|
 Building
a home philosophy library
Lyn
May and Steve Deery
The
third in a series of articles advising on how to build your own
home philosophy library.
No.
3 R. M. Sainsbury, Paradoxes
The
third choice is Sainsbury's Paradoxes. Sainsbury defines a paradox
as 'an apparently unacceptable conclusion derived by apparently
acceptable reasoning from apparently acceptable premises.' Even
more basic, it is the idea that something has gone wrong somewhere.
The general idea of a paradox is intriguing, but why this particular
book? Sainsbury writes in an accessible style, without bombarding
the reader with logic. He presents, and offers solutions to, all
the major paradoxes. The solutions that Sainsbury proposes are unlikely
to be the last word, but it does give the reader some idea of the
reasoning involved. An active participation in the reasoning is
encouraged by the copious use of questions and helps to indicate
to the reader where their reasoning might diverge from Sainsbury's.
After
reading Paradoxes you may want to see how all this relates to the
real world. A note of caution, I field tested, so to speak, the
Infallible Seducer paradox and it didn't work, though I suspect
this says more about me than the paradox.
Paradoxes
by R M Sainsbury (Cambridge University Press) £11.95/$15.95
A
new book will be featured from February 1st 2001.
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