Bradley Armour-Garb, Dept. of Philosophy, University at Albany, SUNY—While the philosopher and logician Graham Priest is best known for taking dialetheia—true contradictions (that is, true statements whose negations are also true)—to emerge from the semantic paradoxes, he (1987/2006) has long maintained that the strongest case for dialetheism emerges from the possibility of legal gluts—dialetheia that incorporate some aspect of law. This contrasts with a point made by JC Beall, which is that the only dialetheia arise from the semantic paradoxes, such as the “Liar Paradox”.

Priest argues for the possibility of legal gluts, rather than arguing for their actuality, because he relies on hypothetical cases and argues for their plausibility. Beall disputes Priest’s argument for their possibility and argues that they are in fact impossible. In my talk, after setting out assumptions that serve as “common ground” for the current debate, and briefly summarizing arguments for and against their possibility, I show that Beall’s argument against Priest does not work. I then develop a novel argument for their possibility by reviewing and relying on arguments by David Hume that was more recently developed and defended by Stephen Yablo and David Chalmers, viz., that conceivability implies possibility. I then go further than Priest and make a case for the actuality of legal gluts.