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Paradox: Difference between revisions
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* however, paradoxes are useful thought experiments | * however, paradoxes are useful thought experiments | ||
== | == Classic paradoxes == | ||
=== Buridan's bridge paradox === | === Buridan's bridge paradox === | ||
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* if a ship were, over time, repaired so much that every part was replaced, would it be the same ship it was originally? | * if a ship were, over time, repaired so much that every part was replaced, would it be the same ship it was originally? | ||
== Zeno's paradoxes == | |||
* Zeno of Elea was a Greek philosopher, c. 495-430 BC who lived in the Greek colonies on Italy | |||
** he preceded Socrates and Plato | |||
* he was taught by Parmenides, who is thought to have visited Athens and influenced Socrates when he Socrates was a young man | |||
** Parmenides distinguished between "Aletheia," for truth and "Doxa" or opinion, or the world of our senses | |||
** considered the founder of "ontology", or the study of existence and reality | |||
** Plato and Aristotle credited Zeno as inventor of the "dialectic," or process of "reasoned discourse" by which a truth is established (aka, "Socratic method") | |||
* Zeno developed his paradoxes to defend Parmenides' teachings | |||
* click EXPAND for the story told by the ancient Greek biographer, Diogenes Laërtius, about Zeno biting the tyrant's ear | |||
<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"> | |||
Diogenes Laertius wrote that Zeno opposed the rule of Nearchus the tyrant of Elea (Greek colony in Italy) and conspired to overthrow him. Nearchus discovered the plot and had Zeno tortured to reveal the names of his co-conspirators. Zeno refused to say, but told Nearchus that he had a secret to divulge and that he would whisper it in Nearchus' ear, whereupon, Zeno bit Nearchus' ear and didn't let go until he was killed, at which point the ear came off in Zeno's grip. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno_of_Elea| Zeno of Elea (wikipedia)]</div> | |||
* Plato discusses Zeno's paradoxes in "Parmenides," a dialogue between Socrates and Zeno's teacher, Permenides | |||
** the point being that a paradox demonstrates an absurdity, such as | |||
<pre>Or suppose one of us to have a portion of smallness; this is but a part of the small, and therefore the absolutely small is greater; if the absolutely small be greater, that to which the part of the small is added will be smaller and not greater than before.</pre> | |||
from [https://gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1687/pg1687-images.html\ Parmenides by Plato (Project Gutenberg)] | |||
=== Dichotomy paradox === | === Dichotomy paradox === | ||