Abstract

According to the legendary story, Protagoras made an agreement with one of his pupils Euathlus, stipulating that the pupil was to pay for his education in law only after he had won his first case. Euathlus completed his course, but did not practice as a lawyer for a long time. Protagoras decided to sue Euathlus for the amount owed him. Protagoras argued, “Either I win this suit, or you win it”. “If I win, you pay me according to the judgment of the court. If you win, you pay me according to our agreement. In either case I am bound to be paid”. However, Euathlus was a resourceful person and he replied: “Not so. If I win, then by the judgment of the court I need not pay you. If you win, then by our agreement I need not pay you. In either case I am bound not to have to pay you”. Whose argument was right? It turned out that, due to the formulation of the paradox, it can not be solved by classical methods of traditional formal logic, as well as by the formal zero order logic system. However, the article shows that the epistemological solution to this paradox exists, according to nonclassical method of conflict resolution.