WHAT THE TORTOISE SAID TO ACHILLES

 

Written in 1895 for the philosophical journal Mind, this brief dialogue playfully considers the foundations of logic. The title alludes to the philosopher Zeno's paradox of motion, in which Achilles could never overtake a tortoise in a race. In Carroll's dialogue, the tortoise challenges Achilles to use the force of logic to make him accept the conclusion of a simple deductive argument. Eventually, Achilles fails, because the clever tortoise leads him into an infinite regression.