Word.ws English Dictionary

Benardete's paradox

Benardete's paradox proper noun: a philosophical problem whereby a man intends to walk a mile from a particular point, but an infinity of gods separately plan to obstruct him. One of them will raise a barrier to stop his further advance if he reaches the half-mile point, a second if he reaches the quarter-mile point, a third if he goes one-eighth of a mile, and so on ad infinitum. The paradox involves the fact that (i) the man cannot begin walking, because a barrier will stop him even at the shortest distance, but (ii) if he does not begin walking, no barrier will rise.

Proper noun

Benardete's paradox

  1. A philosophical problem whereby a man intends to walk a mile from a particular point, but an infinity of gods separately plan to obstruct him. One of them will raise a barrier to stop his further advance if he reaches the half-mile point, a second if he reaches the quarter-mile point, a third if he goes one-eighth of a mile, and so on ad infinitum. The paradox involves the fact that (i) the man cannot begin walking, because a barrier will stop him even at the shortest distance, but (ii) if he does not begin walking, no barrier will rise.

Origin of Benardete's paradox

Formulated by J. A. Benardete.

Questions about Benardete's paradox

What does Benardete's paradox mean?
Benardete's paradox means a philosophical problem whereby a man intends to walk a mile from a particular point, but an infinity of gods separately plan to obstruct him. One of them will raise a barrier to stop his further advance if he reaches the half-mile point, a second if he reaches the quarter-mile point, a third if he goes one-eighth of a mile, and so on ad infinitum. The paradox involves the fact that (i) the man cannot begin walking, because a barrier will stop him even at the shortest distance, but (ii) if he does not begin walking, no barrier will rise.
What part of speech is Benardete's paradox?
Benardete's paradox is a proper noun.

Words near Benardete's paradox in the dictionary

  1. Benandarah
  2. Benanti
  3. Benantis
  4. benar
  5. Benard
  6. Benardete's paradox
  7. Benards
  8. Benares
  9. Benas
  10. Benasque
  11. Benasquese

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Benardete's paradox (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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