3 to be true. This assumption seems unwarranted on several different grounds. It may be argued that the judge's pronouncement that something is true can never be sufficient grounds for the prisoner knowing that it is true. Further, even if the prisoner knows something to be true in the present moment, unknown psychological factors may erase this knowledge in the future. Finally, Chow suggests that because the statement which the prisoner is supposed to "know" to be true is a statement about his inability to "know" certain things, there is reason to believe that the unexpected hanging paradox is simply a more intricate version of Moore's paradox. A suitable analogy can be reached by reducing the length of the week to just one day. Then the judge's sentence becomes You will be hanged tomorrow, but you do not know that.