See Buridan's ass on Wiktionary
Download JSON data for Buridan's ass meaning in All languages combined (8.3kB)
{
"etymology_text": "After the fourteenth-century French philosopher Jean Buridan, whose philosophy of moral determinism it satirises.",
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"ref": "1985, Jean Buridan, Peter King, Jean Buridan's Logic, Springer, page 3",
"text": "Buridan is best-known to philosophers for the example of \"Buridan's Ass,\" starving to death between two equidistant and equally tempting bales of hay, [...]",
"type": "quotation"
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"ref": "2003 August 31, Tony Dermody <tdermody@iol.NODAMNJUNK.ie>, “Re: A Few Questions”, in alt.atheism.moderated (Usenet), message-ID <2lpcvpdh3zwc$.1mk81eq1qmfo3$.dlg@40tude.net>",
"text": "They remain like Buridan's Ass, in a kind of frozen indecisiveness, between total freedom and total regulation.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2003 September 6, Euro <euro82@excite.com>, “PV's small arrangements with truth”, in alt.activism.death-penalty (Usenet), message-ID <4f3f4d56.0309061154.3fea3b3a@posting.google.com>",
"text": "Did you refuse to choose between saving your son sentenced to death penalty and saving your son sentenced to slavery for life? Is that not an indication that you find no difference between them, and are frozen, as Buridan's ass, into an inability to choose between them, and have instead chosen to starve morally, rather than make such a choice?",
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{
"ref": "2003 October 11, Alex Martelli <aleaxit@yahoo.com>, “Re: Python syntax in Lisp and Scheme”, in comp.lang.python, comp.lang.lisp, comp.lang.scheme (Usenet), message-ID <gGWhb.200390$hE5.6777507@news1.tin.it>",
"text": "The worst case for productivity is probably when two _perfectly equivalent_ ways exist. Buridan's ass notoriously starved to death in just such a worst-case situation; groups of programmers may not go quite as far, but are sure to waste lots of time & energy deciding.",
"type": "quotation"
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"The hypothetical donkey who is placed precisely midway between two sources of food and/or water.",
"The hypothetical donkey, in context of certainly dying of hunger or thirst by being unable to choose between the two equidistant options."
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"ref": "1995, Ross Harrison, World, mind, and ethics: essays on the ethical philosophy of Bernard Williams, illustrated edition, Cambridge University Press, page 23",
"text": "Since either haystack is better than starvation, and since neither haystack is known to be worse than the other, Buridan's ass has a good reason to choose either. Suppose it chooses haystack A, rejecting haystack B as well as starvation.",
"type": "quotation"
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{
"ref": "2000, Kathryn L. Lynch, Chaucer's philosophical visions, illustrated edition, Boydell & Brewer Ltd, page 90",
"text": "This Narrator is like the famous or infamous Buridan's ass, protagonist of a problem or example that, in one form or another, can be found in philosophical discourse from Aristotle to Schpenhauer.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2009, Peter Cave, This sentence is false: an introduction to philosophical paradoxes, Continuum International Publishing Group, page 9",
"text": "The ass's commitment to a seeming demand or rationality has damaged his health. Maybe we — and Buridan's ass — should often resist requiring a discriminating reason for rational action.",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
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"The hypothetical donkey who is placed precisely midway between two sources of food and/or water.",
"The hypothetical donkey, as a typical character of a number of philosophical paradoxes involving equally valuable incentives to action, and the nature of the possible choices and outcomes."
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"ref": "1972, Sir George Edward Gordon Catlin, For God's sake, go!: an autobiography",
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"ref": "1972, The Statesman, volume 22, page 76",
"text": "Not that they are Buridan's ass; they just do not believe in categorical decisions.",
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{
"ref": "2003 August 11, A Planet Visitor <abcxyz@zbqytr.ykq>, “Re: Where is Europe....Where is France”, in alt.activism.death-penalty (Usenet), message-ID <tc3ejvkr2qekfefd2fp90esv07vu8fqtcl@4ax.com>",
"text": "You are Buridan's ass, in your immoral refusal to head toward one or the other of what you claim are irresistible allures of 'human rights.'",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2005 May 6, Doctor Make U. Feelgood <nappynospam@eatthlink.net>, “Re: Yom Hashoah”, in alt.activism.death-penalty (Usenet), message-ID <LIidncWpaYTpj-HfRVn-tQ@giganews.com>",
"text": "You know the opinion you hold. You just will not divulge it... in cowardly fear of him turning on you. And not divulging it will not in the slightest keep him from turning on you whenever he feels like it. Please do not tell me you are Buridan's ass, and have no opinion about this.",
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"(uncountable, chiefly derogatory) Collectively, people who don't make a choice."
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"ref": "1985, Jean Buridan, Peter King, Jean Buridan's Logic, Springer, page 3",
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"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2003 August 31, Tony Dermody <tdermody@iol.NODAMNJUNK.ie>, “Re: A Few Questions”, in alt.atheism.moderated (Usenet), message-ID <2lpcvpdh3zwc$.1mk81eq1qmfo3$.dlg@40tude.net>",
"text": "They remain like Buridan's Ass, in a kind of frozen indecisiveness, between total freedom and total regulation.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2003 September 6, Euro <euro82@excite.com>, “PV's small arrangements with truth”, in alt.activism.death-penalty (Usenet), message-ID <4f3f4d56.0309061154.3fea3b3a@posting.google.com>",
"text": "Did you refuse to choose between saving your son sentenced to death penalty and saving your son sentenced to slavery for life? Is that not an indication that you find no difference between them, and are frozen, as Buridan's ass, into an inability to choose between them, and have instead chosen to starve morally, rather than make such a choice?",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2003 October 11, Alex Martelli <aleaxit@yahoo.com>, “Re: Python syntax in Lisp and Scheme”, in comp.lang.python, comp.lang.lisp, comp.lang.scheme (Usenet), message-ID <gGWhb.200390$hE5.6777507@news1.tin.it>",
"text": "The worst case for productivity is probably when two _perfectly equivalent_ ways exist. Buridan's ass notoriously starved to death in just such a worst-case situation; groups of programmers may not go quite as far, but are sure to waste lots of time & energy deciding.",
"type": "quotation"
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"type": "quotation"
},
{
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"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2009, Peter Cave, This sentence is false: an introduction to philosophical paradoxes, Continuum International Publishing Group, page 9",
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"type": "quotation"
}
],
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},
{
"ref": "2003 August 11, A Planet Visitor <abcxyz@zbqytr.ykq>, “Re: Where is Europe....Where is France”, in alt.activism.death-penalty (Usenet), message-ID <tc3ejvkr2qekfefd2fp90esv07vu8fqtcl@4ax.com>",
"text": "You are Buridan's ass, in your immoral refusal to head toward one or the other of what you claim are irresistible allures of 'human rights.'",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2005 May 6, Doctor Make U. Feelgood <nappynospam@eatthlink.net>, “Re: Yom Hashoah”, in alt.activism.death-penalty (Usenet), message-ID <LIidncWpaYTpj-HfRVn-tQ@giganews.com>",
"text": "You know the opinion you hold. You just will not divulge it... in cowardly fear of him turning on you. And not divulging it will not in the slightest keep him from turning on you whenever he feels like it. Please do not tell me you are Buridan's ass, and have no opinion about this.",
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.