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Sep 14, 2023 · Reductio ad absurdum attempts to disprove a thesis by showing that its logical conclusion is absurd or contradictory. This technique requires no additional steps between the premise and the absurd conclusion; the conclusion is a direct result of the premise.
Humanities academics are forced to justify their work in ways that are patently absurd. Some are patently absurd or inappropriate. Having achieved a minor miracle by being ready to stage the fixture in a totally rebuilt racecourse, the idea that the show would pass off flawlessly was patently absurd.
- "ANIMAL-TRAP" Mousetraps can be so anticlimactic, but this one goes off with a bang. An 1882 patent, the frame is designed to hold your favorite peashooter.
- "FLATULENCE DEODORIZER" Confidently cut the cheese with this 2001 invention, which masks the smell of your personal potpourri. A simple charcoal pad clings to the back of your underpants, stopping the aroma before it reaches your boss' nose.
- "APPARATUS FOR PREVENTING COLLISIONS OF RAILWAY TRAINS" It's like a scarecrow—but for trains. Patented in 1888, J. W. James' invention features an electric dummy riding in front of the train.
- "FRESH-AIR BREATHING DEVICE AND METHOD" Smoke inhalation causes most fire-related deaths. Knowing that, William Holmes found out how to keep you conscious while you wait for rescue—as long as you can handle having toilet breath.
- Basic Ideas
- The Logic of Strict Propositional Reductio: Indirect Proof
- A Classical Example of Reductio Argumentation
- Self-Annihilation: Processes That Engender Contradiction
- Doctrinal Annihilation: Sets of Statements That Are Collectively Inconsistent
- Absurd Definitions and Specifications
- Per Impossible Reasoning
- References and Further Reading
Use of this Latin terminology traces back to the Greek expression hê eis to adunaton apagôgê, reduction to the impossible, found repeatedly in Aristotle’s Prior Analytics. In its most general construal, reductio ad absurdum – reductiofor short – is a process of refutation on grounds that absurd – and patently untenable consequences would ensue from...
Whitehead and Russell in Principia Mathematica characterize the principle of “reductio ad absurdum” as tantamount to the formula (~p →p) →p of propositional logic. But this view is idiosyncratic. Elsewhere the principle is almost universally viewed as a mode of argumentationrather than a specific thesis of propositional logic. Propositional reducti...
A classic instance of reductioreasoning in Greek mathematics relates to the discovery by Pythagoras – disclosed to the chagrin of his associates by Hippasus of Metapontum in the fifth century BC – of the incommensurability of the diagonal of a square with its sides. The reasoning at issue runs as follows: As indicated above, this sort of proof of a...
Not only can a self-inconsistent statement (and thereby a self-refuting, self-annihilating one) but also a self-inconsistent process or practice or principle of procedure can be “reduced to absurdity.” For any such modus operandianswers to some instruction (or combination thereof), and such instruction can also prove to be self-contradictory. Examp...
Even as individual statements can prove to be self-contradictions, so a plurality of statements (a “doctrine” let us call it) can prove to be collectively inconsistent. And so in this context reductioreasoning can also come into operation. For example, consider the following schematic theses: 1. A →B 2. B →C 3. C →D 4. Not-D In this context, the su...
Even as instructions can issue in absurdity, so can definitions and explanations. As for example: 1. A zoris a round square that is colored green. Again consider the following pair: 1. A bird is a vertebrate animal that flies. 2. An ostrich is a species of flightless bird. Definitions or specifications that are in principle unsatisfiable are for th...
Per impossible reasoning also proceeds from a patently impossible premiss. It is closely related to, albeit distinctly different from reductio ad absurdum argumentation. Here we have to deal with literally impossible suppositions that are not just dramatically but necessarilyfalse thanks to their logical conflict with some clearly necessary truths,...
David Daube, Roman Law(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1969), pp. 176-94.M. Dorolle, “La valeur des conclusion par l’absurde,” Révue philosophique, vol. 86 (1918), pp. 309-13.T. L. Heath, A History of Greek Mathematics, vol. 2 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921), pp. 488-96.A. Heyting, Intuitionism: An Introduction(Amsterdam, North-Holland Pub. Co., 1956).PATENTLY ABSURD meaning | Definition, pronunciation, translations and examples in American English.
Among the most egregious examples were Amazon’s patent on the “one-click” ordering system, Priceline’s patent on “reverse auctions” on the web, and E-Data’s patent on selling “material in a download fashion via the Internet”.
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Jul 1, 1994 · For example, in July 1973, AT&T filed for a patent on the fundamental technique used by the Unix operating system to enforce computer security (this eventually came to be known as the SUID...
