A Dichotomic Analysis of the Surprise Examination Paradox

This paper proposes a new framework to solve the surprise examination paradox. I survey preliminary the main contributions to the literature related to the paradox. I introduce then a distinction between a monist and a dichotomic analysis of the paradox. With the help of a matrix notation, I also present a dichotomy that leads to distinguish two basically and structurally different notions of surprise, which are respectively based on a conjoint and a disjoint structure. I describe then how Quine's solution and Hall's reduction apply to the version of the paradox corresponding to the conjoint structure. Lastly, I expose a solution to the version of the paradox based on the disjoint structure.