🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <GUTTMAN.92Dec16164336@circe.mitre.org>, guttman@circe.mitre.org (Joshua D. Guttman) writes:
|> In article <1476@eouk13.eoe.co.uk> pwestlak@eoe.co.uk (Peter Westlake) writes:
|> 
|>    Please forgive me if this is a naive question (or even completely stupid :-)
|> 
|>    The way I have heard the original Cretan liar paradox expressed is that
|>    Epiminedes, a Cretan, said "All Cretans are liars". The reasoning goes that
|>    as Epiminedes is known to be from Crete, he therefore claims to be a liar, 
|>    and therefore claims not to be, which is a paradox.  But it seems to me
|>    (in my ignorance) that this statement permits a consistent interpretation,
|>    namely that SOME Cretans are liars, and that Epiminedes is one of them.
|>    By supposing the existence of other Cretans, we avoid a paradox.
|> 
|>    So a) I have the original statement wrong
|>    or b) it never was a paradox really
|>    or c) I have missed something obvious and everything I say is false.
|>    Break it to me gently, especially if I have misspelled "Epi.*".
|> 
|> 
|> I think you misspelled Epimenides, but you're right about it's not being
|> paradoxical, as stated.  I think that his statement was enough to make people
|> realize, though, that something very similar was going to be really paradoxical
|> ("This very sentence is false").
|> 
|> Kripke, who's always entertaining, says that the statement is quoted by St.
|> Paul in one of the Epistles, who writes that Epimenides, even one of their own,
|> states that all Cretans are liars.  St Paul adds, "This testimony is true."
|> Paul seems to have missed the logical subtlety here.
|> 
|> 	Joshua Guttman 

Or we have missed the subtlety of St. Paul ... possibly his sense of
humor?
-- 
Gary H. Merrill  [Principal Systems Developer, C Compiler Development]
SAS Institute Inc. / SAS Campus Dr. / Cary, NC  27513 / (919) 677-8000
sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com ... !mcnc!sas!sasghm