Ever want to have your cake and eat it too? Maybe you can! In episode 34, join Ellie and David (and the Olsen twins) in an investigation into paradox. Paradox refers to a self-contradictory statement that nonetheless rests on seemingly logically sound premises. From Meno to Zeno and his tortoises and arrows, from Christian theologians trying to uncover the nature of God and faith to Zen Buddhists exploring the origins of consciousness, paradox has a long history of keeping people stumped, but also of driving human innovation and creativity to new heights. However, we often still wonder: can paradoxes ever truly be solved, or are they just doomed as contradictions? Let’s find out!

Works Discussed

Zeno, Fragments
David M. Peña-Guzman, “Bergson’s philosophical method: At the edge of phenomenology and mathematics”
Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript; Philosophical Fragments; Fear and Trembling
Sartre, Being and Nothingness
Jacques Derrida, Of Hospitality and “Faith and Knowledge”
Plato, Meno
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
Marcel Mauss, “The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies”
Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, Holiday in the Sun
Aristotle, Metaphysics
Diamond Sutra

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