Note On Buridan's Sophismata 8.4
Keywords:
Logic, Paradox, Language, Buridan, Theory of propositionsAbstract
John Buridan’s Sophismata chapter eight is a well-known and heroic attempt to deal with the problems of propositions that are paradoxical because of self-reference. In the midst of his discussion of such propositions (discussion which includes the famous “liar” paradox), we find sophisma 4, the proposition ‘I say that a man is a donkey’. The question is whether a person uttering that proposition says something true or something false. Buridan seems to come to exactly the wrong conclusion about the solution to this sophisma, and it is a bit of a puzzle why. The answer is that his own theory of propositions invited him to slip back and forth between two interpretations of the sophisma.
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