Saving Truth From Paradox

Hartry Field

https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199230747.001.0001
Published: 2008 Online ISBN: 9780191710933 Print ISBN: 9780199230747

CHAPTER

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6 Introduction to the Broadly Classical Options 
Hartry Field

https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199230747.003.0007 Pages 117–120

Published: March 2008

Abstract
This chapter is a short introduction to the ways of dealing with the Liar paradox within classical logic.
It distinguishes classical gap theories, classical glut theories, and weakly classical theories (a heading
that includes both supervaluation theories and revision theories, in their ‘internal’ versions). It
introduces some natural ‘Incoherence Principles’, jointly unsatis able in classical logic. The gap, glut,
and weakly classical theories can be understood as di erent choices as to which incoherence principle
to reject.

Keywords: Liar paradox, Tarski schema, incoherence principles, supervaluationism, indeterminate

Subject: Epistemology, Philosophy of Language, Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic
Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online

Let us review the simplest paradox of truth: the Liar paradox (aka “the Strengthened Liar”: see Chapter 1,
note 1). The paradox arises because of our apparent ability to formulate sentences that assert their own
untruth: more formally, a sentence (which I abbreviate as ‘Q’) that is equivalent to ¬True(〈Q〉). (‘Q’ is an
abbreviation of the Liar sentence, not a name of it; its name is ‘〈Q〉’.) The relevant sense of equivalence is
at least material equivalence:

(1) Q ↔ ¬True(〈Q〉),

where ↔ is just ‘if and only if’. But the notion of truth seems to be governed by the Tarski schema (T): for
arbitrary sentences A,

(T) True(〈A〉) ↔ A.

Instantiating (T) on Q, we have

True(〈Q〉) ↔ Q,

which with (1) yields

 (*) True(〈Q〉) ↔ ¬True(〈Q〉).

This, as we've seen, is contradictory in classical logic, and indeed implies any absurdity you like in classical
logic. (It is also contradictory in intuitionist logic, and there too it implies any absurdity you like—or rather,
that you don't like. Much of the ensuing discussion in Part II could be extended to intuitionist logic as well
as to classical, but I shall not bother to do so.)

There seem to be four broad possibilities for blocking this paradox:

(I) Give up the notion of truth (perhaps replacing it with related notions that don't obey the truth

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schema)

(II) Keep the notion, but nonetheless prevent the construction of the Liar sentence

(III) Restrict the Tarski schema (T)

(IV) Restrict classical logic so that (*) isn't contradictory; or at the very least, so that it doesn't imply
everything.

p. 118 Most of these possibilities subdivide, often in interesting ways. In this part of the book the focus will be on
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(I)–(III), especially on (III) and its subdivisions. I will include a separate chapter on (I), but will save it for
the end of this Part; my main reason for saving it until last is that the discussion of (III) will bear on it. (That
discussion will tell us how close a predicate B(x) can come to satisfying the truth schema, and this will apply
to any of the “related notions” referred to parenthetically in (I).)

It used to be often said that (II) is the best solution to the Liar Paradox, but it seems to me to be quite
hopeless. In the rst place, though some sorts of self‐reference can easily be banned (e.g. what I called
arti cial self‐reference in Section 1.2), there are other forms of self‐reference that would be very di cult to
keep from arising without seriously crippling the expressive capacity of the language: this includes both the
“Contingent Self‐Reference” and the “Godel–Tarski Self‐Reference” of Section 1.2. In the second place, even
if we were to come up with some arti cial restrictions on the formation rules of a language that would
prevent self‐referential constructions, it would be of little general use in the theory of the paradoxes: it
might block the Liar Paradox, but it wouldn't block (or hint at how to block) other paradoxes that seem
super cially quite analogous, such as the Heterologicality Paradox (or paradoxes involving two sentences
each referring to the other), for those don't require any such self‐referential construction.

More fully, the Heterologicality Paradox involves not Schema (T), but a closely related one:

Schema (TO): For any object o, 〈F(v)〉 is true of o ↔ F(o).

Using this, we get a contradiction in classical logic without any self‐referential construction, as discussed in
the Introduction. And there seems to be virtually no value to retaining (T) if you have to give up (TO). I
conclude that line (II) is simply not worth pursuing.

So let us turn to (III).

If we are to keep classical logic, then it isn't enough to restrict which instances of Schema (T) we accept:
some instances of (T) lead to contradiction, and classical logic then requires that we not only not accept
them, but that we accept their negations. In particular, it requires that we accept

¬[True(〈Q〉) ↔ Q].

p. 119 The biconditional here is the material one, so this amounts to accepting the following disjunction:
 (*) Either [True(〈Q〉) ∧ ¬Q],or [Q ∧ ¬True(〈Q〉)].

Prima facie, then, we have three options within classical logic: we can accept the rst disjunct, we can accept
the second disjunct, or we can remain agnostic between them. Perhaps there is a fourth, involving
something somewhat like agnosticism but not quite the same thing? I will return to that in a moment.

