Peto’s paradox
After writing a few recent articles on politics and philosophy, I am happy to do a light one on paradoxes again – today: Peto’s paradox. Peto’s paradox is not a humorous one, like the South Park paradox, but one of...
paradox
4 Examples of Oxymora in Romeo and Juliet – a study guide
The main theme of [amazon asin=0743477111&text=Romeo and Juliet] is of course love – but there are so many levels of depth in the play that it would be near impossible to go through all of them without embarking on a...
‘War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength’
Some two years ago I wrote this post defining what a paradox is and how it is used on this website. In there, I also gave as an example of paradoxes Orwell’s well-known quotations, appearing in all kinds of articles:...
Zeno’s paradoxes
Zeno of Elea (c. 490 – c. 430 BC) is one of the most enigmatic pre-Socratic philosophers. Though none of his own works have survived, there are fragmentary mentions of his on the classics like Aristotle and Plato. He was...
6 Paradoxes in Macbeth – a study guide
Macbeth is known for its paradoxes and there are many of them in the play. Though I am by no means an expert in drama, and in fact my main appreciation of Shakespeare is in Hamlet (for madness) and Othello (for being...
Friedrich Nietzsche and Lou von Salomé, the myth of marriage proposals
The following is not really a paradox as such, but rather falls into the category that I call ‘philosophy gossip’. It could still be thought of as a paradox, but then in the Greek sense of the word – something...
Paradox of the political – Benjamin Arditi
In a long time of absence, a lot of thoughts come to mind. And yet, it remains very difficult to write about them. Everywhere one looks, he encounters one paradox or another – and yet, little writing is a result....
‘Why write?’, or Blanchot’s double paradox of writing, through Hegel’s paradox of action
Hegel’s paradox of action The paradox of action for Hegel is that I can only discover who I am by acting, but acting already presupposes that I know who I am: ‘an individual cannot know what he really is until...
Philosophy jokes – part 3 (Why did the chicken cross the road?)
Adams, Douglas: Forty-two. Aristotle: To actualize its potential. Blake, William: To see heaven in a wild fowl. Buddha: If you ask this question, you deny your own chicken-nature. Chaucer, Geoffrey: So priketh hem nature in hir corages. Constable: To get a better view. Cosell, Howard: It...
The Fermi Paradox, or ‘Where the hell are they?’ and ‘They are made out of meat!’
The Fermi paradox is quite well known in the community of the scientists and pseudo-scientists alike. In simple terms, it simply does not make sense that we, as human beings, are the only intelligent life form in the universe. Seeing the vast amount...
