Zeno, pioneer of the dialectic
and reductio ad absurdum,
used his reasoning via paradox to
dispute accepted concepts of
physically observed phenomena.
But were these paradoxes valid
or just basic misconceptions; for
much was not evident at his time and
people had rudimentary notions of
limit, infinity, time, and motion?
Philosophically and practically,
was what the Eleatic concocted
a fundamental flaw in perspective—
as maintained by Aristotle and
modern mathematicians?
The latter try to resolve this
by approaching it another way and
constructing mathematical means to
explain the observed phenomena to
a desired degree of exactness.
The ability to find the value limit that
a series of added half-distances is nearing,
some have claimed, questions whether
there is an actual paradox
in the first place.
But do these savants really
understand the true problem at
the heart of Zeno’s formulation:
the challenge of conceptualizing
how One and Many jive with motion?
© 2024, Kenneth Koziol. All rights reserved.
