Taylor Swift’s Liar Paradox

[Iwannaplato]

"all the liars are calling me one”

I know absolutely zilch about Taylor Swift. On the other hand, I'm not blind. She is absolutely drop dead gorgeous. And that's no lie. But is it in fact objectively true that she is? Can philosophers or scientists [in a No God world] pin this down? Or is it all more a matter of consensus?

seems utterly irrelevant, but,we'll see.

Anyway, what did she mean by it? Who are these liars who called her one? Or was it all just a clever lyric she "thought up" out of the blue apropos to nothing?

Could Taylor think that they are lying about her? Yup. That's what she's telling us. That they are making up stuff about her. You say: this means they don't think she's a liar. Yup. She thinks they are making up stuff they know is false about her.

Well, “all the liars are calling me one” struck me as her attempt to write a clever lyric. They're calling her a liar but given that they are liars themselves they are saying that she is not a liar at all. Depending on the context.

It sounds like they are saying she is a liar, and she is saying that they are lying about that, which entails they know she's know.

In other words, who specifically she is talking about? Is it based on an actual experience in her life? What are they saying about her? Do they know that what they are saying is a lie but don't care because their intent is to besmirch her for some personal reason? Or do they think that it is the truth? Is it something that can in fact be determined to be either true or false? Or is it more in the way of a subjective, rooted existentially in dasein value judgment? Like saying her music is shallow or phony, or "just pop". Or suppose they accused her of stealing a song from another artist. Well, did she?

None of which has to do with paradoxes.

No paradox: she might be incorrect; but being incorrect in an assertion; should that be the case: does not make the assertion a paradox. It's a false statement, then. A false statement is not the same as a paradox.

Again, I'm not much interested in pinning down technically when something either is or is not a paradox...only in probing the limitations of language pertaining to the many, many "failures to communicate" that plague our species.

Why didn't you start there instead of defending it as a paradox and only finally, sort of acknowledging that it isn't and also that you don't really care about the issue. And if you are not interested in pinning down technically when something is or is not a paradox, the why write....

Note to all of the other truly proficient technical philosophers. Please contribute here so that we can pin down when something really is or really is not an actual paradox.

There's quite a bit of irrelevant stuff in this post. And at no point do you directly engage the points I make. It's like what I wrote made you think about some stuff not related to paradoxes and not related to what I wrote.

So, if you are interested, as you say, in the limitiations of language and failures to communicate, then you could start by looking at yourself. Why did you bring up irrelevant stuff? Why didn't you immediately drop the paradox issue?

And if your real interest is in the limitations of language, why not respond to, for example....

It's unclear, I think, if you mean 'There is no definitive understanding of how things as they are objectively.' And you mean this is true in general. Or you mean that sometimes it is hard to have a definitive understanding, etc.

I don't see the existence of paradoxical sentences supporting, in the slightest, that we cannot have definitive understandings. But perhaps you just meant there are situations where we can, and these were some examples.

or

I hope there isn't anyone who thinks that all possible communication makes sense.

in the language thread. Also there...

I don't think the potential for language to create paradoxes is a problem except for those who think any grammatical sentence must convey something coherent, say.

So, a suggestion would be that given you are closest to yourself, you could look at your motivations for asking for things you are not interested in, bringing in irrelevant questions and observations, not really responding to points made,
while at the same time
wondering aloud about the limitations of language.

What's the goal in all that? [rhetorical question - the thread is now completely uninteresting, since it is not about what it is claims to be about, you're not interested in things you ask about and you don't respond to parts of my post that relate to what you actually claim to be interested in. Mull that over, because there seems to be some disconnect between what you say your motivations are and your behavior]

[iambiguous]

Taylor Swift’s Liar Paradox
With the help of renowned logician Taylor Swift, Theresa Helke introduces four fundamental paradoxes: the Liar, Epimenides’, the Truth-Teller, and the No-No.

