Conflict and Co-ordination in the Aftermath of Oracular Statements

In the famous puzzle of the surprise execution, it is indisputable that the judge's announcement of the sentence does not make fulfilment of that sentence impossible. And so it follows that the sentence is both self-consistent and consistent with the prisoner's knowledge of it.Hence we require an account of what goes wrong with the prisoner's reasoning in support of the conclusion that the sentence cannot be carried out. In fact, the judge's announcement appears to be instrumental in bringing about its own fulfilment, just as the oracle's part in Sophocles' play is instrumental in bringing about Oedipus' tragic fate, which it foretells. Even so, each course of life - the prisoner's surprise execution on the one hand, and Oedipus' fate on the other - might have taken place in the absence of an oracular announcement anticipating it, although each fate appears to have been made more likely by an anticipatory announcement. So, just as we require an account of how the prisoner's reasoning goes wrong, we require too an explanation of how the oracle of the contemporary puzzle, the judge's announcement, participates in precipitating the situation it foretells.