Doubt Truth to be a Liar [Paperback]

The Law of Non-Contradiction has been high orthodoxy in Western philosophy since Aristotle. The so-called Law has been the subject of radical challenge in recent years by dialetheism, the view that some contradictions are indeed true. Many philosophers have taken the Law to be central to many of our most important philosophical concepts. InDoubt Truth to be a Liar,Graham Priest mounts the case against this. Starting with an analysis of Aristotle on the Law, he discusses the nature of truth, or rationality, or negation, and of logic itself, and argues that the Law is inessential to all of these things. The book takes off from Priest's earlier book,In Contradiction(a second edition of which is also published by OUP), developing its themes largely without recourse to formal logic.

The book is required reading for anyone who wishes to understand dialetheism; (especially) for anyone who wishes to continue to endorse the old Aristotelian orthodoxy; and more generally, for anyone who wishes to understand the role that contradiction plays in our thinking.

I. Truth
1. Aristotle on the Law of Non-Contradiction
2. Theories of Truth
3. Trivialism
II. Negation
4. Contradiction
5. Boolean Negation
6. Denial and Rejection
III. Rationality
7. Rational Belief
8. Belief Revision
9. Consistency and the Empirical Sciences
IV. Logic
10. Logic and Revisability
11. Validity
12. Logical Pluralism

Graham Priestis Boyce Gibson Professor of Philosophy at the University of Melbourne, and Arch?? Professorial Fellow at the University of St Andrews