Paradox of Self-Amendment by Peter Suber subject of the sentence may be replaced by the name "Earth" without loss of meaning or truth-value. Let us call the sentence "this very statement is false" by the name "TVSIF", its acronym. By substituting the name of the subject for its description we get "TVSIF is false". But within the name "TVSIF" there is a reference to TVSIF that should be replaceable by "TVSIF", giving us "TVSIF-IF is false". But the subject of the latter sentence also contains a description that should be replaceable by a name, giving us "TVSIF-IF-IF is false", and so on ad infinitum. The referent of these sentences is not a thing but an infinite path to a thing which eternally eludes determination. As Ross says, "one is never told what proposition is subject to the qualification of being false."[Note 10] In a miracle of conciseness Hart calls the resulting infinite regress an "asymptotic stutter."[Note 11] We can certainly cavil with Ross's conclusion here. If "TVSIF" is a name, there is no reason to interpret its first three letters as another description requiring replacement by a name. But if we do, and meaning requires the subject of a sentence to be replaceable by a name (another contestable principle), then TVSIF is meaningless. The reason the very last sentence is meaningful, however, is that it refers irreflexively to meaning and to TVSIF, not directly to itself or solely to something (TVSIF) with no fixed name-replacement. Hart argues that sentences which say, e.g. "Nothing in this section shall be amended, including this section" are meaningful, even by Ross's standard, because they refer to things other than themselves as well as to themselves.[Note 12] By referring to something other than itself, with respect to which the referential series is finite and terminating, the sentence has made itself something determinate as opposed to an asymptotic stutter; because it is determinate, it can be referred to by an auxiliary self-reference that will therefore have a determinate referent. Hart is clearly right on this. Ross cannot answer him, and when he tries to respond to critics who urge the meaningfulness and harmlessness of sentences such as "this sentence is in English", Ross's response is to modify his flat ban on self-reference until it forbids only those self-referential sentences without additional, completeable references.[Note 13] Even if the ban on asymptotic stutters should stand, Ross's qualified prohibition no longer affects self-amendment and may be ignored for the purposes of this essay. If an AC explicitly said of itself that it could amend itself, that self-reference would be meaningful because the rest of the AC would consist of irreflexive references that would prevent the asymptotic stutter. This is true a fortiori when the AC is silent on self-applicability, and therefore contains no self-reference and is simply applied to itself. In this respect it is noteworthy that no AC I have ever seen explicitly addresses the permissibility of self-application. The only self-reference in ACs that could affect self-amendment is in entrenchment clauses (see Section 9). Other, harmless self-reference abounds, such as clauses on the lines of "this Constitution may be amended by...", "all amendments shall be parts of this Constitution for all intents and purposes...", "no convention called under this Article may be limited...", "no amendment to this Constitution shall be valid unless adopted pursuant to the procedures of this Article...." Finally, of course, even if self-reference makes an AC meaningless, it may still be used in the adoption of valid amendments. If the self-reference in an AC made the AC meaningless, then it would prevent self-amendment as well as normal irreflexive amendment. One of the premises in the inference which results in amendment would say something like, "The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution..." (Article V). By Ross's standards that may be meaningless, and therefore incapable of grounding the inference that results in amended law. But ACs are used for amendment and self-amendment all the time without regard to any self-reference in them. Here again Ross is guilty of a priori reasoning about an empirical subject. As long as legislators and judges and citizens can find meaning in an AC, they will have found enough to permit amendment for the purposes of law. If courts never prevent or nullify amendments that rely on self- referential rules of change, which is the case, then the latter are undoubtedly legal, even if they shock the conscience of logicians. In general, if we let courts determine what is lawful and let scholars and lay users of the language determine what is meaningful, then we should never face a conflict between them. Even when the scholars and folk agree that judicially validated language is meaningless (probably for different reasons), the courts are saying merely "but it is law." Notes 1. This account is based on Ross's fullest exposition of the paradox, "Self-Reference and a Puzzle in Constitutional Law," Mind, 78 (1969) 1-24. See Section 1, note 17. 2. Inferences by modus ponens take the form, [(A B).A] B, or, in English, "if a conditional statement is true, and its antecedent is true, then its consequent is also true." Inferences by modus ponens are demonstrably valid. Therefore, when their premises are true, their conclusions must be true. 3. H.L.A. Hart, The Concept of Law, Oxford University Press, 1961, p. 146. 4. Quoted in Montaigne, "Apology for Raymond Sebond," The Complete Essays of Montaigne (Original 1580, 1588), trans. Donald M. Frame, Stanford University Press, 1958, at p. 393. 5. Richard II, Act IV, Scene 1, lines 203-210. David Hume uses a similar view of royal sovereignty as an analogy to the self-subversion of reason: 27