ABSTRACT
It would be very odd to give different responses to two paradoxes depending on minor, seemingly irrelevant details of their presentation. For example, it would be unacceptable to deal with the paradox of the heap by invoking a multivalued logic, Ł
∞ , say, and yet, when faced with the paradox of the
bald man, invoke a supervaluational logic. Clearly these two paradoxes are of a kind-they are both instances of the sorites paradox. And whether the sorites paradox is couched in terms of heaps and grains of sand, or in terms of baldness and the number of hairs on the head, it is essentially the same problem and therefore must be solved by the same means. More generally, we might suggest that similar paradoxes should be resolved by similar means. This advice is sometimes elevated to the status of a principle, which usually goes by the name of the principle of uniform solution. This principle and its motivation will occupy us for much of the discussion in this chapter. In particular, I defend a rather general form of this principle. I argue that two paradoxes can be thought to be of the same kind because (at a suitable level of abstraction) they share a similar internal structure, or because of external considerations such as the relationships of the paradoxes in question to other paradoxes in the vicinity, or because of the way they respond to proposed solutions. I then use this reading of the principle of uniform solution to make a case for the sorites and the liar paradox being of a kind.
