Paradox, truth and logic. I. Paradox and truth (Q798312): Difference between revisions

The papers of \textit{R. L. Martin} and \textit{P. W. Woodruff} [Boston Stud. Philos. Sci. 43, Synth. Libr. 89, 113-117 (1976; Zbl 0386.03001)] and \textit{S. Kripke} [Outline of a theory of truth, J. Philos. 72, 690-716 (1975)] independently introduced a new approach to the theory of truth and semantic paradoxes. In the seven years since, the theory has lain fallow. Recently, however, the seed has begun to sprout; among the signs are the recent special issue of this Journal (Vol. 13, No.2) devoted to the topic, and the collection ''New Essays on Truth and the Liar Paradox'' [Oxford (1983), ed. by R. L. Martin]. The present essay is intended to contribute to this greening. The above theories are characterized by two salient features: truth-value gaps and inductive construction of models. I wish to explore the possibility of allowing gluts as well as gaps, retaining the inductive structure. In so doing, I shall generalize the ''strong'' truth-conditions of \textit{S. C. Kleene} [Introduction to metamathematics (1952; Zbl 0047.007)], as used in Kripke's paper, rather than the ''weak'' ones employed in Martin's and mine. It turns out that this generalization, though new in the present context, is well-known in the semantics of relevance logic; I exploit that fact in a number of ways.