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Thanks to everyone who came out to the first meeting and congratulations to our new officers! Here are the results of the elections:

President: Weston Love
Vice Presidents: Eric Burns, Justin Lowe
Secretary Treasurer: Connor Allen

As you may have guessed from the title, we spent some time on the Liar Paradox. Have a look at this Star Trek episode that kicked off our discussion.



I'm sure if you were standing outside the room you would have seen a fair bit of smoke making its way out from under the door as we thought about this circuit-melting paradox. Think about it. "This sentence is false." But, if it's false, then it's true. But, if it's true... anyway. While its truth value is debatable, the fact that there is something strange going on in particular self-referential sentences, such as the Liar Paradox, is not. It's important to note that we said something strange is going on with particular self-referential sentences. Consider the following sentence: "It is true that this sentence is composed of eleven words." The sentence makes reference to itself but it seems like a perfectly normal thing to say. It makes sense. It's not some semantically random, syntactically correct combination of words. So, among other things, several of us agreed that the problem with the Liar Paradox does not lay merely within the fact that it is self-referential. If you'd like to learn more about the Liar's Paradox, check out the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy's entry on it.

What do you think? If you have an opinion you'd like to share, leave a comment or, even better, meet up with us next Monday at 5:30pm. The location is still pending but as soon as it is determined you'll find it here and if you're a member of the Listserv, you'll get an email. If you're an Illinois State University student and you'd like to join the ISU Philosophical Society Listserv, send Eric (ejburns@ilstu.edu) or Wes (wtlove@ilstu.edu) an email.

There is no set topic of discussion for the upcoming meeting but it has been suggested that we talk about Stephen Hawking's new book The Grand Design. If you have any ideas, bring them along! We're also looking for good, thought-provoking movies, so keep an eye out.