Refuse Disposal

When Kripke asks: `Does Pierre or does he not believe that London is beautiful?’, we should refuse to answer simply `Yes’ or `No’, for, knowing the Pierre story, we know that anything other than a qualified reply will be distorting. If asked whether it is true or false that the Barber of Alcala (who shaves all and only those villagers who do not shave themselves) shaves himself, we should, again, refuse to answer, since, provably, no such barber exists. It turns out that a principled refusal to ascribe a truth-value (which is not the same as ascribing a different truth-value) is the key to disposing of many paradoxes, including the Liar and its variants.