Abstract

This chapter defends the view that the semantic paradoxes are _bona fide_ sound arguments. It states a set of conditions sufficient for contradiction and then defends the view that natural language satisfies these conditions (or if not these, then others which have the same effect). The upshot of the discussion is that the putative solutions to the paradoxes betray a pattern which not only gives strong inductive evidence that the paradoxes cannot be solved, but also indicates why not. Tarski, Kripke, truth value gaps, the T-scheme, extended paradoxes and semantic ascent are discussed.