Assumptions:

First assumption: Any sentence is either true or false. So for example, ‘I’m in Geneva’ is either true (yes, I’m in Geneva), or false (no, I’m not in Geneva). It can’t be neither true nor false: either I’m in Geneva or I’m not! It also can’t be both true and false: I can’t both be in Geneva and not be in Geneva. In logic, we call this assumption the principle of excluded middle. That is, any sentence has a truth value, and if the sentence is false, then its negation is true. So if ‘I’m in Geneva’ is false, then its negation ‘I’m NOT in Geneva’ is true.

Okay, how about this assumption...

That, for any number of moral and political objectivists among us, there is no real distinction made between the either/or world and the is/ought world here.

In other words, if they are discussing abortion as a medical procedure or abortion as a moral issue, they are still insisting that something being either true or false is applicable. So, for many of them, the statement "Mary had an abortion" and "abortion is immoral" are both deemed to be objective facts. Either derived from one or another God or No God moral font.

Second assumption: The set of ‘liars’ isn’t empty – there is at least one liar. This is important because otherwise ‘All the liars are calling me one’ would be vacuously necessarily true. In a world where there are no liars, obviously, there are no liars who aren’t calling Tay a liar. In such a world, we’re not in a position to point at any liar and say ‘See? She’s not calling Tay a liar’.

Here, I always come around to this: "We'll need a context, of course."

In other words, what is really important, aside from the spin I put on it above, is what anyone who is lying in a calculated manner or lying out of ignorance or not lying at all, is claiming that Swift is actually lying about. Is it something that can in fact be pinned down as a lie, or does it revolve around a subjective value judgment such that what is construed to be a lie by some is construe to be the truth by others. Something that ethicists themselves are equally divided in regard to.

Third assumption: in the universe within which we’ll be considering the truth value of Swift’s Statement, people are either truth-tellers or liars, and not both. So, if you say something false, you’re a liar. And if you say something true, you’re a truth-teller. Moreover, if it’s false that you’re a liar, then you’re a truth-teller; and conversely, if it’s false that you’re a truth-teller, then you’re a liar.

We'll need a context, of course.

[iambiguous]

Anyway, what did she mean by it? Who are these liars who called her one? Or was it all just a clever lyric she "thought up" out of the blue apropos to nothing?

Could Taylor think that they are lying about her? Yup. That's what she's telling us. That they are making up stuff about her. You say: this means they don't think she's a liar. Yup. She thinks they are making up stuff they know is false about her.

Well, “all the liars are calling me one” struck me as her attempt to write a clever lyric. They're calling her a liar but given that they are liars themselves they are saying that she is not a liar at all. Depending on the context.

It sounds like they are saying she is a liar, and she is saying that they are lying about that, which entails they know she's know.

Not to me it doesn't. At least not without a context. She might think they are liars. But they might insist that they are not lying. That Swift is the liar.

In other words, who specifically she is talking about? Is it based on an actual experience in her life? What are they saying about her? Do they know that what they are saying is a lie but don't care because their intent is to besmirch her for some personal reason? Or do they think that it is the truth? Is it something that can in fact be determined to be either true or false? Or is it more in the way of a subjective, rooted existentially in dasein value judgment? Like saying her music is shallow or phony, or "just pop". Or suppose they accused her of stealing a song from another artist. Well, did she?

None of which has to do with paradoxes.

Okay, no paradox. But my point here still revolves more around the limitations of human language itself in distinguishing truths from lies. The part where we can all be made aware that something either is or is not true. And the parts where we [including philosophers and ethicists] seem unable to go beyond our own personal opinions in the is/ought world. Which I then root existentially in dasein.

No paradox: she might be incorrect; but being incorrect in an assertion; should that be the case: does not make the assertion a paradox. It's a false statement, then. A false statement is not the same as a paradox.

Again, I'm not much interested in pinning down technically when something either is or is not a paradox...only in probing the limitations of language pertaining to the many, many "failures to communicate" that plague our species.

