Category: Philosophy

A paradox is a self-contradictory state of affairs, a set of circumstances that should not be possible because it either breaks logical norms, is physically impossible, or creates a disruption in what we understand by the laws of cause and effect.

Some examples here may be useful:

• ‘This statement is false’ This quote creates a paradox in which if the statement is true it must be false and if it is false it must be true

• ‘A man goes back in time and impregnates his grandmother thus becoming his father’s father and his own grandfather’ This creates a paradox because at the point the man impregnates his grandmother he has not yet been born and so the existence of people prior to his birth is dependent on someone who does not yet exist

• ‘Someone travels back in time to assassinate Stalin before he comes to power’ the paradox here is that should this be successful then the events that would stimulate the decision to assassinate would no longer take place and so there would be no reason for the assassination to take place, which in turn would mean that those events would take place thus creating the motive for assassination, which in turn removes the motivation and so on ad infinitum

What is compelling about these paradoxes is that while they create contradictory outcomes, they are not impossible in the strictest sense.… Read more

The word philosophy derives from classical Greek terms and can be translated as meaning, ‘love of truth/ wisdom’. In practise philosophy is concerned with exploring the nature of our reality: what we can definitively claim to know; what the limits of reality might be; how we can communicate that possible knowledge; and the ways in which we might establish those knowledge claims.

Whereas Science develops its arguments about the nature of the world through experiment, Philosophy develops its arguments through the application of logical frameworks. This can lead to the criticism that philosophy is too abstract to be useful. However, if the framework through which a particular philosophy operates doesn’t stand up to real world scrutiny will not survive.… Read more

Authenticity

Most, if not all of us, are familiar with the concept of the ‘Wheel of the Year’, but there is often confusion about the authenticity of its inclusion within Heathenism. To some, the Wheel of the Year is a contemporary invention that has no necessary relationship to the praxis and beliefs of the pre-Christian peoples of Europe. This begs the question of what exactly we mean when we talk about ‘authenticity’. If this term is understood in the historical sense, then the Wheel of the Year is authentic only if it can be shown that it was originally used by our pre-Christian ancestors.… Read more