Open main menu
Home
Random
Recent changes
Special pages
Community portal
Preferences
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Incubator escapee wiki
Search
User menu
Talk
Dark mode
Contributions
Create account
Log in
Editing
Barber paradox
(section)
Warning:
You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you
log in
or
create an account
, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
Anti-spam check. Do
not
fill this in!
== Paradox == <!-- Please don't add supposed resolutions of the paradox here; see the last paragraph of this section. --> The barber is the "one who shaves all those, and those only, who do not shave themselves". The question is, does the barber shave himself?<ref name=atomism/> Any answer to this question results in a [[contradiction]]: # The barber cannot shave himself, as he only shaves those who do ''not'' shave themselves. Thus, if he shaves himself he ceases to be the barber specified. # Conversely, if the barber does not shave himself, then he fits into the group of people who the specified barber would shave, and thus, as that barber, he must shave himself. In its original form, this paradox has no solution, as no such barber can exist. The question is a [[loaded question]] in that it assumes the existence of a barber who could not exist, which is a vacuous proposition, and hence false. There are other non-paradoxical variations, but those are different.<ref name=oxfordref/>
Edit summary
(Briefly describe your changes)
By publishing changes, you agree to the
Terms of Use
, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 License
and the
GFDL
. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.
Cancel
Editing help
(opens in new window)