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Full Idea
The 'sorites' paradox of Eubulides says: if you take one grain of sand from a heap (soros), what is left is still a heap; so no matter how many grains of sand you take one by one, the result is always a heap.
Gist of Idea
Removing one grain doesn't destroy a heap, so a heap can't be destroyed
Source
report of Eubulides (fragments/reports [c.390 BCE]) by R.M. Dancy - Megarian School
Book Ref
'Encyclopedia of Classical Philosophy', ed/tr. Zeyl,Donald J. [Fitzroy Dearborn 1997], p.329
A Reaction
(also Cic. Acad. 2.49) This is a very nice paradox, which goes to the heart of our bewilderment when we try to fully understand reality. It homes in on problems of identity, as best exemplified in the Ship of Theseus (Ideas 1212 + 1213).
Related Ideas
Idea 1212 Replacing timbers on Theseus' ship was the classic illustration of the problem of growth and change [Plutarch]
| 1512 | Zeno is wrong that one grain of millet makes a sound; why should one grain achieve what the whole bushel does? [Aristotle on Zeno of Elea] |
| 6008 | Removing one grain doesn't destroy a heap, so a heap can't be destroyed [Eubulides, by Dancy,R] |
| 8194 | Surely there is no exact single grain that brings a heap into existence [Dummett] |
| 17583 | There are no heaps [Inwagen] |
| 9117 | The smallest heap has four objects: three on the bottom, one on the top [Hart,WD, by Sorensen] |
| 21599 | A sorites stops when it collides with an opposite sorites [Williamson] |