LIAR PARADOX-Philososphy: The Liar Paradox is an argument that arrives at a contradiction by reasoning about a Liar Sentence. The classical Liar Sentence is the self-referential sentence “This sentence is false.” Experts in the field of philosophical logic have never agreed on the way out of the trouble despite 2,300 years of attention. Here is the trouble–a sketch of the Liar Argument that reveals the contradiction: Let L be the classical Liar Sentence. If L is true, then L is false. But we can also establish the converse, as follows. Assume L is false. Because the Liar Sentence is saying precisely that (namely that it is false), the Liar Sentence is true, so L is true. We’ve now shown that L is true if and only if it is false. Since L is one or the other, it is both. The contradictory result apparently throws us into the lion’s den of semantic incoherence. This article explores the details of the principal ways out of the paradox. Many people, when first encountering the Liar Paradox, react by saying that the Liar Sentence must be meaningless. This popular solution does stop the argument of the paradox, but it is not an adequate solution if it can only answer the question, “Why is the Liar Sentence meaningless?” with the ad hoc remark, “Otherwise we get a paradox.” An adequate solution should offer a more systematic treatment. For example, the sentence, “This sentence is in English,” is very similar to the Liar Sentence. Is it meaningless, too? Apparently not. So, what ingredients of the Liar Sentence make it meaningless while similar sentences such as “This sentence is in English,” are not meaningless? Are disjunctions with the Liar Sentence meaningless? The questions continue, and an adequate solution should address them systematicall
Posted on: Sat, 13 Jul 2013 14:25:44 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015