Category: Paradoxes
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Butchvarov’s Paradox of Antirealism and Husserl’s Paradox of Human Subjectivity
Top o' the Stack. UPDATE (8/4/2025). Matteo writes, "As for your latest post on Substack about the dehumanization of the ego, there is this Italian philosopher who holds a very similar view (consciousness and the world are the very same thing, we literally ARE the world etc." https://archive.org/details/spreadmindwhycon0000manz
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Colin McGinn on Paradoxical Paradoxes
The indented material is from Colin McGinn's blog. My responses are flush left and in blue. Paradoxes exist. True. Paradoxes belong either to the world or to our thought about the world. True, if 'or' expresses exclusive disjunction. They cannot belong to the world, because reality cannot be intrinsically paradoxical. True. And so one ought…
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Russell’s Paradox Explained
A reader asked for an explanation of Russell's Paradox. My pleasure. 1. From a contradiction, anything follows. Ex contradictione quod libet. Another way of putting it would be to say that every argument having contradictory premises is valid. 'Valid' is a technical term. An argument A is valid =df no argument of A's form has…
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Moral Progress
A large part of moral progress is progress in the realization of how much you need it. So, initially at least, the recession of the goal as you approach it indicates progress toward it.
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Butchvarov’s Paradox of Antirealism and Husserl’s Paradox of Human Subjectivity
New and improved! Originally posted in October, 2015. For a longish review and critique of the Butchvarov volume mentioned below, see my "Butchvarov on the Dehumanization of Philosophy," Studia Neoaristotelica, vol. 13, no. 2 (2016), pp. 181-195. Butchvarov and Husserl are clearly related to my present and ongoing rehearsal of the problematic of Kantian transcendental…
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Are You Clumsy? The Paradox of the Smashed Vase
I'm not, but you might be. Suppose you inadvertently knock over a priceless vase, smashing it to pieces. You say to the owner, "There's no real harm done; after all it's all still there." And then you argue: 1) There is nothing to the vase over and above the ceramic material that constitutes it. 2)…
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Untangling Plato’s Beard
I was asked by a commenter what motivates the thin theory of existence. One motivation is . . . the old Platonic riddle of nonbeing. Nonbeing must in some sense be, otherwise what is it that there is not? This tangled doctrine might be nicknamed Plato's beard; historically it has proved tough, frequently dulling the…
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Paradox and Contradiction between Athens and Benares
Philosophers love a paradox but hate a contradiction. They love that which stimulates thought but are understandably averse to that which stops it dead in its tracks. Mystics love both. Where the discursive road ends, the mystic path begins. The mystic essays to ride contradictions, like so many koans, into the sky of the Transdiscursive.…
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On God’s Not Falling Under Concepts
Fr. Deinhammer tells us, ". . . Gott fällt nicht unter Begriffe, er ist absolut unbegreiflich. . . ." "God does not fall under concepts; he is absolutely inconceivable or unconceptualizable. . . ." Edward the Logician sent me an e-mail in which he forwards a stock objection: Who is it who is absolutely inconceivable…
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A ‘Woke’ Paradox
Is it objectively true that objectivity is a white-supremacist value? Assert that it is, and you presuppose it. But if you say that it isn't, then why should we listen to you?
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Is a Dead Man Mortal?
An Inconsistent Tetrad a. Socrates is mortal.b. Socrates is dead.c. A man is mortal only if there is a future time at which he dies.d. A man cannot die twice. If all men are mortal, and Socrates is a man, then Socrates is mortal. But Socrates is dead. Now a man is mortal only if…
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The Puzzle of Dion and Theon
This puzzle, similar to Peter Geach's Tibbles the Cat in content, is unlike it in vintage. Its origin is attributed by Philo of Alexandria (30 B.C. – 45 A. D.) to Chrysippus the Stoic (c. 280 B.C. – c. 206 B. C.) What follows is my take on the puzzle. I draw heavily upon Michael…
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Becoming Old and Being Old: A Paradox
Most if not all want to become old, but few if any want to be old. ………………… That's an old thought, not original with me, but I do not know who deserves the attribution. Its literary effect trades on equivocation. In one sense, an old thing is a thing that has been in existence a…
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An Identity-Political Paradox
Leftists hold that borders and walls are 'racist' and 'hateful' and 'fascist' and that the nation state is an illegitimate construct. They bristle at talk of national identity and national sovereignty. Is it not then paradoxical for these same leftists to embrace identity politics at the sub-national level? And if walls are 'racist' and 'hateful'…
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The Paradox of the Misanthropic Naturalist Animal Lover
In the Judeo-Christian tradition, man and man alone among living things has a higher origin and a higher destiny. Made in the image and likeness of God, and the only creature so made, he comes from God and is called to return to God for his ultimate felicity and fulfillment. He is, to be sure,…