CFP: 25 Years In Contradiction

This conference marks the 25th anniversary of the publication of Graham Priest’s In Contradiction. It is hosted by the School of Humanities at the University of Glasgow.

In Contradiction is the first serious defence of the view that there are true contradictions (dialetheism), as a response to the paradoxes of self-reference. The transition of dialetheism from a view on the ‘lunatic fringe’, to be dismissed with an incredulous stare, to one of the major players in the debate surrounding truth and paradox, is one of the most significant developments in philosophical logic of the last 30 years. Priest’s work and, in particular, In Contradiction has been central to the development of dialetheism, with the latter (now expanded in its second edition) still regarded as the view’s canonical text.

In this conference, we wish to mark the 25th anniversary of In Contradiction by hosting a selection of papers assessing the state of the art for dialetheism, the problems it faces and avenues for future research.

Possible topics for submissions are:

• Does dialetheism suffer from ‘revenge problems’?
• Are contradictions ‘in the world’ or merely a semantic phenomenon?
• What are the merits and disadvantages of the different versions of dialetheism?
• How should mathematics be done in a dialetheist context?
• What are the applications of dialetheism to other areas of philosophy?

Papers should be approximately 30-40 minutes long. Abstracts of c. 500 words should be sent to [email protected] or [email protected], by September 30th.

We hope to have some money to support travel for graduate students; please mention that you are a graduate student when submitting an abstract.

It is hoped to publish a volume of proceedings with a leading press.