Graham Priest and Dialetheism

Abstract

AbstractMost dialetheists and most non-dialetheists agree that the argument from the semantic paradoxes to the existence of true contradictions is the strongest argument for dialetheism. Indeed, apart from Graham Priest, most dialetheists regard contradicts about the alethetic status of paradoxical sentences as the only true contradictions. Priest, however, has made independent arguments for true contradictions in several other domains. He postulates true mathematical contradictions based on Russell’s Paradox and other antinomies of naïve set theory, some of which seem to be closely related to the semantic paradoxes, as well as true contradictions arising from inconsistent laws and norms, true contradictions at the limits of conceivability, and even true contradictions in the physical world derived from what Priest calls “the paradoxes of motion and change.” In principle, Field could offer paracomplete versions of all of these arguments, but he has declined to do so. The “priestly” arguments for dialetheism are explored as well as reactions to them by Priest and Beall.KeywordsPriestFieldBeallSetsMotionChangeDialetheias