Word of the day: aporia

Aporia

Noun, common noun, inanimate, feminine.

Meaning

In ancient philosophy and logic: a contradiction that arises when comparing data obtained from experience with the results of consistent reasoning, rejecting the obvious. In other words, aporia is a logically correct judgment that cannot exist in reality.

Etymology

Comes from the Greek word ảπορία - difficulty, hopeless situation (ả - negative particle, πόρος - exit).

History

Ancient Greek philosophers called any difficulty aporia, but the word got its philosophical meaning and meaning in the works of Plato (aporia is an "unsolvable problem") and Aristotle (aporia is "equality of opposite arguments").

The lexeme gained the greatest popularity after Zeno of Eleysky formulated his famous problems, which were named by Zeno's aporias ("Achilles and the tortoise", "Stadium" and others). In these paradoxical tasks, he tried to prove the illusory nature of movement.

Since aporia exists only in thought experiments, skeptics used them to state the impossibility of judgment.

Usage examples

"Husserl seeks to eliminate this aporia by using the concept of a time horizon, in which all punctuation of time, lasting only an instant, merge, where all moments of time coincide." Alexander Gritsanov, Marina Mozheiko, “Postmodernism. Encyclopedia".
"Breaking out of the limits of aporias in which his mind vegetated, from numbness he passes to exultation, rises to such a frantic enthusiasm that could animate a stone, if there was a need for it." “The apocalypse of meaning. A collection of works by Western philosophers of the XX – XXI centuries."
"Using the circle as an example, Harms is essentially playing up Zeno's aporia about Achilles and the tortoise." Mikhail Yampolsky, "Unconsciousness as a source."