Everything I say is a lie. Is this a paradox or a fallacy?: Philosophy Forums

Philosophy Forums » Philosophy of Language » Everything I say is a lie. Is this a paradox or a fallacy? » Everything I say is a lie. Is this a paradox or a fallacy?

Everything I say is a lie. Is this a paradox or a fallacy?
Or does it depend on the context in which it is used.

Everything I say is a lie. Is this a paradox or a fallacy?

air
Initiate

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Apr 27, 2008
Total Topics: 4
Total Posts: 7

Posted 04/27/08 - 06:36 PM: Subject: Everything I say is a lie. Is this a paradox or a fallacy?	#1
A friend and I were debating whether this statement is a paradox or a fallacy? Everything I say is a lie. I say it's a self-refutation fallacy. So the statement itself is a lie, it is illogical because it contradicts the statement it asserts. If everything they say is a lie then this statement is a lie then there telling the truth so everything they say isn't a lie. My friend says it's a paradox that the contradiction itself is still true. She had an entire arguement over the statement which I can't recall perfectly so I won't try to because I don't want to present it inaccurately. Then I thought maybe the statement can be either depending on the context it is used in. In an arguement it is a fallacy but by itself just as a statement it is a paradox. Either way any insight would be apperciated.

Floyd
Cool

Usergroup: Sponsors
Joined: Dec 16, 2003
Total Topics: 31
Total Posts: 1964

Last Blog: Poverty Book of the Day: The Support Economy

Posted 04/27/08 - 07:02 PM:	#2
I think it is meaningless. You could just as easily say, "This is what it is not." But saying grammatically correct words does not make them meaningful.
_____________________ Short and to the point. \| Online Philosophy Club \| Book & Reading Forums \| My Philosophy Articles "Only the descent into the hell of self-knowledge can pave the way to godliness." ~Immanuel Kant

swstephe
Tenured Poster

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Apr 20, 2006
Location: borneo island
Total Topics: 22
Total Posts: 1380

Posted 04/28/08 - 05:32 AM:	#3
I covered a bit of proof earlier. Set "A" contains all the statements that can be made by someone who only tells lies. Set "B" contains all the statements that can be made by someone who only tells the truth. The statement, "Everything I say is a lie", does not exist in set "A" or set "B". Saying it is a paradox is committing the "fallacy of bifurcation". The statement must come from a third set, which has only slightly more complex rules. "Everything I say is a lie", is a lie, if I can sometimes tell the truth, (the emphasis on Everything, not lying. Its not a paradox, anymore, if there is a solution. Its not a fallacy itself, even though the listener may commit one. In fact, it is the way the world works -- most people need to lie sometimes or tell the truth sometimes.
_____________________ A software developer is someone who, when you tell them to "go to hell", they are more worried about the "goto".

jdrw
definitely ~d1

Usergroup: Moderators
Joined: Apr 11, 2004
Location: Pennsylvania
Total Topics: 11
Total Posts: 1490

Posted 04/28/08 - 07:55 AM:	#4
air wrote: ... any insight would be appreciated. Only certain kinds of statements can meaningfully be said to be true or false. (A lie is a statement that the speaker believes to be false.) Only statements in which some predicate is ascribed to a subject can meaningfully be said to be true or false. If no predicate is ascribed to a subject, then the statement is not truth apt--it is meaningless to say whether it's true or false (or a lie.) In a statement such as “The cat is on the mat” the predicate is on the mat and it is attributed to the subject the cat. Thus, this is the kind of statement that we can judge as true or false. Similarly with Paris is the capital of Germany. The predicate is the capital of Germany is ascribed to the subject Paris. A blanket statement such as "Everything I say is a lie" would include meaning that when I say Hello, how’s it going? or perhaps Please shut the door when you leave they are lies—knowingly false statements. But such statements are not truth apt, they’re not the kind of statements about which it makes sense to call them true or false—because they do not ascribe some predicate to a subject. Finally, regarding the issue of self-referentiality, if the statement Everything I say is a lie is taken to refer also to itself, it is meaningless, because the statement is not attributing some predicate to a subject. Cheers. jd
_____________________ OTOH I might be exhaustively wrong about everything I've ever thought--with the possible exception of this sentence.

