Abstract

Paradoxes are mind-dependent in a number of ways. First, by definition, paradoxes offer surprises or apparent contradictions. Since surprise and appearance rely on subjective psychological reactions, paradoxes rely on psychological events. Second, propositional versions of the liar paradox must eventually appeal to sentences if they are to achieve traction, yet sentential versions of the liar paradox rely on language and hence on mentality. Third, belief paradoxes such as B, "No one believes B", transparently hinge on the existence of mental states. (Belief paradoxes – extending work by Burge, Buridan, Grim, Sainsbury, and Sorensen – demonstrate a fundamental limitation on all cognitive systems: that none can hold all and only truths.) Finally, it is argued that belief paradoxes, like liar paradoxes, arise from the nature of semantic representation.