But rst, let's re ne the classi cation slightly, by considering also the possibilities about the claim
True(〈Q〉). From (*) we can derive the following (using excluded middle and other classical principles):

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(**) Either (i) True(〈Q〉) ∧ True(〈Q〉) ∧ ¬Q

or (ii) True(〈Q〉) ∧ ¬True(〈Q〉) ∧ ¬Q

or (iii) ¬ True(〈Q〉) ∧ True(〈Q〉) ∧ Q

or (iv) ¬ True(〈Q〉) ∧ ¬True(〈Q〉) ∧ Q

So we have four options that don t involve agnosticism or anything akin to it.

Of these four non‐agnostic options, the second and third seem to o er few advantages. We seem to have two
strong convictions about incoherence:

First Incoherence Principle: For any sentence A, it is incoherent to accept: A, but nonetheless 〈A〉
isn't true.

Second Incoherence Principle: For any sentence A, it is incoherent to accept: 〈A〉 is true, but
nonetheless ¬A.

Option (i), on which Q is both truth and false, clearly violates the second principle (taking A to be Q). Option
(iv), on which Q is neither truth nor false, clearly violates the rst principle (taking A to be Q). But (ii) and
(iii) violate both principles! Option (ii), on which Q is solely true, violates the rst principle with regard to
¬Q and the second with regard to Q. Option (iii), on which Q is solely false, violates the rst principle with
regard to Q and the second with regard to ¬Q using the fact that Q implies ¬¬Q. Violating both seems
gratuitous, and for this reason my discussion of the options involving nothing kin to agnosticism will focus
on (i) and (iv). (In reverse order: (iv) in the next chapter, (i) in the chapter following that.) But some of what
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I say will apply to (ii) and (iii) as well.

It remains to consider those options that involve agnosticism between the two disjuncts of (*) (and hence
between two or more of the disjuncts (i)–(iv)); or at least, something akin to agnosticism. It may seem that
p. 120 agnosticism has little to o er here, for the following also seems compelling:

Third Incoherence Principle: If one has gotten oneself into a commitment to a disjunction of
several options, accepting any of which would be incoherent, one has already gotten oneself into
an incoherent position.

But maybe we can reject this third principle? Perhaps there would be an advantage in this, if it enabled us to
remain in accord with the rst two.

This line could be made more appealing if we could argue that accepting the disjunction while refusing to
accept either disjunct isn't a case of agnosticism as ordinarily understood, but rather, is an appropriate
response to a kind of indeterminacy as to which disjunct is correct. The position would be analogous to a
certain sort of supervaluationist view about borderline cases of vague terms. The supervaluationist view I
have in mind is

(a) that we should accept classical logic for vague terms, so that Joe is either bald or not bald even if he is
a borderline case;

(b) that in such a borderline case, we can't know whether Joe is bald; but that this is not ignorance of any
straightforward sort, because the question of his baldness is somehow “indeterminate”. “There's no
determinate fact of the matter” for us to be ignorant about.

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Supervaluationism in this sense needn't identify truth with “super‐truth”; that is, it needn't involve the
view that ‘indeterminate’ implies ‘neither true nor false’, and the version I have in mind will speci cally
reject that implication. (‘Indeterminate’ will of course imply ‘neither determinately true nor determinately
false’.)

It is not in the least evident to me that supervaluationism (with or without the identi cation of truth with
supertruth) succeeds in providing an alternative to the ignorance view. Making sense of the claim that it
does would require some explanation of indeterminacy that doesn't involve ignorance, and indeed is
incompatible with ignorance; and it isn't at all clear what this could involve. This is a matter I will discuss in
Chapter 9.

But those who think the view does make sense may think that it helps in understanding a failure of the Third
Incoherence Principle. For then a possibility for handling the Liar sentence is to say something like this:
“Either Q is true or it isn't true, and we can't decide which; but this inability isn't ignorance exactly, because
the matter is indeterminate.” The idea is that to accept a disjunction of two absurdities is to commit oneself
to an absurdity unless one regards the question “which disjunct?” as indeterminate. This may make rejection of
the Third Incoherence Principle more palatable. In any case, I will discuss views that adhere to the rst two
Incoherence principles but reject the third in Chapters 10–13.

Notes

1 Indeed, the focus will be on those subdivisions of (III) that keep classical logic. Strictly, the theory KFS from Chapter 2 falls
under (III) as well as under (IV), if we take the biconditional to be defined from ¬, ∧ and ∨ as in classical logic; but I'd prefer
to count it under (IV). (In any case, KFS will be of no further concern: I'll only be concerned with logics that contain better
behaved conditionals so that the Tarski schema can be retained without restriction.)
2 Examples of views of types (ii) and (iii) are (respectively) Systems C and B in Friedman and Sheard 1987. Both systems are
notable by how few of the natural truth rules are valid in them.