Plato's beard
Plato's beard refers to a paradoxical argument dubbed by Willard Van Orman Quine in his 1948 paper On What There Is in which he stated that:
This is the old Platonic riddle of nonbeing. Nonbeing must in some sense be, otherwise what is it that there is not? This tangled doctrine might be nicknamed Plato's beard; historically it has proved tough, frequently dulling the edge of Occam's razor.[1]
The argument has been favored by prominent philosophers including Bertrand Russell, A. J. Ayer and C. J. F. Williams.[2]
Karl Popper stated the inverse. "Only if Plato's beard is sufficiently tough, and tangled by many entities, can it be worth our while to use Ockham's razor."[3]
The Indian philosophical system Vaisheshika has a distinct category called 'Abhava' (non-existence). It deals with this concept in detail, classifying it into absolute, anterior, posterior and reciprocal non-existence.
References
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External links
Works related to On What There Is at Wikisource
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- ↑ Quine, Willard Van Orman (1948).
On What There Is. Wikisource. - ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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