Re: What's the word for...

andrewd@apanix.apana.org.au (Andrew Dunstan) writes:


|> This reminds me of Russell's version of a famous paradox. Consider
|> adjectives. Call those that can describe themselves "autologous" (e.g.
|> "short") and thos that cannot describe themselves as "heterologous" (e.g.
|> "long"). Now consider the adjective "heterologous". If it is heterologous
|> then it is autologous, but if it is autologous then it is heterologous.
...
|> [Darn that Epimenides. -John]


*Pedantic mode on*


Sorry, but I can't resist pointing out that the above paradox is *neither*
the Russell paradox nor the Epimenides (Liar). The former is a
set-theoretic pardox (involving the set of all sets not members of
themselves) and is not at all a semantic paradox. The Epimenides is a
semantic paradox involving the truth predicate for a language ('This
sentence is not true.'). The paradox of heterologicity is the
Grelling-Nelson.


The distinctions are important to certain sorts of people (myself in a
previous life -- my dissertation was on a general solution to the semantic
paradoxes) since a solution to one does not entail a solution to the
others.


*Pedantic mode off*
--
Gary H. Merrill [Principal Systems Developer, Compiler and Tools Division]
SAS Institute Inc. / SAS Campus Dr. / Cary, NC 27513 / (919) 677-8000
sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com ... !mcnc!sas!sasghm
--

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