The Liar: An Essay on Truth and Circularity - Softcover

Barwise, Jon; Etchemendy, John

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9780195059441: The Liar: An Essay on Truth and Circularity
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0195059441 ISBN 13: 9780195059441
Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1989

Synopsis

Bringing together powerful new tools from set theory and the philosophy of language, this book proposes a solution to one of the few unresolved paradoxes from antiquity, the Paradox of the Liar. Treating truth as a property of propositions, not sentences, the authors model two distinct conceptions of propositions: one based on the standard notion used by Bertrand Russell, among others, and the other based on J.L. Austin's work on truth. Comparing these two accounts, the authors show that while the Russellian conception of the relation between sentences, propositions, and truth is crucially flawed in limiting cases, the Austinian perspective has fruitful applications to the analysis of semantic paradox. In the course of their study of a language admitting circular reference and containing its own truth predicate, Barwise and Etchemendy also develop a wide range of model-theoretic techniques--based on a new set-theoretic tool, Peter Aczel's theory of hypersets--that open up new avenues in logical and formal semantics.

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About the Author

Jon Barwise is at Indiana University. John Etchemendy is at Stanford University.

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Publisher
Oxford University Press
Publication date
1989
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0195059441
ISBN 13 
9780195059441
Binding
Paperback
Number of pages
208
Rating
  • 4.57 out of 5 stars
    7 ratings by Goodreads

Other Popular Editions of the Same Title

9780195050721: The Liar: An Essay on Truth and Circularity

Featured Edition

ISBN 10:  019505072X ISBN 13:  9780195050721
Publisher: Oxford University Press, 1987
Hardcover