A Cabinet of Philosophical Curiosities: A Collection of Puzzles, Oddities, Riddles, and Dilemmas - Hardcover

Will you answer this question in the same way that you will answer my next question? Done? Good!

Will you buy this book?. Inside you will discover that your only truthful answer to this second question is affirmative.
Logic has made some men rich. Inside this book you will learn of John Eck (who debated Luther in 1519). He devised a sequence of contracts that sidestepped usury laws. German bankers made a fortune from the Triple Contract. This book also recounts how Voltaire set himself up for life by exploiting a fallacy in the construction of a Parisian lottery.

And there is logic for altruists. You will discover how General Benjamin Butler used other-centric reasoning to protect runaway slaves. You will learn why Lord Horatio Nelson believed his phantom arm demonstrated his immortality. You will learn why the law student, James Boswell, feared he would go to hell if completed his law studies - and how Samuel Johnson soothed Boswell in matriculation by defending even the most sophistical lawyers from eternal damnation.

In addition to these historical snap shots of logic in action, the book contains tributes to Lewis Carroll, Arthur Prior, and Peter Geach. In addition to short essays, there are dialogues, cures and insults.

This miscellany arose from the author's habit of collecting anomalies. In addition to simple counterexamples, there are anomalous anomalies. Conformexamples manage to disconfirm a generalization despite conforming to it . For instance, a nine-meter man conforms to the generalization that all men are less than ten meters tall but lowers the probability of that generalization. We will also consider data that seems to confirm a generalization while also lowering its probability.

Each of the a priori specimens in this miscellany sits on its own a posteriori. Depending on taste, one can partake of a puzzle, a poem, a proof, or a pun.

Roy Sorensen is a professor of philosophy at Washington University in St. Louis. He is the author ofSeeing Dark Things, A Brief History of the Paradox, Vagueness and Contradiction,Pseudo-Problems, Thought Experiments and Blindspots.