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Buttered cat paradox: Humorous example of a paradox from contradicting proverbs. Intentionally blank page: Many documents contain pages on which the text "This page intentionally left blank" is printed, thereby making the page not blank. Metabasis paradox: Conflicting definitions of what is the best kind of tragedy in Aristotle's Poetics.
Although statements can be self referential without being paradoxical ("This statement is written in English" is a true and non-paradoxical self-referential statement), self-reference is a common element of paradoxes. One example occurs in the liar paradox, which is commonly formulated as the self-referential statement "This statement is false ...
In literature, the paradox is an anomalous juxtaposition of incongruous ideas for the sake of striking exposition or unexpected insight. It functions as a method of literary composition and analysis that involves examining apparently contradictory statements and drawing conclusions either to reconcile them or to explain their presence.
Also known as the ship of Theseus, this is a classical paradox on the first branch of metaphysics, ontology (philosophy of existence and identity). The paradox runs thus: There used to be the great ship of Theseus which was made out of, say, 100 parts. Each part has a single corresponding replacement part in the ship's port.
Zeno's arguments may then be early examples of a method of proof called reductio ad absurdum, also known as proof by contradiction. Thus Plato has Zeno say the purpose of the paradoxes "is to show that their hypothesis that existences are many, if properly followed up, leads to still more absurd results than the hypothesis that they are one."
The Ship of Theseus paradox can be thought of as an example of a puzzle of material constitution — that is, a problem with determining the relationship between an object and the material of which it is made. [1]
In mathematical logic, Russell's paradox (also known as Russell's antinomy) is a set-theoretic paradox published by the British philosopher and mathematician Bertrand Russell in 1901. [1] [2] Russell's paradox shows that every set theory that contains an unrestricted comprehension principle leads to contradictions. [3]
This category contains paradoxes in mathematics, but excluding those concerning informal logic. "Paradox" here has the sense of "unintuitive result", rather than "apparent contradiction". "Paradox" here has the sense of "unintuitive result", rather than "apparent contradiction".