In Zeno's 4 paradoxes, the paradox of "the arrow" where it basically says motion, is therefore, an illusion. Why is this? I don't get it. The book says: "Does an arrow move when the archer shoots it at a target? Here again the Pythagoreans, who had argued for the reality of space and therefore of it's divisibility, would have to say that teh moving arrow must at every moment occupy a particular position in space. But if an arrow occupies a position in space equal to it's length, this is precisely what is meant when we say that the arrow is at rest. Since the arrow must always occupy such a position in space equal to it's length, the arrow must always be at rest. Moreover, any quantity, as we saw in the example of the racecourse, is infinitely divisible. Hence the space occupied by the arrow is infinite and as such it must coincide with everything else, in which case everything must be One instead of many. Motion, therefore, is an illusion." ....WHAAAT?
2006-08-29
14:52:19
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13 answers
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Anonymous
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Philosophy