Seminar Series in Analytic Philosophy

Zach Weber

University of Otago

At the Limits of Thought

26 February 2018, 16:30

Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa

Room 2.13

Abstract: The Inclosure Schema, proposed by Priest, suggests that many famous paradoxes are caused by the collision of “transcendence” and “closure” at the limits of thought. The Schema is, prima facie, a unified and explanatory analysis of the paradoxes of self-reference. Taking this analysis seriously is an important argument for dialetheism (the truth of some contradictions), and with that, a thoroughgoingly paraconsistent logic. But what happens once this program is followed out? That is, what happens when one re-considers the Inclosure Schema from a purely paraconsistent viewpoint? We will look at how the inclosure arguments play out. I will argue that the Inclosure Schema points outwards – too far outwards, beyond inconsistency and into absurdity. I will discuss how a reappraisal points inwards instead: true contradictions are better thought of as local, not “limit” phenomena. Dialetheism leads back from the edge of thought, to the inconsistent in the everyday.