Paradox

OCKHAM AND THE INSOLUBILIA 197With the decline of the Roman empire, paradoxes thatseemed irrelevant to religious issues lapsed into desuetude.They were either forgotten or demoted to the status of intellectualdiversions. The liar paradox is a particularly strikingexample (Spade 1973). One might expect it to be kept steadilybefore the Christian eye because it is repeated in the Bible:“One of themselves, even a prophet of their own, said, TheCretans are always liars, evil beasts, slow bellies. This witnessis true.” (Epistles 1: 12–13). But Christians had the sameattitude toward the liar paradox as they did toward a mosquitothat is preserved in a reliquary; they were curious as to how thepest became ensconced but were not curious about the creatureitself. Augustine cites the verse only to raise the issue of whysacred Scripture should quote pagan sources. Many Christianscholars had access to Cicero’s remarks about the liar paradoxin his Academica. It is also explained in Aristotle’s SophisticElenchi (25, 180a27-b7) which appeared in the Latin Westaround 1130. But this led to no competent commentary.Is the liar paradox so hard to understand? In the twentiethcentury, the liar paradox became part of popular culture.In the 1967 Star Trek episode “I, Mudd,” the android leaderNorman short-circuits when he hears the followingexchange:Captain Kirk: Everything Harry tells you is a lie. Rememberthat—everything Harry tells you is a lie.Harry Mudd: I am lying.The scriptwriters could safely presuppose that most of theiraudience could follow Norman’s oscillations: If Mudd is lying,then Mudd is telling the truth—and if Mudd is telling thetruth, then he is lying.