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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.

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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