14 of the Funniest Philosophical Theories and Paradoxes Ever Proposed
If you’re looking for complex philosophical concepts explained obscenely briefly by a philosophy minor, you’ve come to the right place.
What the Tortoise Said to Achilles
Lewis Caroll wrote this little sketch for the philosophical journal Mind in 1895, demonstrating a bizarre thought experiment described by Aristotle: “In a race, the quickest runner can never overtake the slowest, since the pursuer must first reach the point whence the pursued started, so that the slower must always hold a lead.” Basically, Caroll’s dialogue shows the tortoise beating Achilles in a footrace by confusing the fuck out of him.
When a White Horse Is Not a Horse
Chinese philosopher Gongsun Long wrote a little two-person sketch in the third century BC that modern philosophers are still discussing like it’s an early SNL banger. One guy argues that it’s impossible to assert that “a white horse is a horse.” After much semantic gymnastics, he concludes that “yellow and black horses are the same, one can respond that there are horses, but one cannot respond that there are white horses. Thus, it is evident that white horses are not horses.” So, there ya go.
Wooden Iron
From the people that brought you schadenfreude comes: wooden iron. This is a German proverbial oxymoron, illustrating how applying the wrong adjective can completely nullify the intention of the noun: a wooden iron, boiling snow, freezing fire, squared circle.
The Beetle in a Box
Famous anti-philosopher Wittgenstein thought a lot about the concept of pain. Pain isn’t observable to an outsider, you pretty much have to take a person’s word for it — whether it exists, and what it actually is. Wittgenstein’s analogy was: imagine everyone on the planet carried around a box with a beetle inside. But no one can look inside of anyone else’s box to see what a beetle looks like, or if there’s even one there at all. Everyone is referring to a “beetle,” but it’s impossible to know if they actually agree on what a beetle is.
Blind Brain Hypothesis
Canadian fantasy author R. Scott Bakker made a compelling comparison between consciousness and the more basic senses like color detection and field of vision. Just as the eye’s usefulness is limited by its own field of vision, the brain is only conscious of a very limited number of its own functions. Similarly, the brain’s concept of “Now” is a result of its temporal blindspots — we can’t actively experience the past and the present, so we think that “Now” is all there is.
Buridan’s Ass
This thought experiment goes: a donkey is both starving and thirsty, and finds itself halfway between a water source and a bale of hay. Instead of choosing one or the other, he freezes completely and dies of hunger and thirst. The whole thing is a dunk of 14th-century philosopher Jean Buridan, who argued that everything is inevitable and predetermined, including human choice. Other philosophers argued that nope, free will causes people (and asses) to do the most pointless, counterintuitive stuff.
Evil God Challenge
This sounds like a trend on Vine, but it’s actually a weapon in the arsenal of obnoxious atheists around the world. The “challenge” they pose is: explain to me why it’s more likely that a benevolent god exists than that an evil god exists. Presumably, the tiny theist mind is unable to meet this challenge, and is forced to admit that the most likely case is that no god exists at all.
Fake Barns
Philosopher Alvin Goldman tells the thrilling story of a man driving through the countryside, looking at barns. In one moment, he foolishly relishes in the “knowledge” that he is looking at a real barn. Unbeknownst to him, he’s driving through a town that loves setting up fake barn facades, like the set of an old western movie. Now, the barn he was looking at happened to be real! But given the existence of fake barns is his “knowledge” that he’s looking at a real barn truly valid?
The Pyromaniac
American philosopher Brian Skyrms laid out a similar dismantling of the validity of true knowledge: an accomplished pyromaniac has done his homework and knows the chemical and physical forces that make a match light — or so he thinks. In reality, there could be some completely unknown and unknowable force, which Skyrms calls “Q Radiation,” that’s actually responsible for every lit match in the pyromaniac’s career. You may be asking yourself, “So the fuck what?” And to that I say: welcome to philosophy.
Floating Man
This is sort of the prequel to “I think, therefore I am” — ancient Persian philosopher Ibn Sina argued that no person could logically deny their own consciousness. A guy falling perpetually down a bottomless pit, experiencing zero external input to his body, could still reach the conclusion that he exists, by dint of his internal perception. Sina’s conclusion is that the soul is paradoxically immaterial and substantial — it doesn’t take up physical space, but it’s like, way important.
Kavka’s Toxin Puzzle
Moral and political philosopher Gregory S. Kavka wanted to understand the impact of intention, not actual action, on the real world. So he made up this batshit scenario: an eccentric billionaire has offered you one million dollars if you intend, at midnight tonight, to drink a poisonous toxin tomorrow afternoon. You’ll get paid if you change your mind before drinking it, but at midnight, you must plan on doing it. Is that even possible?
Rudolf Lingens
German logician Gottlob Frege recognized that using the term “I” and “me” in philosophical discussion tends to subconsciously bias the speaker in one direction or another. He needed to come up with a neutral third party, so he whipped up an imaginary character that other philosophers still use to this day: Rudolf Lingens.
Russell’s Teapot
Bertrand Russell says if you’re going to make outlandish claims about your religion, the burden of proof lies on you the claimer, not me the unwilling listener. Specifically, if you’re gonna tell me that there’s a tiny little teapot out in space, orbiting the sun somewhere between Earth and Mars… sure, that’s hard to disprove, but that ain’t my problem.
Pascal’s Mugging
Pascal’s Wager said that not believing in god is a gamble that has no payoff. Risk-analysis philosopher Nick Bostrom clapped back with his own weird thought experiment: what if you were getting mugged, but the mugger forgot to bring his mugging weapon? The mugger makes you increasingly insane offers: hand over your wallet now, and you’ll get double your money back. You’ll get 10 times your money back. You’ll get one quadrillion happy days of life. Even though the chances of the mugger following through are slim, at a certain point, the potential payoff is so big, you’d have to be an idiot not to hand over your wallet.