Cuthbert
Tenured Poster

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Mar 18, 2005
Total Topics: 13
Total Posts: 1222

Posted 04/28/08 - 08:29 AM:	#5
I think you can set a similar paradox up with clear subject / predicate and without statements that refer to themselves. Statement A is "Statement B is false" Statement B is "Statement A is true" Statement B doesn't refer to itself: it's about statement A. And to say of a statement (another statement - not this one) that it's false or true is to predicate something of something else [or is it..?] But it follows that if statement B is true then statement B is false and vice-versa.

jdrw
definitely ~d1

Usergroup: Moderators
Joined: Apr 11, 2004
Location: Pennsylvania
Total Topics: 11
Total Posts: 1490

Posted 04/28/08 - 08:47 AM:	#6
Cuthbert wrote: I think you can set a similar paradox up with clear subject / predicate and without statements that refer to themselves. Statement A is "Statement B is false" Statement B is "Statement A is true" Statement B doesn't refer to itself: it's about statement A. And to say of a statement (another statement - not this one) that it's false or true is to predicate something of something else [or is it..?] But it follows that if statement B is true then statement B is false and vice-versa. Neither Statement A nor Statement B are truth apt, because neither attributes a predicate to a subject. No matter how deep into a regress you bounce down with these two statements, a predicate never is attributed to a subject. Cheers. jd
_____________________ OTOH I might be exhaustively wrong about everything I've ever thought--with the possible exception of this sentence.

Lex
Graduate

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Mar 17, 2008
Total Topics: 2
Total Posts: 173

Posted 04/28/08 - 10:14 AM:	#7
I say it's a self-refutation fallacy: you are completely right. All it means is that you lie sometimes, but not always. Basically, it means you choose whether to lie or not.

Abiathar
banned

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Apr 25, 2008
Total Topics: 13
Total Posts: 69

Posted 04/28/08 - 06:40 PM:	#8
The first statement is false inherently simply due to the fact that it states "Everything I say is a lie" which would, of course, as it was a general statement, include itself. As such, Everything I say is a lie, if that were a lie, would read Everything I say is the Truth. Therefore, it can be assumed that the second statement (assuming the second statement is "I am Lying" as the saying goes) it also therefore false, meaning that they tell the truth that everything they say is a lie. The nature of the first statement (a lie) determines that the second statement is also a lie. Therefore, Everything that I say is a lie (lying, everything that he says is the truth), I am lying (This is the truth). Thus the words themselves no longer matter, the assignment of the words is all inportant. As such, Everything I say is a lie, if that were a lie, would read Everything I say is the Truth. As such, saying that I am lying, is also the truth. Both statements were true, ignoring the fact that the words themselves spoke of lies. If we re-word it with its context it is: Everything I say is the Truth. This is True..

fanman
Initiate

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Dec 24, 2006
Total Topics: 0
Total Posts: 11

Posted 04/29/08 - 03:35 AM:	#9
If you believe this statement is a lie, then that means the statement is true. If you believe this statement is true, then that means it is a lie. There is simply no end and absolute meaning to this statement. It is an endless cycle.

hipskipdip
_________

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Sep 09, 2006
Location: Southern California
Total Topics: 8
Total Posts: 521

Posted 04/29/08 - 06:30 AM:	#10
jdrw wrote: "“The cat is on the mat” the predicate is on the mat and it is attributed to the subject the cat." Well, that's all well and fine, but I simply don't believe it.
_____________________ "What the world calls clever more often is vanity and narrowness." - Goethe, Faust. "I am God! How do I know? Everytime I pray to God I realize that I'm just talking to myself." - The Ruling Class "You may not agree with everything I say, but at the very least, you'll understand that your differing opinion is wrong." -Steven Colbert

Abiathar
banned

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Apr 25, 2008
Total Topics: 13
Total Posts: 69

Posted 04/29/08 - 02:29 PM:	#11
Again I will repeat... if you believe that the statement is A lie, then he is telling the truth, therefore the second statement is also the truth... its a double negative across phrases instead of singular words. Also, there is likely a DCI errata for it. Edited by Abiathar on 04/29/08 - 02:43 PM

jeffmcmahan
Aspirant

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Mar 18, 2007
Total Topics: 0
Total Posts: 41

