In this paper, we provide a recipe that not only captures the common structure of semantic paradoxes but also captures our intuitions regarding the relations between these paradoxes. Before we unveil our recipe, we first discuss a well-known schema introduced by Graham Priest, namely,the Inclosure Schema. Without rehashing previous arguments against the Inclosure Schema, we contribute different arguments for the same concern that the Inclosure Schema bundles together the wrong paradoxes. That is, we will provide further arguments on why the Inclosure Schema is both too narrow and too broad. We then spell out our recipe. The recipe shows that all of the following paradoxes share the same structure: The Liar, Curry’s paradox, Validity Curry, Provability Liar, Provability Curry, Knower’s paradox, Knower’s Curry, Grelling-Nelson’s paradox, Russell’s paradox in terms of extensions, alternative Liar and alternative Curry, and hitherto unexplored paradoxes.We conclude the paper by stating the lessons that we can learn from the recipe, and what kind of solutions the recipe suggests if we want to adhere to the Principle of Uniform Solution.
The Dialogical Approach to Paraconsistency
Being a pragmatic and not a referential approach to semantics, the dialogical formulation of paraconsistency allows the following semantic idea to be expressed within a semi-formal system: In an argumentation it sometimes makes sense to distinguish between the contradiction of one of the argumentation partners with himself (internal contradiction) and the contradiction between the partners (external contradiction). The idea is that external contradiction may involve different semantic contexts in which, say A and not A have been asserted. The dialogical approach suggests a way of studying the dynamic process of contradictions through which the two contexts evolve for the sake of argumentation into one system containing both contexts. More technically, we show a new, dialogical, way to build paraconsistent systems for propositional and first-order logic with classical and intuitionistic features (i.e. paraconsistency both with and without tertium non-datur) and present their corresponding tableaux.
The Semantics of First Degree Entailment
From the introduction: “we argue that the semantics of the first degree paradox-free implication system FD supports the claim it is superior to strict implication as an analysis of entailment at the first degree level. The semantics also reveals that Disjunctive Syllogism, […] far from being a paradigmatic entailment, is invalid, and allows the illegitimate suppression of tautologies”
Logical Nihilism: Could there be no Logic?
Logical nihilism can be understood as the view that there are no laws of logic. This paper presents both a counterexample-based argument in favor of logical nihilism, and a way to resist it by using Lakatos’ method of lemma incorporation. The price to pay is the loss of absolute generality.
Privilege and Position: Formal Tools for Standpoint Epistemology
How does being a woman affect one’s epistemic life? What about being black? Or queer? Standpoint theorists argue that such social positions can give rise to otherwise unavailable epistemic privilege. “Epistemic privilege” is a murky concept, however. Critics of standpoint theory argue that the view is offered without a clear explanation of how standpoints confer their benefits, what those benefits are, or why social positions are particularly apt to produce them. But this need not be so. This article articulates a minimal version of standpoint epistemology that avoids these criticisms and supports the normative goals of its feminist forerunners. With this foundation, we develop a formal model in which to explore standpoint epistemology using neighborhood semantics for modal logic.
The Politics of Reason: Towards a Feminist Logic
The author argues that there is a strong connection between the dualisms that have strengthened and naturalized systematic oppression across history (man/woman, reason/emotion, etc.), and “classical” logic. It is suggested that feminism’s response should not be to abandon logic altogether, but rather to focus on the development of alternative, less oppressive forms of rationality, of which relevant logics provide an example.
Sacred Truths, Fables, and Falsehoods: Intersections between Feminist and Native American Logics
From the newsletter’s introduction: “Lauren Eichler […] examines the resonances between feminist and Native American analyses of classical logic. After considering the range of responses, from overly monolithic rejection to more nuanced appreciation, Eichler argues for a careful, pluralist understanding of logic as she articulates her suggestion that feminists and Native American philosophers could build fruitful alliances around this topic.”
Proxy ”Actualism”
Bernard Linsky and Edward Zalta have recently proposed a new form of actualism. I characterize the general form of their view and the motivations behind it. I argue that it is not quite new – it bears interesting similarities to Alvin Plantinga’s view – and that it definitely isn’t actualist.
The Methodological is Political: What’s the Matter with ‘Analytic Feminism’?
A core insight of some important second wave feminist writings is that, in order to qualify as truly ‘feminist’, a movement has to be politically radical. For example, there is a powerful articulation of this theme, to mention one noteworthy site, in the work of bell hooks. A guiding preoccupation of hooks’ thought, as far back as the early eighties, is to underline the pernicious and intellectually flawed character of the supposedly ‘feminist’ postures of ‘bourgeois white women’ in the U.S. whose efforts are directed toward the politically superficial goal of claiming the social privileges of bourgeois white men. hooks shows that there is no way to ‘overcome barriers that separate women from one another’ without ‘confronting the reality of racism’. She describes how the forms of gender-based subordination experienced by privileged white women are inextricable from racist and classist social mechanisms that elevate these women above women who are non-white and poor, and how the sexist obstacles that poor and non-white women encounter are in turn permeated by racism and classism. hooks concludes that if ‘feminism’ is to be dedicated to identifying and resisting sexist oppression, it needs to – in her words – ‘direct our attention to systems of domination and the interrelatedness of sex, race and class oppression.
Doing Non-Ideal Theory About Gender in the Global Context
This paper elaborates and renders explicit some of the views about political philosophical methodology that underlie the author’s arguments in Decolonizing Universalism: A Transnational Feminist Ethic. It shows how the author’s stances on autonomy, individualism, intersectionality, human rights, the coloniality of gender, and the oppression of genders besides man and woman grow out of a commitment to scrutinizing our normative views in light of transnational criticism and empirical information from the qualitative social sciences.