The coming months I’ll be teaching a third-year course on paradoxes, a mix of the history of different paradoxes, systematic analysis and a discussion of the methodological role of paradoxes for philosophical theorizing. I’ll also be reading some classical texts on paradoxes with the students, and for now I’ve selected portions of Aristotle’s Physics for Zeno’s paradoxes, Ockham and Bradwardine for the Liar, Russell’s letter to Frege for self-referential paradoxes, and Carroll’s ‘What Achilles said to the tortoise’ for the so-called paradox of inference. I’m still looking for sources on the ship of Theseus and the sorites paradoxes; for the former, I’m hesitating between Hobbes and Locke, and for the latter, I really don’t have much of an idea for now.
I was wondering if readers would have suggestions they could share? Maybe some of you have already read some of these texts with your students? I’ll also be working a bit on the methodology of reading historical texts in philosophy, but they cannot be too difficult, as this will be an overview course. Any thoughts you might have would be much appreciated!
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