Philosophy & What Matters. Ep. 28: Paradoxes and Hypodoxes with Peter Eldridge-Smith (ANU)
Channel: Jeremiah Joven Joaquin
Date: 2021-01-11

"Philosophy & What Matters" deals with questions that matter to us from a philosophical point of view.

This very sentence I’m uttering now is false. Is it true? If it is, then what it says holds. Since it says that it is false, it follows that if it is true, it is false. But if it is false, then what it says does not hold. Since it says that it is false, it follows that if it is false, it is true. So, the sentence I’ve uttered is true just in case it is false; false just in case it’s true. This is the classic liar paradox -- a semantic paradox in philosophy that involves the notions of truth and falsity, and the inconsistency that they may bring. One way to ‘defuse’ this paradox (and avoid logical explosion), says our guest, is to convert it to a ‘hypodox’, which makes the conundrum consistent but its truth is still underdetermined.

To discuss paradoxes and hypodoxes, and why they matter, we have Peter Eldridge-Smith, a Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University and, along with his daughter Veronique, the co-inventor of the Pinocchio paradox.

The "Philosophy & What Matters" website can be found here: https://sites.google.com/site/jeremiahjovenjoaquin/philosophy-what-matters.