Kerstin Raab
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
Various attempts to explain and resolve the paradoxes of the Liar family have been suggested but whether one of them may be correct and if so which of them, remains an issue of debate. In my presentation, I am going to address an issue that may lend support to many (if not all) of these approaches in the background: the common conceptualisation of time. In my perception of logical discourse, it appears to be standard practice to barely pay attention to real-world notions like time. Yet, time does play a crucial role in our understanding of the world. As many consider it to be the aim of logic and its theories to capture the “correct way” of reasoning in or about the world, we should not neglect that temporal component in dealing with questions that challenge the basic principles of our logical theories. Based on our everyday understanding, I am going to argue for an account of paradox that respects the one-directed, forward-moving character of time as commonly conceptualised by us. On such an account, the Liar may be taken to create a loophole in meaning. With this temporal account, as I call it, I hope to provide not only support to several stances hitherto taken but also a potential explanation for why some accounts might have been accepted more willingly than others.
Chair: Ante Debeljuh
Time: 03 September, 16:00 – 16:30
Location: SR 1.007
SOPhiA 2026 