Paradox

38 A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE PARADOXpossible, if not only in German, then only in German andGreek! This linguistic nationalism is manifest as late as 1953in Martin Heidegger’s Introduction to Metaphysics.Ironically, Greek is especially prone to equivocation onissues of being. English is nearly as bad. The word is isambiguous between the is of predication as in “Cicero iseloquent” and the is of identity as in “Cicero is Tully.” Thisis the basis for the deductive graffiti found in universitylavatories: Homer is blind. Love is blind. Therefore, Homeris love. These premises treat the is of predication as if it werethe is of identity.There is also a rather peripheral existential sense of is.When people say “I am” is the shortest complete sentenceof English, they intend the existential sense. In Greek, theexistential sense is more central and so it is easier to slide tothe existential sense from other senses of the Greek counterpartof is.Finally, I should mention the is of mention. This is usedto describe the word for a thing rather than the thing, as in:Athena loves Zeus. Zeus is a four-letter word. Therefore,Athena loves a four-letter word. The second premise involvesthe is of mention but the argument is valid only if is receivesthe identity reading.Diogenes Laertius attributes the following sophistry toChrysippus: “If you say something, it passes through yourlips: now you say wagon, consequently a wagon passesthrough your lips.” Sometimes there is genuine uncertaintyabout whether a word is being used or mentioned. Is uncopyrightablebeing used or mentioned in the sentence “The only15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letteris uncopyrightable”? Normally, the difference between wordsand things seems too obvious to actually be confused. Yet the