Paradoxes

Sometimes, a set of seemingly obvious assumptions about the world combine to produce absurd or contradictory conclusions. This is known as a paradox. Paradoxes force us to question our most basic commitments and to rethink—sometimes radically—how our worldview is structured. Throughout its history, philosophy has uncovered many such troubling paradoxes and has made significant progress in understanding how to respond to them, as well as what they reveal about ourselves, the world, and the nature of rational thought. This course offers a guided tour of some of the most important paradoxes drawn from core areas of philosophy, including ethics, philosophy of mind, epistemology, rational choice theory, logic and metaphysics.