Why didn't you start there instead of defending it as a paradox and only finally, sort of acknowledging that it isn't and also that you don't really care about the issue. And if you are not interested in pinning down technically when something is or is not a paradox, the why write...

I write about what interests me in regard to human language. The part where over and over and over and over and over and over again we encounter a "failure to communicate" here. In particular in regard to moral and political value judgments. The part about paradoxes interest me only in that regard too.

In regard to "all the liars are calling me one” where does this...

"...a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true..."

...fit in?

Okay, what's the context, Taylor? Are they lying about you lying about it?

Then the usual from you...

So, a suggestion would be that given you are closest to yourself, you could look at your motivations for asking for things you are not interested in, bringing in irrelevant questions and observations, not really responding to points made, while at the same time wondering aloud about the limitations of language.

What's the goal in all that? [rhetorical question - the thread is now completely uninteresting, since it is not about what it is claims to be about, you're not interested in things you ask about and you don't respond to parts of my post that relate to what you actually claim to be interested in. Mull that over, because there seems to be some disconnect between what you say your motivations are and your behavior]

Stooge stuff. Making it all about me. I just don't "do" philosophy the way it's supposed to be done.

Bottom line [mine]:

I responded to the article. It was you who responded to me. So, just avoid my posts and you won't get all worked up about them.

[promethean75]

It's me, hi. I'm the problem, it's me. At tea time, everybody agrees.

[iambiguous]

Taylor Swift’s Liar Paradox
With the help of renowned logician Taylor Swift, Theresa Helke introduces four fundamental paradoxes: the Liar, Epimenides’, the Truth-Teller, and the No-No.

The Liar Paradox

The Liar paradox arises from the sort of statement which reads:

“This sentence is false.”

Here, we have a sentence referring to itself and saying it’s false.

And that's all it does: reference itself. Words pertaining only to other words. It's not a sentence about anything in particular such that it may or may not be possible to actually determine if something is true or false when the words are connected to the world around us.

At least with Swift's, “all the liars are calling me one”, it involves something she said that others she deems to be liars are indicating that, no, she is the liar.

But lying about what? Is it something we can pin down such that it is in fact determined that she either is or is not lying about it?

We shall call this statement the Liar Statement. It is paradoxical because if the Liar Statement is true, then the Liar Statement is false. And if the Liar Statement is false, then the Liar Statement is true.

Indicating that when we are considering only words referencing other words, things can get all tangled up because there is nothing concrete that the words pertain to. Other than the sentence itself.

To witless:

Now, for any sentence S to be a version of the Liar paradox, it has to satisfy what I’ll call the Liar Paradox Biconditional (LPB), like this:

‘Sentence S is true only if S is false.’

What pops into my head here are the lyrics from another song by The Tragically Hip: "It's so deep it's meaningless".

Okay, we note the paradox embedded in, “This sentence is false.”

But so what? What does it have to do with anything really pertinent to the lives we live? It indicates basically how language can be twisted into pretzel logic and we don't know quite what to make of it.

But then what?

Therefore for Swift’s statement to be a version of the Liar paradox, it would have to be the case that if it were true, then it would be false; and if it were false, then it would be true. So, if Swift’s Statement satisfied the LPB, that would make it a (non-identical) twin of the Liar Statement, since the Liar Statement is also true if and only if the Liar Statement is false.

However – unlike in the case of the Liar Statement – it’s not true that Swift’s Statement is true if and only if Swift’s Statement is false.

Great. In noting this we can avoid altogether tapping her on the shoulder and asking her what the liars are actually accusing her of lying about. It can stay up in the logical/epistemological philosophical clouds and remain "a non-identical twin of the Liar Statement".

[Iwannaplato]

It's me, hi. I'm the problem, it's me. At tea time, everybody agrees.

That's an oxymoron

[promethean75]

Take that up with Taylor. I don't write the lyrics, just sing the songs.

