scholarly journals Truth-Teller–Liar Puzzles with Self-Reference

Mathematics ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 190
Author(s):  
Laith Alzboon ◽  
Benedek Nagy

In this paper, we use commonsense reasoning and graph representation to study logical puzzles with three types of people. Strong Truth-Tellers say only true atomic statements, Strong Liars say only false atomic statements, and Strong Crazy people say only self-contradicting statements. Self-contradicting statements are connected to the Liar paradox, i.e., no Truth-Teller or a Liar could say “I am a Liar”. A puzzle is clear if it only contains its given statements to solve it, and a puzzle is good if it has exactly one solution. It is known that there is no clear and good Strong Truth-Teller–Strong Liar (also called SS) puzzle. However, as we prove here, there are good and clear Strong Truth-Teller, Strong Liar and Strong Crazy puzzles (SSS-puzzles). The newly investigated type ‘Crazy’ drastically changes the scenario. Some properties of the new types of puzzles are analyzed, and some statistics are also given.

Author(s):  
Keith Simmons

Chapter 7 puts the singularity theory to work on a number of semantic paradoxes that have intrinsic interest of their own. These include a transfinite paradox of denotation, and variations on the Liar paradox, including the Truth-Teller, Curry’s paradox, and paradoxical Liar loops. The transfinite paradox of denotation shows the need to accommodate limit ordinals. The Truth-Teller, like the Liar, exhibits semantic pathology-but, unlike the Liar, it does not produce a contradiction. The distinctive challenge of the Curry paradox is that it seems to allow us to prove any claim we like (for example, the claim that 2+2=5). Paradoxical Liar loops, such as the Open Pair paradox, extend the Liar paradox beyond single self-referential sentences. The chapter closes with the resolution of paradoxes that do not exhibit circularity yet still generate contradictions. These include novel versions of the definability paradoxes and Russell’s paradox, and Yablo’s paradox about truth.


SATS ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 89-110
Author(s):  
Gregory Scott Moss

Abstract During the past few decades, Graham Priest has advocated for Dialetheism, the controversial position that some contradictions are true. Dialetheism entails that the Law of Non-Contradiction fails. In recent decades the philosophical community has begun to recognize the significant challenge posed by Priest’s arguments. Priest has primarily appealed to paradoxes of self-reference, such as the Liar Paradox, to support his position. Following Priest’s approach, I offer another argument for Dialetheism, which appeals to a self-referential paradox that has been more or less ignored in the philosophical literature on the subject: the paradox of the missing difference. When we reflect on the question ‘what is a concept?’ from the perspective of a classical model of conceptual analysis, we arrive at the paradox of the missing difference. Although contradictions may be improbable, when we reflect on the question ‘how is the domain of concepts possible?’ we are led to a startling principle: without dialetheia any theory concerning concept formation (from a classical perspective on concepts) would be impossible. Dialetheism is a necessary condition for the existence of a domain of concepts in general. As a result, Dialetheism may even be more central to philosophical reflection than even dialetheists themselves have recognized.


Author(s):  
Cory Wright ◽  
Bradley Armour-Garb

Pluralists maintain that there is more than one truth property in virtue of which bearers are true. Unfortunately, it is not yet clear how they diagnose the liar paradox or what resources they have available to treat it. This chapter considers one recent attempt by Cotnoir (2013b) to treat the Liar. It argues that pluralists should reject the version of pluralism that Cotnoir assumes, discourse pluralism, in favor of a more naturalized approach to truth predication in real languages, which should be a desideratum on any successful pluralist conception. Appealing to determination pluralism instead, which focuses on truth properties, it then proposes an alternative treatment to the Liar that shows liar sentences to be undecidable.


Author(s):  
Peter Ludlow ◽  
Bradley Armour-Garb

This chapter follows recent work in philosophy, linguistics, and psychology, which rejects the standard, static picture of languages and highlights its context sensitivity—a dynamic theory of the nature of language. On the view advocated, human languages are things that we build on a conversation-by-conversation basis. The author calls such languages microlanguages. The chapter argues that thinking of languages in terms of microlanguages yields interesting consequences for how we should think about the liar paradox. In particular, we will see that microlanguages have admissible conditions that preclude liar-like sentences. On the view presented in the chapter, liar sentences are not even sentences of any microlanguage that we might construct (or assertorically utter). Accordingly, the proper approach to such a paradoxical sentence is to withhold the sentence—not permitting it to be admitted into our microlanguage unless, or until, certain sharpening occurs.


Author(s):  
Bradley Armour-Garb ◽  
Bradley Armour-Garb

In this chapter, after introducing a few versions of the liar paradox and identifying the pathology that the versions of the paradox appear to present, the author considers some proposals for how to understand ‘paradox’ and goes on to offer a particular reading of that notion. He then identifies a number of projects the completion of which would contribute to our understanding—or, in some cases, our resolution—of the liar paradox and, after considering certain “treatments” of the paradox, highlights certain “revenge” problems that arise for such treatments. In the concluding section, the author summarizes each of the chapters that are contained in the volume.


Erkenntnis ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Poppy Mankowitz

AbstractSome in the recent literature have claimed that a connection exists between the Liar paradox and semantic relativism: the view that the truth values of certain occurrences of sentences depend on the contexts at which they are assessed. Sagi (Erkenntnis 82(4):913–928, 2017) argues that contextualist accounts of the Liar paradox are committed to relativism, and Rudnicki and Łukowski (Synthese 1–20, 2019) propose a new account that they classify as relativist. I argue that a full understanding of how relativism is conceived within theories of natural language shows that neither of the purported connections can be maintained. There is no reason why a solution to the Liar paradox needs to accept relativism.


Mind ◽  
1955 ◽  
Vol LXIV (256) ◽  
pp. 543-543 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. P. USHENKO

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