Zeno's Paradoxes

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that most of the information known about Zeno, who explained and developed the philosophical system of his mentor Parmenides, is based on the writings of Plato and from other works by Aristotle. The author explains that Zeno wrote forty different paradoxes based on the assumptions of plurality and motion. The paper relates that Empiricists' doctrine, which states that knowledge must be the result of experience, sees Zeno's doctrine as a form of Monism and therefore the paradox's on motion and pluralism fail as a philosophical theory.

Table of Contents
Introduction
Who was Zeno?
Zeno's Paradoxes
Empiricism
Compare the Empirical Argument with Zeno's Paradoxes
Conclusion

From the Paper:

"Zeno's argument regarding the idea of not being able to exist without magnitude revolves around adding a thing with no magnitude to something else does not make the receiving thing larger and subtracting a thing of no magnitude will not make the receiving thing smaller. This then entails that since the magnitude-less items do not make things bigger or smaller then the thing of no magnitude most be nothing. Although Zeno's pluralism here is perplexing at the least, his ideas of motion are even more complicated."

More papers on Zeno's Paradoxes:

• Research Paper # 25472 : "Zeno's Paradoxes of Motion"
• Book Review # 103844 : "N. Fearn's "Zeno and the Tortoise"
• Essay # 21889 : "Zeno's Paradoxes"

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