[iambiguous]

Taylor Swift’s Liar Paradox
With the help of renowned logician Taylor Swift, Theresa Helke introduces four fundamental paradoxes: the Liar, Epimenides’, the Truth-Teller, and the No-No.

Assume that Swift’s Statement is true. In other words, suppose that all the liars are calling Swift a liar. But because they’re liars (and we’ve defined a liar as someone who utters only false sentences), it’s false that Swift is a liar.

Yes, that's my point. If they always tell lies then they are actually saying that Swift is telling the truth. But, again, the truth about what?!!!

But what if they don't always tell lies? What if this time Swift is noting that in regard to what she recently said, they are lying about her being a liar regarding only that?

Are you and I then able to actually pin down if, in fact, any of them are telling the true about it? Otherwise it becomes basically a "philosophical" quandary in which we are confronted with how language in referencing only other language can from time to time cause us to take pause and wonder what is really being said.

So she’s telling the truth – which is consistent with our assumption that Swift’s Statement is true. In uttering her Statement, Swift is speaking the truth.

Then back to this: does Swift always tell the truth? Then back to the distinction I make between truth in the either/or world and truth in the is/ought world. The former rooted objectively in the laws of nature, mathematics and the empirical world around us, the latter subjectively in dasein.

So we see that if Swift’s Statement is true, then Swift’s Statement is true. So we’ve disproved one conditional which makes the LPB, namely, that it’s not the case that if Swift’s Statement is true, then Swift’s Statement is false. So Swift’s lyric is not a version of the Liar paradox.

Okay, let's all agree that technically not only is this true but it's a very, very important truth. I'll still need to know what specifically she said. And whether what she said can or cannot in fact be established "for all practical purposes" as the objective truth.

[Iwannaplato]

Assume that Swift’s Statement is true. In other words, suppose that all the liars are calling Swift a liar. But because they’re liars (and we’ve defined a liar as someone who utters only false sentences), it’s false that Swift is a liar.

Yes, that's my point. If they always tell lies then they are actually saying that Swift is telling the truth.

No, they are saying she is lying. If they are SAYING she is lying, they are saying she is lying. However it means they THINK she is telling the truth. That's what makes it a lie. They say what they think is false. And the intent would be to make others think she is lying.

You're confusing a conclusion people who know they are liars might make with what they are doing.

But, again, the truth about what?!!!

It's a lyric in a song!!! Are we going to draw conclusions about communication in general from Wallace Stevens poems next?

But what if they don't always tell lies? What if this time Swift is noting that in regard to what she recently said, they are lying about her being a liar regarding only that?

Are you and I then able to actually pin down if, in fact, any of them are telling the true about it? Otherwise it becomes basically a "philosophical" quandary in which we are confronted with how language in referencing only other language can from time to time cause us to take pause and wonder what is really being said.

I don't think it becomes a philosophical quandry. Unless every time we're not in the know about what people are saying we are in a philosophical quandry. If we hear conversations at the deli that we don't understand that's not a philosophical quandry. We don't know the context.

So she’s telling the truth – which is consistent with our assumption that Swift’s Statement is true. In uttering her Statement, Swift is speaking the truth.

Then back to this: does Swift always tell the truth?

What do you think the answer is to that question?

So we see that if Swift’s Statement is true, then Swift’s Statement is true. So we’ve disproved one conditional which makes the LPB, namely, that it’s not the case that if Swift’s Statement is true, then Swift’s Statement is false. So Swift’s lyric is not a version of the Liar paradox.

Okay, let's all agree that technically not only is this true but it's a very, very important truth.

It's an important truth that what she said in a song is not a version of the Liar's paradox?
That seems so utterly unimportant to most people is a number of different ways of not being important.
All the philosopher is saying there is that it is NOT paradoxical (can be true or false) in the way the Liar's paradox is.

I'll still need to know what specifically she said.

I think you are confused if you think you NEED to know this.
You want to for reasons beyond my imaginatory skills. But that's something else.

