Paradoxes

R. M. Sainsbury is a Professor in the Department of Philosophy, University of Texas, Austin. He also teaches in the Department of Philosophy, King's College, London. He was editor of the journal Mind for a decade from 1990 and his many publications include Reference without Referents (2005, 2007) and Logical Forms, 2nd edition (2000).

• Foreword to third edition; Introduction; Suggested reading; 1. Zeno's paradoxes: space, time, and motion; 1.1 Introduction; 1.2 Space; 1.3 The Racetrack; 1.4 The Racetrack again; 1.5 Achilles and the Tortoise; 1.6 The Arrow; Suggested reading; 2. Moral paradoxes; 2.1 Crime reduction; 2.2 Mixed blessings; 2.3 Not being sorry; 2.4 Moral dilemmas; Suggested reading; 3. Vagueness: the paradox of the heap; 3.1 Sorites paradoxes: preliminaries; 3.2 Sorites paradoxes: some options; 3.3 Accepting the conclusion: Unger's view; 3.4 Rejecting the premises: the epistemic theory; 3.5 Rejecting the premises: supervaluations; 3.6 Rejecting the reasoning: degrees of truth; 3.7 Vague objects?; Suggested reading; 4. Acting rationally; 4.1 Newcomb's paradox; 4.2 The Prisoner's Dilemma; Suggested reading; 5. Believing rationally; 5.1 Paradoxes of confirmation; 5.1.1 Background; 5.1.2 The paradox of the Ravens; 5.1.3 'Grue'; 5.2 The Unexpected Examination; 5.3 Revising the Unexpected Examination; 5.4 The Knower; Suggested reading; 6. Classes and truth; 6.1 Russell's paradox; 6.2 The Liar: semantic defects; 6.3 Grounding and truth; 6.4 The Strengthened Liar; 6.5 Levels; 6.6 Self-reference; 6.7 Indexicality; 6.8 Indexical circularity; 6.9 Comparison: how similar are Russell's paradox and the Liar?; Suggested reading; 7. Are any contradictions acceptable?; 7.1 Contradictions entail everything; 7.2 A sentence which is both true and false could have no intelligible content; 7.3 Three dualities; 7.4 Negation; 7.5 Falsehood and untruth; Suggested reading; Appendix I. Some more paradoxes; Appendix II. Remarks on some text questions and appended paradoxes; Bibliography; Index.

'An engaging and accessible guide through some of the deepest conceptual labyrinths we know. Sainsbury encourages the reader to think with him, always asking questions and pointing out roads not taken. This is the first place I send students who have become puzzled by the liar paradox or the paradox of the heap.' John McFarlane, University of California, Berkeley