Liars and Heaps

Logic is fundamental to thought and language. But which logical principles are correct? The so-called Liar and Heap paradoxes challenge our basic ideas about logic; they teach us that the correct logical principles are not as obvious as common sense would have it. The essays in this volume, discuss novel thoughts about the paradoxes.

---

Semantic and soritical paradoxes challenge entrenched, fundamental principles about language - principles about truth, denotation, quantification, and, among others, 'tolerance'. Study of the paradoxes helps us determine which logical principles are correct. So it is that they serve not only as a topic of philosophical inquiry but also as a constraint on such inquiry: they often dictate the semantic and logical limits of discourse in general. Sixteen specially written essays by leading figures in the field offer new thoughts and arguments about the paradoxes.