‘Hoist with His Owne Petar’:1 On the Undoing of a Liar Paradox

Theoria 74 (2):115-145 (2008)
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Abstract

Abstract: A Liar would express a proposition that is true and not true. A Liar Paradox would, per impossibile, demonstrate the reality of a Liar. To resolve a Liar Paradox it is sufficient to make out of its demonstration a reductio of the existence of the proposition that would be true and not true, and to "explain away" the charm of the paradoxical contrary demonstration. Persuasive demonstrations of the Liar Paradox in this paper trade on allusive scope-ambiguities of English definite descriptions, and can seem confirmed by symbolizations in a Fregean theory in which scopes of definite descriptions are determinate. Symbolizing instead in a Russellian description theory in which alternative scopes are possible reveals that however the scope-ambiguities of the demonstration are settled the result is unsound.

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Citations of this work

The Liar Paradox and “Meaningless” Revenge.Jared Warren - 2023 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 53 (1):49-78.
Paradoxes of Demonstrability.Sten Lindström - 2009 - In Lars-Göran Johansson, Jan Österberg & Ryszard Sliwinski (eds.), Logic, Ethics and all that Jazz: Essays in Honour of Jordan Howard Sobel. Uppsala, Sverige: pp. 177-185.

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References found in this work

Outline of a theory of truth.Saul Kripke - 1975 - Journal of Philosophy 72 (19):690-716.
Paradox without Self-Reference.Stephen Yablo - 1993 - Analysis 53 (4):251-252.
Logic: Techniques of Formal Reasoning.Donald Kalish, Richard Montague & Gary Mar - 1964 - New York, NY, USA: Oxford University Press USA. Edited by Richard Montague.

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