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Paradoxes 3: Buridan's ass

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2009

Michael Clark
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Abstract

In this regular series, Michael Clark, editor of Analysis, presents some of the most intriguing philosophical paradoxes. Here we examine the paradox of Buridan's ass.

Type
Research Article
Information
Think , Volume 1 , Issue 3 , Spring 2003 , pp. 69 - 70
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 2003

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References

Further reading

Spinoza, Appendix to Ethics 2, in The Collected Works of Spinoza, ed. and trans. Curley, Edwin (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985). Spinoza's response was: ‘I grant entirely that a man placed in such an equilibrium … will perish of hunger and thirst. If they ask me whether such a man should not be thought an ass, I say that I do not know – just as I do not know how highly we should esteem one who hangs himself, or … fools and madmen…’ (p. 490).Google Scholar