And whether what she said can or cannot in fact be established "for all practical purposes" as the objective truth.

Some people close to the situation might be able to work it out.
It might be something she liked the sound of and put it into a song
not
as
a
proposition
that should be analyzed,
like a scientific or philosophical assertion.

Those who write lyrics are likely to take out words that mess up the rhythm. They'll use all sorts of tropes. They'll prioritize sounding cool over people who are writing essays or philosophical tracts. (maybe not over Zisek).

Yes, communication can fail. Yes, sometimes, even often, people say things (and here about interpersonal dynamics and melodramas from her partially public private life) that we can't tell if they are objective truths.

I mean, at least relate this directly to something important or general.

Because right now you seem to bemoaning, for some strange reason, that you cannot reach an objective conclusion about the truth value of a single line song lyric. In something that is made for aesthetic purposes.

I don't know. Perhaps you do need to know. But the only scenario I can think of is that you have some connection with the people she is calling liars.

[iambiguous]

Assume that Swift’s Statement is true. In other words, suppose that all the liars are calling Swift a liar. But because they’re liars (and we’ve defined a liar as someone who utters only false sentences), it’s false that Swift is a liar.

Yes, that's my point. If they always tell lies then they are actually saying that Swift is telling the truth.

No, they are saying she is lying. If they are SAYING she is lying, they are saying she is lying. However it means they THINK she is telling the truth. That's what makes it a lie. They say what they think is false. And the intent would be to make others think she is lying.

You're confusing a conclusion people who know they are liars might make with what they are doing.

Yes, you're right. That's what they did say. That's a good point.

Again, however, from my frame of mind, everything comes down to the actual set of circumstances involved. There is what the liars say, there is what the liars think. There is what Swift says, there is what Swift thinks. But what is the actual truth? Especially if it revolves around something that might have consequences for others.

And is it something that can be ascertained to be the objective truth? Or will it always come down to a particular set of subjective, personal prejudices?

They said what they did not think. But if you or I are personally involved in this set of circumstances, what actually is the truth actually matters.

But, again, the truth about what?!!!

It's a lyric in a song!!! Are we going to draw conclusions about communication in general from Wallace Stevens poems next?

Well, you could say the same thing to the author of this article, right?

My point always revolves around the distinction between truth and lies in the either/or world and in the is/ought world. And the way in which “all the liars are calling me one” consists entirely of words referencing only other words. The need [for some] to ask, "what are the liars calling her a liar about"?

Thus...

But what if they don't always tell lies? What if this time Swift is noting that in regard to what she recently said, they are lying about her being a liar regarding only that?

Are you and I then able to actually pin down if, in fact, any of them are telling the true about it? Otherwise it becomes basically a "philosophical" quandary in which we are confronted with how language in referencing only other language can from time to time cause us to take pause and wonder what is really being said.

I don't think it becomes a philosophical quandry. Unless every time we're not in the know about what people are saying we are in a philosophical quandry. If we hear conversations at the deli that we don't understand that's not a philosophical quandry. We don't know the context.

Which is why, over and again, I come around to the part where we do learn what in particular Swift was talking about in the song. Assuming that it is not just a "clever lyric" but something that she said that liars say she is lying about. Something that pissed her off enough to include it in the lyrics. Here that might come down to those who actually do know something about her life. I vaguely recall the controversy between her and Kanye West at some awards show a while back. Maybe she still comes back around to that.

And where philosophy becomes considerably more problematic for me is when the logical and epistemological conclusions reached up in the technical clouds makes contact with the world of actual conflicting goods.

So she’s telling the truth – which is consistent with our assumption that Swift’s Statement is true. In uttering her Statement, Swift is speaking the truth.

Then back to this: does Swift always tell the truth?

What do you think the answer is to that question?

I know nothing about her. But the author of the article was intrigued enough to take "just a lyric" that she wrote and configure it into an article about it in Philosophy Now magazine.

