The ‘Semantic Paradoxes’

Abstract

The traditional approach to studying the origin of the so-called non-Logical ‘paradoxes’ was to treat them as immediate consequences of the logical ones discovered by Russell. Since most historians associate the discovery of these new ‘paradoxes’ with scholars such as George G. Berry (1867-?), Zermelo, Jules König (1849–1913) and Alfred Cardew Dixon (1865–1936), among others, it would be reasonable to suppose that Russell’s role was simply that of a guide. However, subsequent research has shown that his role in the formulation of the new ‘paradoxes’ was much more complicated, and that he was, in fact, directly involved with the origin of some non-Logical ‘paradoxes’.

The [semantic] contradictions [...] are not purely logical, and cannot be stated in logical terms alone [...]. So they may due not to faulty logic or mathematics but to faulty ideas concerning thought and language.

Frank Ramsey.