Philosophical Conundrums

A large collection of paradoxes has been collected throughout the history of philosophy. Along with Zeno of Elea, the ancient Greek philosopher Eubulides of Miletus (fourth century B.C.) is perhaps the most re-known discoverer of logical paradoxes. To him are attributed four of the most discussed arguments: the liar’s paradox, the sorites...

Time is a central and classical theme in philosophy. It can be taken up from several angles, including epistemology (how do we know of the existence of a past or a future?), phenomenology (the time lived and perceived as opposed to external time), philosophy of language (the relevance of tenses in communication), philosophy of mind (e.g. time...

Nominalism and Realism are the two most distinguished positions in western metaphysics dealing with the fundamental categories of reality. From the millenary debate between supporters of those two opposed camps spurred some of the most puzzling problems in metaphysics. Here we shall review the problems with realism, that are no less hard than...

Nominalism and Realism are the two most distinguished positions in western metaphysics dealing with the fundamental categories of reality. From the millenary debate between supporters of those two opposed camps spurred some of the most puzzling problems in metaphysics. Here we shall review the problems with nominalism, that are no less hard than...

The idea of a self plays a central role in Western philosophy as well as in the Indian and other major traditions. Three main types of views of the self can be discerned. One moves from Kant’s conception of rationally autonomous self, another from the so-called homo-economicus theory, of Aristotelian descent. Both those types of views theorize...

A paradox is a conclusion following from seemingly uncontroversial premises but that appears, on the face of it, as highly implausible.

The so-called liar paradox is a paradox that arrives at a contradiction by means of a liar sentence, such as "This sentence is false." It has been known at least since Eubulides of Miletus, a member of the Megarian school of philosophy in Athens, who lived in fourth century B.C.

Is it customary to divide human beings among male and female, men and women; yet, this dimorphism proves to be also ill-taken, for instance when it comes to intersex (e.g. hermaphrodite) or transgendered individuals. It becomes hence legitimate to wonder whether sexual categories are real or rather conventional kinds, how gender categories get...

Also known as little-by-little argument, the sorites paradox is a paradox deriving from the indeterminacy of a term involved, such as "bold", "heap", "great", and the like. Like the Liar Paradox, it has been known since Eubulides of Miletus (fourth century B.C.).

First introduced in 1950, the Prisoner's Dilemma is a game-theoretic problem concerning cooperation; it shows why cooperation may fail even if such failure runs against the agents' interest.

Can an agent, a political leader in particular, ever be justified for violating some core moral constraint in order to prevent greater harm or produce greater good?