Re: Liar paradox, one more time

From: Acid Pooh (poohonlsd_at_yahoo.com)
Date: 07/30/04

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    Date: 29 Jul 2004 20:08:42 -0700

    starofbabylon@yahoo.com (Babylonian_Astrologer) wrote in message news:<e8c4027f.0407291209.a199fbc@posting.google.com>...
    > poohonlsd@yahoo.com (Acid Pooh) wrote in message news:<d7ba1f79.0407280302.50646fa2@posting.google.com>...
    > > "Poker Joker" <Poker@wi.rr.com> wrote in message news:<HPBNc.4015$ju6.2109@twister.rdc-kc.rr.com>...
    > > > "Barb Knox" <see@sig.below> wrote in message
    > > > news:ce6j71$3ov$1@lust.ihug.co.nz...
    > > > > In article <4106b1d4$1_2@newsfeed.slurp.net>,
    > > > > Will Twentyman <wtwentyman@read.my.sig> wrote:
    > > > >
    > > >
    > > > <snip>
    > > >
    > > > > >The use of three-valued logic (true, false, maybe) will also remove the
    > > > > >liar's paradox, yet people don't ordinarily argue that we should drop
    > > > > >two-valued logic in favor of three-valued logic.
    > > > >
    > > > > But 3-valued logic doesn't solve the "strengthened liar" paradox:
    > > > > "The truth value of this statement is 'false' or 'maybe'"
    > > > > or more concisely,
    > > > > "This statement is not 'true'".
    > > >
    > > > Putting those words together might be mistaken as an assertion, but
    > > > they no more make up an assertion than the sentence: "Take out
    > > > the garbage." Or, "Take out the garbage is not true." The first
    > > > sentence is semantically acceptable but not the second and
    > > > certainly your sentence is not semantically acceptable. They are
    > > > gibberish. Of course, we can fool all of the mathematicians
    > > > and logicians all of the time because they only make up some
    > > > of the people. But they will insist that they are correct and this
    > > > statement I am making is not true.
    > >
    > > This gives me an idea. What if we appeal to Wittgenstein here?
    > > Philosophical Investigations, Section 43: "For a large class of
    > > cases--though not all--in which we use the word "meaning" it can be
    > > defined thus: The meaning of a word [phrase, sentence] is its use in
    > > language."
    > >
    > > It's kind of hard to reverse engineer and argument out of that, but my
    > > (possibly naive) idea is that there is no context in which the
    > > sentence "This sentence is false" actually means what we intuitively
    > > think it does. Things get _really_ complicated when you think about
    > > what it would take to prove that, but I have a hunch that Wittgenstein
    > > supplied us with the machinery to deal with this relatively easily (as
    > > compared to other ways of dealing with it, anyway)
    > >
    > > 'cid 'ooh
    >
    > "it's use in language" may be referring to a model containing a
    > writer and reader for every sentence, as opposed to Platonic models
    > where a proposition simply self-exists.

    This is more-or-less right. Wittgenstein would probably emphasize
    verbal communication, but he intended the 'use in a language' phrase
    to refer to all forms of commuication. At any rate, a main idea is
    that meaning is context dependent.

    >Platonic analyses of the liar
    > paradox always seem to be problematic, but ask: what would a person
    > expect to communicate about his own thought, leaving aside
    > Plato-space? Is a person who is asserting the liar sentence asserting
    > that he can consciously believe an error?

    I can easily imagine someone uttering the sentence "I am a liar," or
    "This sentence is wrong" as an interjection. It might be humorous to
    imagine someone yelling "I am a liar!" after stubbing his toe, but
    there is no a priori reason why the expression "***!" was chosen over
    "I am a liar!" So here we have a(n imagined) legitimate use of the
    sentence "I am a liar!" which does not lead to contradiction, because
    in this context, it doesn't mean what we intuitively (naively?) think
    it should.

    On this view, the trouble with the liar paradox isn't the claim "This
    sentence is false," but the context in which it is uttered. This
    might seem trite, but it's pretty clear to me that its use in this
    context (philosophy papaers and books, etc) is to _confuse_ the
    reader.

    'cid 'ooh

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