This critical analysis of all the classic logical paradoxes, both ancient and modern, systematically surveys different approaches, introduces original solutions to many prominent paradoxes, and assesses the role played by paradoxes in philosophy and ontology.

This book, provides a critical approach to all major logical paradoxes: from ancient to contemporary ones. There are four key aims of the book: 1. Providing systematic and historical survey of different approaches solutions of the most prominent paradoxes discussed in the logical and philosophical literature. 2. Introducing original solutions of major paradoxes like: Liar paradox, Protagoras paradox, an unexpected examination paradox, stone paradox, crocodile, Newcomb paradox. 3. Explaining the far-reaching significance of paradoxes of vagueness and change for philosophy and ontology. 4. Proposing a novel, well justified and, as it seems, natural classification of paradoxes.

First book where the classification of paradoxes is based upon their essence, i.e. the problem being the core of the paradox First presentation of simple and natural solution of the Liar Paradox First publication of new and simple solutions of the following paradoxes: Protagoras, Newcomb, stone, crocodile, unexpected examination The book applies logical criteria in solving philosophical problems. The book shows the impossibility of adequate and precise expression of the world in language Presents new solutions of the most notorious logical problems, frequently called insoluble ones

Autorentext

Piotr Lukowski is the Head of the Department of Cognitive Science at the Institute of Psychology, University of Lodz. He was visiting scholar in the Imperial College of London (1993), at the University of Warwick in Coventry (1993), Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST) (1995-97, Japan), Université de Nantes (1998-1999, France). In 1993-94 and between 1998 and 2007, Piotr Lukowski was the editor of the journal ''Bulletin of the Section of Logic''.

Klappentext
The book is a monograph devoted to paradoxes of reasoning in the European tradition of philosophical logic. For each paradox, it analyses important attempts at its solution.The content is arranged according to the new classification of paradoxes presented by the author. The paradoxes discussed in the first three chapters can be called intra-linguistic ones. The first chapter analyzes paradoxes resulting from a clash between a logically correct reasoning and previously accepted opinions. The second one is devoted to paradoxes resulting from the error of ambiguity. The third one analyzes reasonings, whose paradoxical character originates in self-referent language constructions. Chapter four discusses paradoxes which are called ontological ones, whose existence results from a confrontation between the language description of reality and that reality itself.The book is written in a clear way and does not require advanced knowledge of logic. It is addressed to readers with either humanist or scientific educational background and deals with important problems of language, cognition and reasoning in an accessible way.

Inhalt

Preface.- Introduction.- 1. Sophisms and paralogisms (paradoxes of: horses, Newcomb, Fitch).- 2. Wrong intuition's paradoxes (paradoxes of: common birthday, approximation, Stevenson's bottle, Hempel, infinity).- 3. Paradoxes coming from ambiguity (paradoxes of Protagoras, Elektra, horn-headed man, the club without a name, God's omnipotence, stone) .- 4. Paradoxes of self-reference (Möbius ribbon (band), Klein's bottle, liar paradox, Buridan, barber, Richard, Berry, Grelling and Nelson, unexpected examination, crocodile).- 5. Ontological paradoxes.- 6. Epilogue.- Bibliography.- Subject index.- Name index.