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philosophy bites with me David Edmonds and me Nigel Warburton.

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Paradoxes have fascinated and infuriated philosophers since Zeno, two and a half millennia ago.

He attempted to show that time and motion were

impossible and that, for example, speedy Achilles could never overtake a tortoise.

These brain teasers are fun for some people and give headaches to others, but do they tell us anything useful or substantial about the world?

Or at least about philosophy.

Questions for paradox enthusiast Peter Cave.

Peter Cave, welcome to Philosophy Bites.

Well, Nigel, I am very pleased to be here.

I'm just wondering how strong your bite is.

The topic we're going to focus on today, I hope, is paradoxes. The obvious place to start with this is what is a paradox?

Well with the word paradox if you go back to its etymology it just means beyond belief

and so paradoxes really are concerned with things in the common sense

way which are very surprising. An example of that is I think in the early 17th century the

fact that the earth goes around the sun was taken be paradoxical.

That's rather different though from the philosophical concern

with paradoxes because as a philosopher one likes to find something deeper

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