Posted 05/02/08 - 09:33 AM:	#12
Tarski solved this puzzle (at least, to a degree found satisfactory by many) with the "closed language/open language" distinction. "Closed languages" contain their own truth predicates, and it doesn't in fact make sense to ascribe "truth" to a sentence (which he takes as the bearer of the truth value) from within that language; a metalanguage is needed, because what is being talked about is an artifact of a particular language. This is to say, English allows the speaker to illogically make truth ascriptions to sentences in English, using English, and all such constructions are malformed. Note that mathematics doesn't contain 'is true.' We can say "2+2=4 is true," but only with an English metalanguage. Mathematics is used to construct arguments--assertions, ultimately, but they cannot contain truth predicates. You thus cannot get Liar's Paradox cases, like "The sentence following this one is false. The sentence preceding this one is true." These cases do not come up in "open languages" (languages w/o truth predicates). For those interested, the article was called, "The Semantic Conception of Truth & the Foundations of Semantics," by Alfred Tarski. It was originally published in V.4 of Philosophy & Phenomenological Research in 1944. It's available on JSTOR. Edited by jeffmcmahan on 05/02/08 - 09:48 AM

Wosret
Yuri ga daisuki desu!

Usergroup: Sponsors
Joined: Mar 29, 2007
Location: New Brunswich Canada
Total Topics: 11
Total Posts: 1745

Posted 05/02/08 - 06:19 PM:	#13
That isn't a valid formation of the liar paradox. Nothing dictates that you must either always lie or tell the true, that specific formation is not a paradox, it is simply solved by the realisation that you aren't restricted to always lying or always telling the true, you are perfectly capable of lying now, and telling the truth later. So the statement "everything I say is a lie", is simply that, a lie, that doesn't then imply that everything you say is the truth. A proper formation of the liar paradox necessitates a contradiction in the statement, or it being mutually exclusive that you are lying or telling the truth. For instance "I am lying right now" is a proper formation, because this very statement can't be a lie or the truth, if it is a lie, then it is the truth, and if it is the truth, then it is a lie, and so on ad infintium. Just saying you always lie can just be a lie, nothing even implies that if that statemen is a lie then you must always tell the truth. I agree with other posters that it is not a paradox in anything other than contextless language. Try to form it using some kind of context and it won't work. Edited by Wosret on 05/02/08 - 06:28 PM
_____________________ "cute girls really should stick with other cute girls, hm?" - Morinaga Milk

jeffmcmahan
Aspirant

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Mar 18, 2007
Total Topics: 0
Total Posts: 41

Posted 05/03/08 - 09:40 AM:	#14
...The statement 'everything I say is a lie,' [might simply be] a lie[.] That doesn't then imply that everything you say is the truth. Yes, yes. Quite right. But, perhaps we should just consider a prototypical case of the Liar's Paradox? It would indeed be a paradox, not a fallacy. Fallacies are faulty inferential moves; in what way is a statement like, "This sentence is false" a faulty inferential move? The fact is, our language lets us assert things and then ascribe truth predicates to them, such that these cases can come up. We ascribe these predicates whenever we choose, really: Assertion: 'The sun is hot.' Predicate: 'is true' Formulation rule: ˉThat µ is true.ˉ Where µ is any assertion. (Take the symbol 'ˉ' as a Quine corner.) Reformulated assertion: 'That the sun is hot is true.' Or, 'That 'that the sun is hot is true' is true.' ...And so on. So, we have a logical rule that warrants this linguistic formulation rule. If you assert something, you can also assert that the assertion is true, given that the very point of assertion in the first place is to set something out as true. If we were to take the Liar's Paradox as a fallacy, this logical rule would be our target, and it seems difficult to see how we could really attack it. It would, at the very least, be extraordinarily counterintuitive to do so. Tarski's approach was to say that while truth ascriptions are logically permissible, an alternate language (a metalanguage) must be used to make such ascriptions. Otherwise, you get Liar's Paradox cases, which are something like what an Evangelical does when she points to St. Paul's letters as proof that the canonized Bible is the infallible, "God-breathed" Truth. In this case, the Bible is analogous to a semantically closed language. So, imagine the case of "This sentence is false." If we follow Tarski, we would take the subject as being in the object langauge, and the predicate as being in the metalanguage (I will use German). So, to formulate it as Tarski would have it, "'This sentence' ist falsch." Notice that 'This sentence' no longer refers to the entire sentence; now, the phrase 'This sentence' in English, is the object, not the referent to which the English sentence 'This sentence is false,' pointed out. This means that the assertion we're evaluating is simply the words, 'this sentence' which don't make up an assertion at all. Other cases work the same way. The Liar's Paradox case, "The sentence following this one is false. The sentence preceding this one is true." becomes: "'The sentence following this one' ist falsch. 'The sentence preceding this one' ist ricthig." And again, the objects that the German metalanguage is dealing with are fragments--mere denoting phrases--'The sentence following this one,' and 'The sentence preceding this one.' These are not even truth-evaluable. I do recommend the article to anyone really interested in this question. Edited by jeffmcmahan on 05/03/08 - 10:05 AM

