Probably everyone came across such a word as “aporia”. This is not surprising, because many studied at the university a course in philosophy. However, not everyone knows the essence of this word and can correctly interpret it.
The aporia of Zeno of Elea is an outstanding monument of human thought. This is one of the most interesting problems in the philosophy of ancient Greece, which shows how paradoxical things can turn out to be completely obvious at first glance.
Zeno: A Brief Biography of the Sage
Almost nothing is known about the pages of the life of the ancient Greek philosopher . And the information that came to us is very contradictory.
Zeno of Elea is a philosopher of Ancient Greece, born in 490 BC in Elea. He lived 60 years and died (presumably) in 430 BC. Zeno was a pupil and adopted son of another famous philosopher - Parmenides. By the way, according to Diogenes, he was also the lover of his teacher, but Athenaeus decisively rejected this information.
The first dialectic (according to Aristotle) became known thanks to his logical conclusions, which were called "Aporia of Zeno." The philosophy of Zeno of Elea - all consists of paradoxes and contradictions, which makes it even more interesting.
The tragic death of a philosopher
The secrets and riddles are shrouded in the life and death of the great philosopher. He is also known as a politician, because of which he died. Zeno, according to some sources, led the fight against the Elean tyrant Nearch. However, the philosopher was arrested, after which he was tortured many times and with sophistication. But even under terrible tortures, the philosopher did not betray his comrades-in-arms.
There are two versions of the death of Zeno of Elea. According to one of them, he was executed with sophisticated execution - they threw him into a huge stupa and pushed him to death. According to another version, during a conversation with Nearch, Zeno rushed to the tyrant and bit his ear, for which he was instantly killed by servants.
Aporia Zeno
It is known that the philosopher created at least forty different aporias, but only nine of them reached us. Among Zeno's most popular aporias are Arrow, Achilles and the Turtle, Dichotomy, and Stage.
The ancient Greek philosopher, whose apors are still puzzled by more than a dozen modern scholars, cast doubt on the existence of such unshakable categories as movement, multitude, and even space! Discussions provoked by the paradoxical statements of Zeno of Elea are still ongoing. Bogomolov, Svatkovsky, Panchenko and Maneev - this is not a complete list of scientists who have been involved in this problem.
Aporia is ...
So what is the essence of this concept? And what is the paradox of the aporia of Zeno of Elea?
If you translate the Greek word “aporia”, then aporia is “a hopeless situation” (literally). It arises due to the fact that a certain contradiction is hidden in the object itself (or in its interpretation).
We can say that aporia is (in philosophy) a problem whose solution is fraught with great difficulties.
With his conclusions, Zenon significantly enriched the dialectic. And although modern mathematicians are sure that they refuted the aporias of Zeno, they still conceal many more mysteries.
If we interpret the philosophy of Zeno, aporia is, first of all, the absurdity and impossibility of the existence of movement. Although the philosopher himself, most likely, did not use this term at all.
"Achilles and the tortoise"
Let us consider in more detail the four most famous aporias of Zeno of Elea. The first two jeopardize the existence of such a thing as movement. This is the dichotomy aporia and the Achilles and Turtle aporia.
The aporia “Dichotomy” at first glance seems absurd and completely meaningless. She claims that any movement cannot end. Moreover, it cannot even begin. According to this aporia, to go all the distance, you must first go half of it. And to overcome half of it, you need to go half of this distance and so on to infinity. Thus, it is impossible to go through an infinite number of segments in a finite (limited) period of time.
More famous is the aporia Achilles and the Turtle, in which the philosopher strongly argues that a fast hero can never catch a turtle. The thing is that while Achilles runs through the area separating him from the turtle, she, in turn, also crawls some distance from him. Further, while Achilles will overcome this new distance, the tortoise will be able to crawl another small distance further. And this will happen endlessly.
Arrow and Stage
If the first two aporias cast doubt on the existence of movement as such, the aporia Strela and Stad protested the discrete representation of time and space.
In his Aporia "Arrow," Zenon claims that any arrow released from a bow is motionless, that is, it is at rest. What does the philosopher argue with this seemingly ridiculous statement? Zeno says that the flying arrow is motionless, because at every single moment in time it occupies a place in space equal to itself. Since this circumstance is true for absolutely any moment in time, it means that this circumstance is true in general. Thus, says Zeno, any flying arrow is at rest.
Finally, in his fourth aporia, an extraordinary philosopher was able to prove that the recognition of the existence of movement equals, in essence, the recognition that a unit is equal to its half!
Zeno of Elea suggests imagining three identical rows of horse riders in rows. Suppose that two of them moved in different directions, and at the same speed. Soon, the last riders of these lines will be in line with the middle of the line, which remained standing in its place. Thus, each line will pass by half of the line that stands, and by the entire row that moves. And Zenon says that the same rider in one period of time will go simultaneously all the way and half of it. In other words, the whole unit equals its own half.
So we figured out this difficult, but very fascinating philosophical problem. Thus, aporia is, in philosophy, a contradiction that lurks in the subject itself or in the concept of it.