Sorites paradox
E368054
The Sorites paradox is a classic philosophical puzzle about vagueness that questions when the gradual removal or addition of small parts leads to a significant change, such as when a heap of sand stops being a heap.
All labels observed (4)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Sorites paradox canonical | 6 |
| Paradox of the heap | 1 |
| Sorites | 1 |
| sorites paradox | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T3550530 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Sorites paradox Context triple: [Eubulides of Miletus, knownFor, Sorites paradox]
-
A.
Yablo's paradox
Yablo's paradox is a self-referential logical paradox involving an infinite sequence of sentences, each saying that all later sentences in the sequence are false, which challenges traditional notions of semantic paradox and self-reference.
-
B.
Curry paradox
Curry paradox is a self-referential logical paradox that arises in certain formal systems without using negation, showing how naive reasoning about implication and self-reference can lead to triviality.
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C.
Epimenides paradox
The Epimenides paradox is a classic self-referential logical puzzle arising from a Cretan philosopher’s claim that all Cretans are liars, illustrating the problem of statements that refer to their own truth or falsehood.
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D.
Russell’s paradox
Russell’s paradox is a foundational logical contradiction in naive set theory that reveals problems with sets that contain themselves, leading to major developments in modern logic and the axiomatization of set theory.
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E.
Grelling–Nelson paradox
The Grelling–Nelson paradox is a self-referential logical paradox arising from classifying adjectives as "autological" or "heterological," leading to a contradiction when considering whether "heterological" describes itself.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Sorites paradox Target entity description: The Sorites paradox is a classic philosophical puzzle about vagueness that questions when the gradual removal or addition of small parts leads to a significant change, such as when a heap of sand stops being a heap.
-
A.
Yablo's paradox
Yablo's paradox is a self-referential logical paradox involving an infinite sequence of sentences, each saying that all later sentences in the sequence are false, which challenges traditional notions of semantic paradox and self-reference.
-
B.
Curry paradox
Curry paradox is a self-referential logical paradox that arises in certain formal systems without using negation, showing how naive reasoning about implication and self-reference can lead to triviality.
-
C.
Epimenides paradox
The Epimenides paradox is a classic self-referential logical puzzle arising from a Cretan philosopher’s claim that all Cretans are liars, illustrating the problem of statements that refer to their own truth or falsehood.
-
D.
Russell’s paradox
Russell’s paradox is a foundational logical contradiction in naive set theory that reveals problems with sets that contain themselves, leading to major developments in modern logic and the axiomatization of set theory.
-
E.
Grelling–Nelson paradox
The Grelling–Nelson paradox is a self-referential logical paradox arising from classifying adjectives as "autological" or "heterological," leading to a contradiction when considering whether "heterological" describes itself.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (51)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
paradox of vagueness
ⓘ
philosophical paradox ⓘ semantic paradox ⓘ |
| attributedTo | Eubulides of Miletus ⓘ |
| concerns |
heap concept
ⓘ
small changes leading to big differences ⓘ tolerance principles ⓘ vague predicates ⓘ |
| dateOrigin | 4th century BCE ⓘ |
| field |
logic
ⓘ
metaphysics ⓘ philosophy of language ⓘ |
| form | paradox of the heap ⓘ |
| hasMainTheme |
borderline cases
ⓘ
indeterminacy ⓘ vagueness ⓘ |
| hasNameEtymology | derived from Greek word "sōritēs" meaning "heap" ⓘ |
| historicalOrigin | ancient Greek philosophy ⓘ |
| influencedField |
artificial intelligence
ⓘ
formal semantics ⓘ legal theory ⓘ linguistics ⓘ philosophical logic ⓘ |
| keyPrinciple |
if removing one grain does not stop something being a heap, then no finite number of removals will
ⓘ
tolerance of vague predicates to small changes ⓘ |
| leadsTo | apparent contradiction about when a heap stops being a heap ⓘ |
| motivates |
revision of classical logic in some approaches
ⓘ
theories of vague language ⓘ |
| problemType |
problem of drawing precise boundaries
ⓘ
problem of higher-order vagueness ⓘ |
| relatedConcept |
contextualism
ⓘ
continuum ⓘ degree theory of truth ⓘ epistemicism ⓘ fuzzy logic ⓘ induction ⓘ logical consequence ⓘ many-valued logic ⓘ ontic vagueness ⓘ paradox of the bald man ⓘ semantic vagueness ⓘ sharp boundaries ⓘ supervaluationism ⓘ |
| standardFormulation |
starting with a clear heap and removing grains one by one
ⓘ
starting with a clearly bald person and adding hairs one by one ⓘ |
| typicalExample |
baldness
ⓘ
color gradation ⓘ heap of sand ⓘ tallness ⓘ |
| usesReasoningPattern |
inductive step from small change
ⓘ
sorites series ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Sorites paradox Description of subject: The Sorites paradox is a classic philosophical puzzle about vagueness that questions when the gradual removal or addition of small parts leads to a significant change, such as when a heap of sand stops being a heap.
Referenced by (9)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
subject surface form:
Theseus's paradox
this entity surface form:
sorites paradox
this entity surface form:
Paradox of the heap
this entity surface form:
Sorites