Burge on Epistemic Paradox

Abstract

In his papers ‘Semantic Paradox (1979)’ and ‘The Liar Paradox: Tangles and Chains (1982),’ Tyler Burge provides a hierarchical solution to the Liar paradox. And in his paper ‘Epistemic Paradox (1984)’ Burge extends his hierarchy approach to the epistemic paradox of belief instability, which I shall explain shortly. Although Burge's views on the Liar paradox have been widely criticized (e.g., Gupta 1982, Grim 1991), his views on the paradox of belief instability have not received notable attention (except Conee 1987). In this paper I shall argue that Burge's proposal is inadequate as a solution to the paradox of belief instability. For this purpose, I shall criticize Burge's claim that a circular evaluation of a thought (or a belief) is impossible, which is crucial for his proposal. The question of whether or not a circular evaluation of belief is possible is of its own philosophical interest as well.