Inconsistency Theories of Semantic Paradox

Abstract

It is argued that a certain form of the view that the semantic paradoxes show that natural languages are “inconsistent” provides the best response to the semantic paradoxes. After extended discussions of the views of Kirk Ludwig and Matti Eklund, it is argued that in its strongest formulation the view maintains that understanding a natural language is sharing cognition of an inconsistent semantic theory for that language with other speakers. A number of aspects of this approach are discussed and a few objections are entertained.

Truth and Language, Natural and Formal

“…An intriguing alternative inconsistency view is offered by Patterson (2007Patterson ( , 2009). Patterson takes it as given that liar-type reasoning is a real phenomenon, an aspect of our truth-competence, one might say.…”

The cognitivist account of meaning and the liar paradox

“…Given this supposition, how might the cognitivist respond? In this subsection, I shall consider three options: the inconsistency theories put forward by Douglas Patterson (2009Patterson ( , 2012 and Matti Eklund (2002Eklund ( , 2005, and then the adoption of a broadly Kripkean (1975) approach to the liar paradox.…”

“…Very roughly, the inconsistency theorist claims in response to the liar paradox that our understanding of natural language is, in one way or another, inconsistent. I will focus first on Douglas Patterson's (2009Patterson's ( , 2012 inconsistency theory, and then on that of Matti Eklund (2002Eklund ( , 2005. 25 Patterson's inconsistency theory involves a commitment to the neo-Davidsonian account of semantic competence and, in essence, our inconsistency hypothesis.…”

Meaning, Communication and Knowledge by Testimony

“…Hence any reason against taking them to be meaningful is suffi cient to warrant the rejection of the claim that they are meaningful. I have provided reason against taking words and sentences to be meaningful in familiar natural languages and the idiolects of what are commonly regarded as speakers of those languages elsewhere (Patterson 2007(Patterson , 2007a(Patterson , 2008(Patterson , 2009 and will return to the topic only briefl y below. My concern here is rather to fi ll in the details of the account of communication introduced in those other papers, to show that the account is independently motivated, and in particular to address concerns as to whether the claim that communication is possible without meaning is compatible with the possibility of learning by testimony.…”