Eubulides, Aristotle and Chrysippus

on the Liar Paradox

Demetrios Bastiras
University of Adelaide
Department of Philosophy

Introduction

This paper will survey the responses to the Liar paradox given by three famous
ancient Greeks, the inventor of the Liar himself, Eubulides, and the great logicians Aristotle and Chrysippus. Firstly, on Eubulides, three interpretations will
be given, (1) that Eubulides did not intend to solve the Liar, but merely intended to amuse and entertain with logical trickery: this interpretation ts well
with Plato and Aristotles account of the Sophists and Eristics, (2) that Eubulides
invented the Liar paradox in order to defend the Eleatic thesis that plurality is
inconsistent: this interpretation is due to Taylor, and (3) Eubulides intended the
Liar paradox to show that there are some true contradictions: this interpretation is given by Priest and Routley. Secondly, on Aristotle, it will be shown that
we have strong evidence that he intended a solution by method of equivocation.
Finally, we will examine the common view attributed to Chrysippus, given by
Rustow and separately by Priest and Roultey, that Chrysippus intended a nonsignicance approach to the Liar, that the Liar sentence is meaningless, and we
will conclude that this solution is not supported by the textual evidence. But to
start with, let us examine the form in which the ancients would have known the
Liar.

The Liar Paradox

Establishing the version of the Liar paradox as it was known to the ancient
Greeks is a dicult task, since many slightly but crucially dierent versions
have been given in the past. Here we will give the oldest known version of the
Liar as given by Cicero (L1), another version of Ciceros Liar given by Husler
(L2), and the modern version of the Liar (L3):
L1: If you say you are speaking falsely and you are telling the truth about it,
you are speaking falsely and you are telling the truth (Mignucci 1999, p166)
Ciceros version of the Liar contains two vital pieces of information to the
paradox: the sentence I speak falsely as well some extra information highlighting the self referential nature of the paradox: I am saying that I am speaking
falsely. Contrast this version of the paradox with the one attributed to Cicero
by Husler:

Eubulides, Aristotle and Chrysippus on the Liar Paradox

35

L2: If you say that you are speaking falsely and you are speaking the truth
about it, you are speaking falsely; and if you say you are speaking falsely and
you tell the truth about it, you are telling the truth. (Mignucci 1999, p167)
Mignucci argues that L2 is not paradoxical since it is possible that the sentence I speak falsely may truly refer to a set of sentences (false ones) other
than itself, in which case no paradox arises (Mignucci 1999, p165). The L2 version of the paradox fails to include the self referential part of the paradox. Of
course the modern version of the paradox needs a mention, for it is indeed the
most rened version still:
L3: This sentence is false
In what follows, it will be assumed that we will refer to the L1 version of the
Liar, which is both ancient and paradoxical.

Eubulides on the Liar Paradox

In this section, I detail three interpretations on Eubulides and the Liar, (1)
the traditionally interpretation which states that Eubulides was part of a line
of Sophists and Eristics interested in logical trickery for the sake of it, with
no real intention to solve any philosophical problem associated with the Liar,
(2) Taylors interpretation that Eubulides intended to defend the Eleatic thesis
that plurality is inconsistent and (3) Priest and Routleys interpretation that
Eubulides construction of the Liar is part of a tradition of dialetheic solutions to
the Liar paradox. I conclude that although the fact of the matter is that we do
not know why Eubulides was interested in the Liar paradox, and we do not know
what position he held regarding it, seems that the traditional interpretation is
still the simplest explanation, and there is no textual evidence good enough for
us to veer from it just yet.
3.1

The Traditional Interpretation

Both Plato and Aristotle describe the Sophists as men who teach deductions
and refutations that appear to be genuine (but are not really so) to anyone who
might pay the required monetary fee (Sophistical Refutations 165a). Aristotle
treats the Liar argument as an argument which appears to force a contradiction,
but does not really do so after closer inspection (Sophistical Refutations 180b1).
So it appears that Aristotle treated Eubulides paradox as a mere sophism. Unfortunately, there is no mention of Eubulides in Aristotles work, so we do not
know Aristotle thoughts on what motivated Eubulides to work on the paradoxes.
Nevertheless, we should take the accounts of Plato and Aristotle on the sophists
seriously, and consider it an option that Eubulides was not much dierent to the
earlier Sophists, in that he posed the Liar paradox as a logic game which had
no seriously intended philosophical pursuit. This may have some conrmation
by the report of Sextus, where he says Eubulides cultivated only logic among
the philosophical disciplines (Mignucci 1999, 162). The advantage of this view is
that it is simple, and it agrees with ancient opinions on the early Greek logicians.

