Abstract: Ancient sources agree that Eubulides of Miletus originated the Liar Argument. Unfortunately, they don’t tell us why Eubulides posed the Liar, what it was for, how the argument worked, when he originated it, or the context in which it was originated. But we are not completely in the dark. We have some ancient evidence for how a Liar Argument worked (Cicero A. Pr. II XXIX, 95-XXX,97; Aulus Gellius, XVIII, 2, 20; Lucian Vera Historia I, 4; Ps. Acron, scol. As Hor. Episr, II, 45; Ps. Alexander, In Soph El, 171, 17-20 Wallies) and some possible contextual information discussing a Liar-like argument (Aristotle’s Sophistical Refutations 25, 180b2-7).
This paper discusses three answers to the question of why Eubulides posed the liar and what it was for. The first is the Megaric Answer. Eubulides, student of Euclides of Megara, was offering a positive, indirect argument for a Megaric view. Just as Zeno posed his paradoxes to defend Eleatic monism, so Eubulides posed his paradoxes to defend Megaric monism. However, the evidence suggests that Eublides had exclusively logical interests and did not discuss physics, which would include monism. The second answer is that Eubulides was offering a critical argument in logic, but directed against Aristotle’s view of truth. However, I argue that Aristotle’s overall logical system was not vulnerable to the ancient liar, at least in some versions. So the liar likely did not originate here. Finally, I will offer a dialectical reading: I suggest that the liar originated as a response to Aristotle’s diagnosis of an earlier liar-like argument, which Aristotle discusses in the SE.
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Workshop in Ancient Philosophy Convenors: Alexander Bown (MT), Marion Durand (HT), Ursula Coope (TT).
