Introduction to the semantic paradoxes
| Abstract | In this essay (for undergraduates) I introduce three of the famous semantic paradoxes: the Liar, Grelling’s, and the No-No. Collectively, they seem to show that the notion of truth is highly paradoxical, perhaps even contradictory. They seem to show that the concept of truth is a bit akin to the concept of a married bachelor—it just makes no sense at all. But in order to really understand those paradoxes one needs to be very comfortable thinking about how lots of interesting sentences talk about not dogs or cats or elections or baseball but sentences. That is, we need to get familiar analyzing sentences that talk about sentences. | |||||||||
| Keywords | liar paradox grelling's paradox no-no paradox | |||||||||
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Similar books and articlesPatrick Greenough (2011). Truthmaker Gaps and the No-No Paradox. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 82 (3):547-563.
J. C. Beall (ed.) (2003). Liars and Heaps: New Essays on Paradox. Oxford University Press.
Keith Simmons (1993). Universality and the Liar: An Essay on Truth and the Diagonal Argument. Cambridge University Press.
Kevin Scharp (2007). Alethic Vengeance. In J. C. Beall (ed.), Revenge of the Liar: New Essays on the Paradox. Oxford University Press.
Matt Leonard (2012). Burge's Contextual Theory of Truth and the Super-Liar Paradox. In Michal Pelis Vit Puncochar (ed.), The Logica Yearbook 2011. College Publications.
Jeff Snapper (2012). The Liar Paradox in New Clothes. Analysis 72 (2):319-322.
Nicholas J. J. Smith (2000). The Principle of Uniform Solution (of the Paradoxes of Self-Reference). Mind 109 (433):117-122.
Jay Newhard (2005). Grelling's Paradox. Philosophical Studies 126 (1):1 - 27.
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