A Paradox of Unacceptability and an "Unacceptable" Equivocation

Abstract

This paper presents, and solves, a new paradox of unacceptability. Inspired by a recent argument by Bradley Armour-Garb and James Woodbridge, my generalisation of their reasoning, if valid, shows that anyone who takes any sentence whatsoever to be unacceptable is committed to contradiction. I then show how to solve the paradox, by arguing that the reasoning in question equivocates on the word ‘unacceptable’. Those who think my solution works will learn something about how (not) to reason about acceptability, with important consequences for our evaluation of arguments in the philosophy of truth. Those who disagree will have a new paradox to grapple with.

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Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Gamester, W. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4376-4433
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	This is an author produced version of an article accepted for publication in Analysis, made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Keywords:	liar paradox; Curry paradox; unacceptability paradox; truth; alethic nihilism
Dates:	Accepted: 31 March 2025
Institution:	The University of Leeds
Academic Units:	The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Philosophy, Religion and History of Science (Leeds)
Depositing User:	Symplectic Publications
Date Deposited:	08 Apr 2025 10:41
Last Modified:	08 Apr 2025 15:02
Status:	In Press
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID):	oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:225271

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A Paradox of Unacceptability and an "Unacceptable" Equivocation

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