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Sunday 23 November, 2008
 22:38 | 14/Aug/2006 |  6 Comment(s)
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Riddle of Socretes

Socretes was the greatest philosopher Europe has ever produced. Born around two thousand years ago, he was a Greek  and was famous for his deep philosophical insight and logical arguments. Unfortunately, his wisdom turned out to be his enemy and resulted in his spending his last days in the prison and his being forced  to commit suicide by drinking poison in the prison itself.
In one of his renowned riddles, he conveys the futility of  illogical application of meanings to statements. He framed two sentences, which, when taken as absolute truths, will prove themselves to be false and repeat the riddle continuously without end !! Dont understand ? See this:-

Truth One:- All Greeks are absolute liars.
Truth Two:- I am a Greek.

So what follows is:-
1)  If all Greeks are absolute liars, then I, being a Greek, am an absolute liar too.
2)  So my statement that "all Greeks are absolute liars" is an absolute lie.
3)  Which means that all Greeks are absolutely truthful.

4)  If so, then I, being a Greek, am absolutely truthful.

5)  Then my statement that "all Greeks are absolute liars" is  absolutely true.

6) From which it again follows that all Greeks are absolute liars !!

and so on and on...................

Category: Philosophy | Permalink