Abstract
Surprise examinations in a specified period are possible, moreover it need be no surprise that they are a surprise. That much almost everyone has found obvious. Call it ‘the strong intuition’. In this paper I defend the strong intuition against an only too familiar argument discussed in an only too familiar literature. This defence requires that I solve a version of the examination paradox. But we will see that it is, unfortunately, only an easy version of that paradox which I solve. My solution will draw on points made by W.V. Quine,1 and by Crispin Wright and Aidan Sudbury.2 I think that Wright and Sudbury got the ingredients of the solution to the easy paradox pretty well right, but not the recipe.
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References
W.V. Quine: 1953, ‘On a So-Called Paradox’,Mind 62, 65–67.
Wright, Crispin and Sudbury, Aidan: 1977, ‘The Paradox of the Unexpected Examination’,Australasian Journal of Philosophy 55, no. 1 (May), 41–58.
See, e.g., Ayer, A.J.: 1973, ‘On a Supposed Antinomy’,Mind 82.
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© 1985 D. Reidel Publishing Company
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Jackson, F. (1985). The Easy Examination Paradox. In: Matilal, B.K., Shaw, J.L. (eds) Analytical Philosophy in Comparative Perspective. Synthese Library, vol 178. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-6499-0_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-6499-0_6
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
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