Nonsense, truth, and the ineffability
By: by James R. Shaw
Published: 2009
Language: eng
Number of pages: 356
Description: My dissertation defends a new solution to the liar paradox and a corresponding formal theory of truth. The account is inspired by separate investigations into semantic anomaly on the one hand, and into limits on what is expressible in natural language on the other. Semantically anomalous sentences are those which are grammatically well-formed and made up of meaningful parts but resistant to interpretation, like "Flaming whistles ate my homework." I argue that these sentences are not truth-valued by uncovering a form of quantifier domain restriction that is difficult to explain except on the hypothesis that anomalous sentences are truth-valueless. I then use this result to motivate changes in semantics and logic. I also formulate a new family of semantic paradoxes which I call the "paradoxes of ineffability." These paradoxes seem to show that for any class of persons P , there is a statement S which is paradoxical when uttered by members of P but true when uttered by anyone else. I use limiting cases of the paradoxes--when P includes "everyone"--to argue for the existence of certain ineffabilities: paradox prevents the expression in natural language of otherwise intelligible content. I give reasons for taking this expressive limitation to be essential in the sense that it cannot be avoided by changing languages or expanding one's language by the addition of new vocabulary.

I integrate my accounts of anomaly and ineffability into a resolution of the liar paradox based on the idea that liar sentences ("This sentence is false") are a form of semantic anomaly. I argue that this view is both well-motivated and sufficient to resolve the liar paradox in its strengthened forms. I support this claim by constructing a new formal theory of truth. In general, such theories are assessed based on their ability to preserve intuitive hallmarks of semantics and logic while accommodating expressive power. I argue that my theory embodies the least radical, consistent response to the paradox by showing that it requires only logical, semantic, or expressive sacrifices that are independently motivated by the existence of anomaly or the paradoxes of ineffability.
Notes: "May 2009."

Thesis (Ph.D., Dept. of Philosophy)--Harvard University, 2009.

Includes bibliographical references.