International Phenomenological Society

The Revival of "The Liar": Reply

Author(s): Alexandre Koyré
Source: Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Dec., 1947), pp. 254-255
Published by: International Phenomenological Society
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2102723 .
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 REPLY

It is very kind of Mr. Bar-Hillelto correctmy "blunders"in the treat.

ment of the paradoxof the Liar, and I would very much like to repayhim
in kind. Unfortunatelythis would mean writing a rather lengthy paper
and, thus, taking too much of the preciousspace of the Philosophyand
Phenomenological Research. I shall, therefore,restrictmyself to somebrief
remarksnumberedto correspondto the paragraphsof his paper.
1. Mr. Bar-Hillel,having stated that I do not add anything new to the
discussion,recognizes,though rather reluctantly,that I have succeededin
proving the harmlessnessof the so called semantic antinomies. Yet he
reproachesme for not discussingthe worksand theoriesof Messers.Goedel.
Tarski, and Carnap. It was-and still is-my opinion that, though the
discussionof the theoriesof the above-mentionedauthorsis an unaptoidable
task of logic, it was not necessary.for my special purposeto do so.
2. Mr. Bar-Hillelstates that the Epimenides"is so obviouslynof an anti-
nomy" that "it is hard to understandwhy Kovra should have dedicated
two full pages to do it." My answeris: becauseit has been treated as ci,
antinomyby Russell and since, and has been ruled out as non-sensicalby
the theory of types. I wonderif Mir.Bar-Hillelrealizesthe bearingof hi.
admissionupon the validity of the theory of types.
Having laboriouslytried to misunderstandwhat I mean by saying that
the proposition"Epimenides,etc." is necessarilyfalse and that the judg-
ment: "all Creatans,etc." is forbiddento Epimenides,Bar-Hillel finally
succeedsin understandingme, though not completely. Of course,1 have
no right to forbidanybody saying anythinghe likes, even if whathe saysi;
false. Nor does logic "forbid"it in this sense. It only states that someof
the propositionsthat can be said, can not be true. I have, therefore,pointed
out that, in dealing with propositionalfunctions (such as x is silent, X iv
dead), one has to be very careful,because for some particularvalues of D;
the resultingpropositionsbecomecountersensicaland thus necessarilyfalse,
e.g., I am silent, I am dead. Mr. Bar-Hillelasserts that they are not self-
contradictory. He probablybelieves that they can even be true.
3. That "no propositioncan be about itself" is the simplest form of
Russell's vicious circle principleand the very basis of the theory of types.
Restrictedto the fact that,"no propositioncan be the own subject" (andto
replace "proposition"by "sentence" does not change anything in the
matter), this is perfectlytrue and even perfectlyevident, whereforeclassical
logic did not bother to formulateit as a principle,or axiom. If Mir.Bar-
Hillel believes that a propositioncan be its own subject, he is bound to
254

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 REPLY 255

abandon the theory of types and all its implications and developments,
such as the theory of metalanguages, etc.
4. My chief blunder, according to Mr. Bar-Hillel, has been the belief that
one can rely upon one logistician (Grelling) to reproduce exactly the argu-
mentation of another (Lukasiewsicz). It seems that it is by no means the
fact. Sorry. Next time I will be more careful. As for the rest, I believe
I have replied in advance to MNr.Bar-Hillel's criticism, because, as I have
stated, if Q is identical with "Q is a false sentence," i.e., if we start with the
identification, masked by a lengthy circuit and the introduction of symbols,
of P and non-P, we must not be astonished to come to contradictions.
5. Husserl's distinction of nonsense and counter-sense (of which Bar-
Hillel unwillingly gives a proof), is not identical with the modern distinction
"between contradictory sentences and word-sequences which are not built
in accordance with the rules of formation of the language in discussion."
It is, therefore, unfortunately, by no means a commonplace as Bar-Hillel
seems to believe. Quite on the contrary: it is the ignorance of this distinc-
tion that prevented Russell (and others) from giving a correct interpretation
of the so-called "logical" (and semantic) paradoxes. It is the selfsame
ignorance that leads Bar-Hillel to believe that he has shown that I "failed
to prove that the word sequence 'I am uttering a false sentence' is non-
sensical."
ALEXANDRE KOYRI.
SORBONNE, PARIS.

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