Unity, truth and the liar : the modern relevance of medieval solutions to the liar paradox / edited by Shahid Rahman, Tero Tulenheimo and Emmanual Genot.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rahman, Shahid, 1956-

Contributor:

Tulenheimo, Tero.

Genot, Emmanuel

Alumni and Friends Memorial Book Fund.

Series:

Logic, epistemology and the unity of science ; v. 8.

Logic, epistemology and the unity of science ; v. 8

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Truth.

Liar paradox.

Semantics (Philosophy).

Logic, Medieval.

Physical Description:

xxiv, 338 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York : Springer, 2008.

Summary:

The Liar Paradox challenges logicians' and semanticists' theories of truth and meaning. Modern accounts of paradoxes in formal semantics offer solutions through the hierarchy of object language and metalanguage. Yet this solution to the Liar presupposes that sentences have unique meaning. This assumption is non-controversial in formal languages, but an account of how "hidden meaning" is made explicit is necessary to any complete analysis of natural language. Since the Liar Paradox presents itself as a sentence uniting contradictory meanings, appreciating how they can be united in a single sentence may provide new insights into this and other paradoxes.

This volume includes a target paper, taking up the challenge to revive, within a modern (formal) framework, a medieval solution to the Liar Paradox which did not assume Uniqueness of Meaning. Stephen Read, author of the target paper, attempts to formally state a theory of truth that dates back to the 14th century logician Thomas Bradwardine; the theory offers a solution to the Liar Paradox in which the Liar sentence turns out to be false. The rest of the volume consists of papers discussing and/or challenging Read's - and Bradwardine's - views one the one hand, and papers addressing the doctrinal and historical background of medieval theories of truth on the other hand. It also includes a critical edition of Heytesbury's treatise on insolubles, closely related to Bradwardine's view.

Including formal, philosophical and historical discussions, this volume intends to renew the debate about paradoxes and theory of truth, and to show that the interest of earlier medieval work is not merely historical but, on the contrary, still relevant for modern, formal semantic theory. It is of interest for both professional philosophers and advanced students of philosophy.

Contents:

Part I Disputatio

1 The Truth Schema and the Liar / Stephen Read 3

2 Read and Indirect Revenge / Bradley Armour-Garb 19

3 Tarski's Hidden Theory of Meaning: Sentences Say Exactly One Thing / Catarina Dutilh Novaes 41

4 Doubting Thomas: From Bradwardine Back to Anon / Laurence Goldstein 65

5 Logic Without Truth / Gyula Klima 87

6 Scheming and Lying / Eugene Mills 113

7 Comments on Stephen Read's "The Truth-schema and the Liar" / Terence Parsons 129

8 Models for Liars in Bradwardine's Theory of Truth / Greg Restall 135

9 On a New Account of the Liar / Jose M. Saguillo 149

10 The Liar Cannot be Solved / Gyorgy Sereny 159

11 Out of the Liar Tangle / B. Hartley Slater 187

12 Read About T-Scheme / Jan Wolenski 199

13 Further Thoughts on Tarski's T-Scheme and the Liar / Stephen Read 205

Part II Historical Background: Restrictionism versus the Manifold Theory of Meaning

14 Restrictionism: A Medieval Approach Revisited / Claude Panaccio 229

15 William Heytesbury and the Treatment of Insolubilia in Fourteenth-Century England Followed by a Critical Edition of Three Anonymous Treatises De insolubilibus Inspired by Heytesbury / Fabienne Pironet 255.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Alumni and Friends Memorial Book Fund.

ISBN:

9781402084676

1402084676

9781402084683

1402084684

OCLC:

233934089