So we see that if Swift’s Statement is true, then Swift’s Statement is true. So we’ve disproved one conditional which makes the LPB, namely, that it’s not the case that if Swift’s Statement is true, then Swift’s Statement is false. So Swift’s lyric is not a version of the Liar paradox.

I'll still need to know what specifically she said.

I think you are confused if you think you NEED to know this.
You want to for reasons beyond my imaginatory skills. But that's something else.

I'll need to know because my main interest in philosophy revolves around the points I raise in these threads:

https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=176529
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=194382
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 5&t=185296

The first thing that popped into my head was "what did she actually say?" Then the distinctions I make above.

The same thing with "the Liar, Epimenides’, the Truth-Teller, and the No-No". Once the technical discussions of them are over, how might they be applicable to the lives that we actually live? In particular lives that come into conflict over value judgments.

Because right now you seem to bemoaning, for some strange reason, that you cannot reach an objective conclusion about the truth value of a single line song lyric. In something that is made for aesthetic purposes.

I don't know. Perhaps you do need to know. But the only scenario I can think of is that you have some connection with the people she is calling liars.

Again, from my frame of mind, this is just you reacting to me in Stooge mode.

I made an attempt to explain my reaction to the lyric above. Sure, I may have misconstrued what the author was attempting to convey. Technically, I might be confused here, or wrong.

But I believe my points are still important ones in regard to how mere mortals in a No God world make distinctions between truths and lies.

And, besides, your own "I" is still more or less intact given your own rendition of human morality, right? You're still convinced that given the tools of philosophy one need not become "fractured and fragmented".

Or do you yourself continue to "crumble" a bit more in each exchange with me?

[iambiguous]

Taylor Swift’s Liar Paradox
With the help of renowned logician Taylor Swift, Theresa Helke introduces four fundamental paradoxes: the Liar, Epimenides’, the Truth-Teller, and the No-No.

Epimenides’ Paradox

One might think that Swift’s Statement is a version of the contingent liar, otherwise known as Epimenides’ paradox – and one would be right, inasmuch as Swift’s Statement can just be plain false.

Okay, but how would we go about determining that unless we are privy to what in particular she is claiming the liars are accusing her of lying about. After all, she is calling them liars too.

Let’s look at that now.

Epimenides’ paradox arises from a sentence which, supposedly, was uttered by the Cretan philosopher Epimenides:

“All Cretans are liars.”

Let’s call this ‘Epimenides’ Statement’. Depending on the circumstances, Epimenides’ Statement can be false. This happens if there’s at least one Cretan who isn’t a liar who also isn’t Epimenides. Indeed, in this case, Epimenides is speaking falsely – he’s lying – in saying that all Cretans are liars.

Just another example of a reference to truths and lies that revolve entirely around words that reference only each other. How to make sense of someone from Crete claiming that all Cretans are liars. It is true or false that someone is from Crete. But how can it be true that someone from Crete makes the claim that he is lying without that being a lie in turn.

Nope, I'll need a reference instead to something a Cretan might say that either can be or cannot be demonstrated to be true.

Though, sure, I am, once again, missing an important point perhaps?

Things work similarly when it comes to Swift’s Statement. Depending on the circumstances, ‘All the liars are calling me one’ might be false. In this case, Swift is a liar (from our definition), since there is a liar (other than her) who isn’t calling her a liar.

Bingo: "depending on the circumstances".

So, just out of curiosity, is there anyone here who might actually know if this lyric pertains to something Swift fans might be familiar with? The liars she is referring to and what they claim that she is lying about.

[iambiguous]

Taylor Swift’s Liar Paradox
With the help of renowned logician Taylor Swift, Theresa Helke introduces four fundamental paradoxes: the Liar, Epimenides’, the Truth-Teller, and the No-No.

The Truth-Teller Paradox

The Truth-Teller Statement is: “This very sentence is true.”

