Iterating Both and Neither: With Applications to the Paradoxes

Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic -1:1-43 (2025)
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Abstract

A common response to the paradoxes of vagueness and truth is to introduce the truth-values “neither true nor false” or “both true and false” (or both). However, this infamously runs into trouble with higher-order vagueness or the revenge paradox. This, and other considerations, suggest iterating “both” and “neither”: as in “neither true nor neither true nor false.” We present a novel explication of iterating “both” and “neither.” Unlike previous approaches, each iteration will change the logic, and the logic in the limit of iteration is an extension of paraconsistent quantum logic. Surprisingly, we obtain the same limit logic if we use (a) both and neither, (b) only neither, or (c) only neither applied to comparable truth-values. These results promise new and fruitful replies to the paradoxes of vagueness and truth. (The paper allows for modular reading: for example, half of it is an appendix studying involutive lattices to prove the results.)

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References found in this work

Introduction to metamathematics.Stephen Cole Kleene - 1952 - Groningen: P. Noordhoff N.V..
Outline of a theory of truth.Saul Kripke - 1975 - Journal of Philosophy 72 (19):690-716.
Saving truth from paradox.Hartry Field - 2008 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Vagueness, truth and logic.Kit Fine - 1975 - Synthese 30 (3-4):265-300.
Theories of Vagueness.Rosanna Keefe - 2000 - New York: Cambridge University Press.

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