A Unifying Double-Reference Approach to Semantic Paradoxes: From the White-Horse-Not-Horse Paradox and the Ultimate-Unspeakable Paradox to the Liar Paradox in View of the Principle of Noncontradiction

Abstract The purpose of this study is to suggest and explain an engaging approach to three distinct types of (alleged or genuine) semantic paradoxes, the White-Horse-Not-Horse Paradox, the Ultimate-Unspeakable Paradox, and the Liar Paradox, in a unifying way that is sensitive to distinct features of them. Although the three types of semantic paradoxes address distinct types of objects, and although their seemingly paradoxical features are different (alleged or genuine), their distinct structures and contents can be understood and treated on the same common ground, which is jointly conceived in people’s pretheoretic understandings of truth and of the double-reference feature of people’s basic employment of language (saying something about an object), and from the unifying vantage point of a double-reference approach.