What makes it remarkable, indeed paradoxical, is that there seems to be no way to tell whether the Truth-Teller Statement is true or false. To quote Chris Mortensen and Graham Priest, “Indeed, it seems hard to see how there could even be anything to choose between the hypotheses. More particularly both hypotheses seem to be consistent: from neither hypothesis does there appear to be deducible a contradiction” (‘The Truth Teller Paradox’, Logique et Analyse, 24, 1981, p.381).

Yep, this more or less goes over my head too. The sentence itself becomes the whole point. But the whole point regarding what? If there was a sentence before it referring to something -- to anything -- such that it was possible to determine if it was true or false, okay, then. But the sentence "this very sentence is true" alone?

In other words, whether we assume that the Truth-Teller Statement is true, or whether we assume that the Truth-Teller Statement is false, we can’t derive a confounding conclusion such as ‘the Truth-Teller Statement is both true and false’.

A little help here please. What deep "technical" point am I missing?

Indeed, from my technically deficient frame of mind this...

Contrary to the liar case, to be a Truth-Teller paradox, a sentence S need not satisfy the LPB. Rather, it needs to satisfy the Truth-Teller Conjunction (TTC). This conjunction is the logical connective which in plain English we read as ‘and’. Here’s the TTC:

If S is true, then S is true; and if S is false, then S is false.

So it won’t be that the Truth-Teller Statement is true if and only if the Truth-Teller Statement is false. Rather, it’ll be the case that:

If the Truth-Teller Statement is true, then the Truth-Teller Statement is true; and

If the Truth-Teller Statement is false, then the Truth-Teller Statement is false.

...is basically just intellectual gibberish that in no way, shape or form can I relate to, say, the life that I actually live.

Returning now to Swift’s lyric. We can get a version of the Truth-Teller paradox if for example we suppose that no one is saying anything except Swift and Kanye West, and West is saying:

‘Swift is a liar’

Let’s call this ‘West’s Statement’. But Swift is still saying Swift’s Statement, ‘All the liars are calling me one’.

Okay, I Googled the Swift/West feud and found this:

"West famously stole the microphone during Swift's 2009 acceptance speech for Best Video by a Female Artist to voice support for Beyonce, and later included Swift in a sexually aggressive song lyric, which Swift objected to. While the two eventually patched things up, fans seemed to relish and prolong the drama." Forbes.com

So, are these the facts we can all agree on? On the other hand, should Beyonce have gotten the award for the Best Video by a Female Artist instead? Is it a lie to say that Swift deserved it more? How is it all not hopelessly subjective?

Would West have expected Swift to turn down the award and announce that objectively the true winner was Beyonce?

How is this...

Note that to be a liar, a person must speak, and again, here we’re assuming only Swift and West are speaking. Now, either Swift is telling the truth – Swift’s Statement is true – or she is not – Swift’s Statement is false. If she’s telling the truth, then West is lying, and Swift’s Statement is indeed true. But if she’s lying, then West is telling the truth, and Swift’s Statement is indeed false, since Swift is not calling herself a liar even though she is one. So in this scenario, Swift’s lyric is similar to the truth-teller sentence, in that if Swift’s Statement is true, Swift’s Statement is true, but if Swift’s Statement is false, Swift’s Statement is false, and moreover, there seems to be no way to determine which hypothesis – ‘Swift’s Statement is true’ or ‘Swift’s Statement is false’ – is true. To use the technical term, Swift’s Statement is ungrounded. That is, there’s nothing to make it true. It breaks what in logic we call the thesis of truth-maker maximalism, according to which ‘If a sentence is true, there’s something which makes it true’. Instead, here, the ungrounded Swift’s Statement is a version of the Truth-Teller paradox.

...applicable to Swift receiving the award instead of Beyonce? If we eliminate all possible actual existential contexts and focus in entirely on just the words "Swift" "West" "True" "Lie"...what does any of it really matter?

Though, again, I don't deny that I may well lack the technical sophistication to "get" this Truth Teller paradox.