FAWS comments on Unsolved Problems in Philosophy Part 1: The Liar's Paradox - Less Wrong

4 Post author: Kevin 30 November 2010 08:56AM

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Comment author: FAWS 30 November 2010 08:52:32PM *  0 points [-]

The issue where? Are you saying that this thread is about language, rather than truth? Or that my example, as written, is about language rather than (as intended) about truth?

The latter, though the former might also be the case.

I'm a bit surprised that anyone could conceive of a concept of truth independent of language. I've always considered truth as an attribute of sentences - linguistic objects. Perhaps I am missing your point.

"Independent of language" as in independent of the conventions of English, or Chinese, or Python, or street signs, or dolphin calls or whatever, not removed everything that could bear it.

As for your example, yes, I would say that it does point out something interesting, though already known, about the concept of color. That valid classification systems based on this criterion may disagree. This is also true of truth and logic. Some people say that the Liar statement is neither true nor false. Some people say that it is both true and false. Both can be correct, depending on what else they claim.

Well, arguing about words is not very interesting to me, nor is the insight that words are just conventions and to a large degree arbitrary.