Consideration and Critique of Horwich’s Solution for the Liar Paradox in terms of the Minimalist Theory of Truth

Document Type : The Quarterly Jornal

Author

Assistant professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran

Abstract

The liar paradox involves a self-referring sentence which claims its own falsity. A host of solutions have been offered for the paradox, some of which take the dismissal of the natural language and deployment of formal languages as the fundamental solution, while others try to solve the paradox in terms of natural languages. The problem of this paper is why Paul Horwich’s solution for the paradox in terms of the minimalist theory of truth-which falls in the second category of solutions-is flawed. Drawing on the descriptive-analytic method, this research aims to show the inadequacy of Horwich’s claim that it is possible to explain all uses of the concept of truth by making recourse to our intrinsic and linguistic tendency to endorse all instances of equivalence schema. His solution to the liar paradox is to dismiss the instances of equivalence schema related to self-referring sentences. I conclude that this answer not only fails to be a proper answer to the paradox, but also amounts to a flaw in the explanation provided by the minimalist theory of the concept of truth.

Keywords

References

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