FOM: Anaphoric truth and living well

[Sandy Hodges]

With regards to Neil Tennant's suggestion that we can live well if we
stop worrying about paradoxes, I have always assumed that the good life
consists in more than the occasional utterance of theorems.    Indeed I
think it will require, among other things,  the anaphoric use of
"true."    Posit that Neil hears Socrates say:

    The sentence Plato spoke yesterday was not true.

If, because of the anaphoric use of "true," Neil treats what Socrates
said as incomprehensible, then he won't understand much of what he
hears.  Which is hardly living well.   (What Socrates said has no
"normal form.")

But if on the other hand Neil concludes the following (which we can call
sentence A):

    The sentence Socrates spoke is true if, and only if,
    the sentence Plato spoke yesterday was not true.

(and draws similar conclusions on other occasions) then he is led to a
contradiction.    Which is not so good either.   What is needed is some
sort of restricted version of A, something like:

    The sentence Socrates spoke is true if, and only if,
    the sentence Plato spoke yesterday was not true, AND
    Plato's and Socrates' sentences do not form a self-referential loop.

But what exactly the restriction should be, is still to be worked out.
I doubt it will have anything to do with normal form.    If our sole
interest in the use of language was in proving theorems, then it would
indeed be the case that sentences lacking in a normal form could be
ignored.

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Sandy Hodges / Alameda,  California,   USA
mail to SandyHodges at attbi.com will reach me.