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The Liar An Essay on Truth and Circularity Jon Barwise and John Etchemendy Stanford University New York Oxford Oxford University Press 1987 Wadd Oxford University Press: 1114340214 Oxted” New York Trento Delhi Bombay Caleta Madras Karahi Paling Jaya Slogapore Hong Kong. Tokyo Nairobi Dare Slaan "Cape Town Mefbourne Auckland oo al aseiatd companies in o Belt Bevin Thmdan "Nicosia Copytight ©1987 by Oxford University Pres, Ine Published by Oxford University Pros, ie. 200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 ‘Oxfuc isa tegisered trademark of Oxford University Press AL rights earve. No past of this publication may be reproduce, Mord in a etsitval aystem, or transtitted, in gny form or by any tou eletroc, mechanial, photocopying, recording, ot otherwise, Without the prior permision of Oxford University Prem. Library of Congress Cataloging-n-Publication Data Bere a Bibi h 7 Inte {270 Wr param tchemeny, John, 1952 pales Title, BC199.P2837 1987 165. B6-81260 ad SBN 0-10-505072-X (alk paper) at Printing (lat agit): 9.87 66 4s¢-24 Printed inthe United States of America ‘on ace fee paper For John Perry teacher, colleague, and friend Preface Historically, the set-theoretic and semantic paradoxes have had an fenoriiots impact in logle. On the one hand, the set-theoretic para. dlones discovered in the early twentieth century ereated a climate in which work in logie, metamathematies, and foundations could Aourish, and led rectly to many of our present day concerns. On the other hand, diagonal constructions similar to those ynvolved in several of the parivloxes provided us with one of the most basic tools of logic. Example come readily to mins diagonal construe. tions gave us Cantor's Theorem in set theory, the undecidabiity of the halting problem in recursion theory, and Godel's Incomplete. ‘ness Theorems i proof theory. ‘tis stiking, though, that in one branch of logic, model theory, the impact of the paracaxes has been almost entirely negative. The Liar pacadox, by convincing the founding fathers that languages containing their ows truth predicate and allowing circular reference were incoherent, has led to the exclusion of such languages from mainstream logic. Given the frutfulness of diagonal arguments in the rest of logie, one wonders whether the path followed in model theory was realy the most productive reaction to che paradox. In this book, we present an account of the Liar that slows i. vy be a true diagonal argument, one with profound eonsequences for ot Understanding of the most basic semantical mechaniens fori i frdinary language. Indeed, we think the Linc is every bit s sgmfi- ‘ant for the foundations of semantics as the set-theoretic paratoxes were for the foundations of set theory.

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