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3.2

Demetrios Bastiras

Modern Interpretations

Against this view, Kneale and Kneale claim that it is hard to believe that Eubulides produced the Liar paradox (as well as his other paradoxes) for such a trivial
reason as logic trickery. Kneale and Kneale state He must surely have been trying to illustrate some theses of Megarian philosophy (Kneale and Kneale 1962,
p114), but go on to admit that it may be impossible to reproduce the debates
in which he introduced the paradox. I will outline two of the most interesting
interpretations on this issue and show that there is no explicit evidence that
the Liar paradox served to highlight any Megarian philosophical position. The
interpretations are: (1) Taylors conjecture that the early Megarians (such as the
author of the Dissoi Logoi) intended to support the Eleatic doctrine. If this is
the case, maybe the same could be said about Eubulides, i.e. that Eubulides may
have raised the paradoxes in order to show that this world is contradictory. And
(2) Priest and Routleys conjecture that there is strong evidence which suggests
a dialetheic approach to the Liar by the Megarians will be considered.
According to Taylor, the Megarians thesis such as the Dissoi Logoi shows
reinforces the Eleatic doctrine that the many, the contents of the world of experience, is contradictory and hence unknowable (Taylor 1911, p128). Add to this
that Eubulides master was Euclid of Megara, a philosopher who followed the
philosophy of Parmenides. Kneale and Kneale observe that an interest practised
in the dialectic in the tradition of Zeno the Eleatic seems to have reached the
Stoics, perhaps through the Megarians (Kneale and Kneale 1962, p115). Against
this view, Mignucci acknowledges that there is the view that Eubulides invented
his paradoxes to show that the world of experience is contradictory or that plurality is inconsistent (Mignucci 1999, p162), however Mignucci goes on to say
that there is no textual evidence for the claim, other than the mere coincidental
fact that Eubulides master defended the Eleatic view. From this, we cannot
infer that Eubulides did the same.
According to (Priest and Routley, 1989) is very strong evidence that some of
the ancient Greeks were Dialetheists, and name in particular Herakleitos and the
Sophists, and also the Megarian treatment of the semantic paradoxes especially
the Liar. I will show that no such strong evidence exists. I will show that although
their conjecture is interesting, the claim that there were dialetheic responses to
the Liar remains unsupported by the textual evidence.
Priest and Routley support their claim that some of the Megarians had dialetheic positions on the Liar by (1) conjecturing that the prima facie dialetheic
claims made in the fragmented text the Dissoi Logoi show that there were dialetheic responses to the Liar and (2) conjecturing that Chrysippus book (now
lost) devoted to replying to those who hold that Propositions may be at once
False and True was referring to Megarian logicians using paradoxes such as the
Liar to defend their position.
It is up to Priest and Routley to discharge their onus of proof regarding the
strong evidence that there were dialetheic responses to the Liar. I take it that
strong evidence means that there is at least some reference to the Liar paradox
in either 1 or 2 above. Both of the conjectures above are unsupported by textual

Eubulides, Aristotle and Chrysippus on the Liar Paradox

37

evidence. Priest and Routley do not show us where in the Dissoi Logoi we might
nd a reference to the Liar paradox. In fact, nowhere in the Dissoi Logoi is
the Liar paradox referred to. Similarly, we do not have any available textual
evidence informing us of the Liar paradox being connected with the Chrysippus
book referred to in 2 above. Therefore we do not have a reason to believe that
there were dialetheic responses to the Liar paradox amongst the ancient Greeks.
At best, Priest and Routley may have shown us that there were some ancient
Greek dialetheists, (although this does not tell us about their responses to the
Liar paradox. There is not much point to guessing what their response to the Liar
was, since we might be able to guess alternatives which also lack textual evidence,
but where would this get us?). But even this claim is in doubt. Inferring that
there were dialetheic responses to the Liar because there were some Megarian
dialetheists invites a closer look at whether the latter claim is true. It turns out
that the claim that the Dissoi Logoi held a dialetheic approach to some sentences
is far from well established. Indeed there are at least two other alternatives
(which will not be detailed in this paper) an alternative given by (Kneale and
Kneale 1962 p16) who suggest that the author of the Dissoi Logoi may have
been an early version of the Stoic type/token sentence distinction, and another
alternative given by (Taylor 1911, p128) in which it is argued that the Dissoi
Logoi intends to reinforce the Eleatic doctrine that the contents of the sensible
world are inconsistent hence unknowable. Having said this, there were attempts
to solve the Liar paradox by other ancient Greek, for which there is more evidence
available, and to this we now turn.

