Plato's beard

Plato's beard refers to a paradoxical argument dubbed by Willard Van Orman Quine in his 1948 paper On What There Is in which he stated that:

This is the old Platonic riddle of nonbeing. Nonbeing must in some sense be, otherwise what is it that there is not? This tangled doctrine might be nicknamed Plato’s beard; historically it has proved tough, frequently dulling the edge of Occam's razor.^[1]

The argument has been favored by prominent philosophers including Paul Russell, C.J.F. Williams, Alfred Jules Ayer.^[2]

Further reading

Durrant, Michael (1998). "Plato's Quinean Beard: Did Plato ever grow it?". Philosophy 73 (1): 113–121. doi:10.1017/S003181919700003X. ISSN 00318191.
Bunnin, Nicholas; Jiyuan Yu (2004). Bunnin, Nicholas; Yu, Jiyuan. eds. doi:10.1111/b.9781405106795.2004.x.

References

^ Quine, Willard Van Orman (1948). On What There Is. Wikisource.
^ Vallicella, William F. (2002). A paradigm theory of existence: onto-theology vindicated. Springer. p. 112. ISBN 9781402008870. http://books.google.com/books?id=39-nB4lHdf0C&pg=PA112. Retrieved 3 November 2010.