RedPhoenix
Initiate

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Jan 28, 2008
Total Topics: 1
Total Posts: 14

Posted 05/06/08 - 03:29 AM:	#15
I had a similar thought about the old saying "There's an exception to every rule." To me this sounds like a rule about rules. If it were 'true' there should be an exception to this one and thus a rule should exist that has no exceptions. However, the existence of such a rule would contradict the original statement. Any thoughts?

WW_III_ANGRY
All knowing prick

Usergroup: Members
Joined: May 06, 2008
Total Topics: 1
Total Posts: 68

Posted 05/07/08 - 07:23 AM:	#16
Language is flawed, this statement is a flaw.

a modo
Initiate

Usergroup: Members
Joined: Apr 06, 2008
Total Topics: 0
Total Posts: 7

Posted 05/14/08 - 06:34 PM:	#17
It's the linguistic equivalent of a triangle with 4 sides. It's not a paradox, or a fallacy, it just isn't.

essence
Initiate

Usergroup: Members
Joined: May 08, 2008
Total Topics: 0
Total Posts: 11

Posted 05/15/08 - 08:09 AM:	#18
Stepping away from a purely logical perspective and entering the realm of pragmatics we can see that such a statement as "Everything I say is a lie." is possible without being either a paradox or a fallacy if we allow the context of the statement to reveal the speaker's true intended meaning. Imagine a person who lives a double life, for example, and is lamenting his existence with a friend whom he trusts with his duplicity. In this context, the friend understands that the statement is referring to what the speaker says to others he is deceiving, for whatever reason (perhaps he is a secret agent or an undercover cop). At the end of the day, I feel that any linguistic statement is merely a vehicle of intened human meaning. Language is not something that exists independent of human beings, but is something that has been created by (through?) human beings in order to facilitate communication; language is a symbolic system that attempts to represent human meaning. Thus, whether any given statement is a paradox, a fallacy, or perhaps something that requires proper context in order for it to be understood depends on the intended meaning of the speaker. Due to my own perception of the nature of ultimate reality, I find it possible for myself to make the statement, "Everything I say is lie." without it being a fallacy, but as a paradox in terms of my intended meaning. Those individuals who rely solely on a purely logical means of apprehending reality, however, will likely not get what my intended meaning is unless I explain it. So, I'll do that. What allows this statement to be a paradox from the perspective of my intended meaning is the idea I have that all of our experience (including what we say and do) in this world is essentially an illusion, and therefore, not true, or a lie, in the sense of it not being ultimately true. In other words there are two immediately discernable levels or reality -temporal existence in this physical world -the sense of true that most people are referring to- and existence in ultimate reality -the infinite and eternal existence in the unity of now that is usually only referred to by mystics who are typically misunderstood. In this sense, when the speaker's intended meaning is to use the statement to assist the listener in looking beyond reason and the temporal world, the statement becomes a paradox. It is a statement of truth that reveals the inadequacy of discerning truth from a purely rational perspective, and yet points towards a greater truth -namely that all thought is illusion and there exists another level of reality that transcends thought that I am calling "ultimate reality". Techniques like this seemingly contradictory statement are used in Zen Buddhism as a means of assisting a student in learning to turn off the thinking mind which, the theory goes, is unable to apprehend the true nature of reality, and learn instead to tune into other senses that allow one to perceive truth directly without the interference of thoughts. These are called koans. Edited by essence on 05/15/08 - 08:31 AM

You don't have permission to post.

Please login or register.