Aristotles Solution

According to Aristotle, it is impossible for opposites to belong to the same thing

without qualication. In chapter 25 of Sophistical Refutations Aristotle considers a series of cases which contradictory propositions appear to be held together
without qualication. Aristotle attempts to show by method of equivocation that
the contradictory predicates can be distinguished in some respect. To avoid contradiction where both A and A hold (or seem to hold, as Aristotle would have
it) it is shown that there is a point of dierence d such that A holds in respect
to d1 and A holds in respect to d2. For Aristotle, a contradictory sentence is
the result of mistaken equivocation in respect to some factor d. The method of
equivocation is applied to the claim that a man can at the same time say what
is false and what is true:
There is nothing to stop the man from speaking falsely without qualication
but truthful in some particular respect, or there being truth in some of the things
he says, though he himself is no truthful (SR 180b1)
We do not know precisely which version of the Liar paradox Aristotle was
referring to. If it is the case that Aristotle was referring to the L2 version of
the paradox, or simply the sentence I speak falsely, then his solution is indeed
adequate, since it would be right to distinguish between the set of sentence being
referred to and he sentence itself. As stated earlier, a person may consistently

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Demetrios Bastiras

refer to a set of false sentences spoken by him without the need to refer to all
sentences the person utters. But the fact remains that this is not an adequate
solution of the paradoxical L1, and neither of the modern L3.

Chrysippus

According to (Rustow 1910, p50), and also (Priest and Routley 1989, p13),
Chrysippus adopted a non-signicance solution to the Liar paradox. According
to Priest and Routley, Chrysippus reject both Aristotles solution (see below) and
the dialetheic solution, and instead oered that the sentence has no meaning at
all. This interpretation is gathered indirectly from Rustow via Bochienski. Upon
further examination however, the original texts appealed to in this interpretation
(Plutarch and Cicero) do not warrant the solution oered, and this is what we
will now show.
Plutarch for example informs us that Chrysippus had views in contrast to
some of the main tenets of Stoic logic, and makes two main points about Chrysippus: (1) Chrysippus refused to qualify as false the conjunction of a contradictory
pair, i.e. he admitted that there is at least one contradiction that is not false,
and (2) Chrysippus would have admitted arguments with true premises which
deduce contradictions, i.e. the Liar paradox (Mignucci 1999, p167). From this
we cannot infer that Chrysippus must have had a non-signicance solution to
the paradox, for anything remotely connected to a meaningless interpretation of
the Liar sentence is not mentioned. The most we can deduce with any certainty
is that Chrysippus did not consider the Liar sentence false. Perhaps then it is
Cicero who might inform us a little more on Chrysippus solution.
Cicero attacks Chrysippus, arguing that his position is incompatible with
Stoic logic and that if proposition such as the Liar sentence lack a criterion according to which you can answer whether they are true or false, then the Stoic
doctrine that propositions are either true or false is contradicted (Mignucci 1999,
p168). But there is no mention in Cicero or any of the ancient texts that Chrysippus allowed exceptions to the Principle of Bivalence. In fact, Cicero mentions
that the Stoics attacked the Epicureans for allowing exceptions to the Principle
of Bivalence. This indicates that the Chrysippus may not have deemed it necessary to dispute the Principle of Bivalence even though he though that the Liar
was a proposition and the Liar was not false. So what solution did Chrysippus
have in mind? The evidence is too scarce to tell.

Summary

This paper outlined some of the most common interpretation on the Liar paradox
attributed to Eubulides, Aristotle and Chrysippus. We showed that apart from
Aristotles interesting but ineective method of equivocation solution to the Liar
paradox, there is insucient evidence that the Liar paradox was dealt with as
meaningless by Chrysippus, or as dialetheic, Eleatic by Eubulides. We did argue
that based on simplicity and compatibility with ancient views on Eubulides, it

Eubulides, Aristotle and Chrysippus on the Liar Paradox

39

is bet to stick to the traditional view that Eubulides was a mere sophist until
more evidence is available.

References
[Kneale and Kneale, 1962] W. Kneale and M. Kneale, The Development of Logic.
London: Oxford University Press.
[Mignucci, 1999] K. Algra et al, The Cambridge History of Hellenistic Philosophy:
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[Priest and Routley, 1989] G. Priest and R. Routley and J. Norman (eds.) Paraconsistent Logic: Essays on the Inconsistent. Munich: Philosophia Verlag.
[Rustow, 1910] A. Rustow, Der Lugner : Leipzig.
[Taylor, 1911] A.E. Taylor, Varia Socratica. Oxford: Parker.