NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #27/NN_1992_27.iso/spool/comp/ai/philosop/6812

Internet Message Format | 1992-11-16 | 1.4 KB

Xref: sparky comp.ai.philosophy:6812 sci.logic:2063
Path: sparky!uunet!ukma!asuvax!ncar!noao!arizona!gudeman
From: [e-mail] (David Gudeman)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy,sci.logic
Subject: Re: Self-Reference and Paradox (was Re: Human intelligence...)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 16 Nov 92 18:23:53 GMT
Followup-To: comp.ai.philosophy
Organization: U of Arizona CS Dept, Tucson
Lines: 21

In article  <[e-mail]> Gary Merrill writes:
]In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Daryl McCullough) writes:
]|>
]|>     This sentence is false.
]|>
]|> refers to an unrestricted notion of falsity, and is therefore
]|> meaningless. We can replace "false" by a restricted notion of falsity
]
]This sort of thing has been tried before.  One problem is that the displayed
]sentence is *not* meaningless in any normal sense of this term.  We
]know perfectly well what it means -- and that's the problem.

The term "meaningless" is ambiguous here.  There are many examples of
problematic meanings in language.  For example, what does the word
"unicorn" denote?  What does "nothing" denote?  Clearly, both words
have a meaning in some sense, but neither has a "normal" denotation.
If you take the view that sentences denote their truth values, then
the liar's paradox can be taken as another example of the same thing.
--
                    David Gudeman
[e-mail]