Philosophical Concepts Mentioned in R.F. Kuang's Katabasis

I loved Kuang’s Katabasis because of how well-versed she is in philosophy. While she may not go into depth in any one particular concept, I think she does a great job at giving readers simple explanations that can plant the seed of curiosity for further exploration. With this list, I am trying to give people a good jumping off point to become interested in philosophical concepts/topics that interest them. I have tried to keep track of all the concepts that she mentions in the book (I certainly may have missed some), but I have also added related concepts that I think would also be of interest too. For topics that have not been mentioned in the book, I will put an asterisk (*) in front of the link.

I am mostly linking from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, but this can be quite in-depth for a introductory delve. I would also recommend the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy and Crash Course Philosophy. Honestly once you have the terminology down you are able to search on your own; be curious and question everything!

Topics Mentioned (in no particular order)

• Game Theory
  • Pascal’s Wager: Is it always in your best interest to believe in God?
  • The Prisoner’s Dilemma: Should you cooperate with or defect from your partner in crime?
  • *Evolutionary Game Theory: Can evolution be understood through the ideas of game theory?
• Kant’s Moral Philosophy
  • He is most known for the Categorical Imperative, which most famously states, “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law”.
• Aristotelian Logic
  • Syllogisms: The foundational form of classical logic
  • Law of Non-Contradiction: It cannot be that something is both true and not true at the same time.
  • Law of Excluded Middle: Something must be either true or false.
• Dialtheism: Can something be truly true and false at the same time?
• Paradoxes
  • Sorites Paradox: Imagine you have a heap of rice grains, as you keep taking them off one by one, at what point does it stop being a heap? What constitutes being a heap?
    • *Ship of Theseus: If you slowly replace every single part of a boat, does it cease to be the same boat? If so, when did it stop being the same boat?
    • *Holes: What is a hole?
    • *Boundary/Surfaces: What is a boundary? A surface?
  • Liar’s Paradox: This statement is false. Or is it?
    • *Names/Reference of Language
  • Zeno’s Paradoxes of Motion
  • Russell’s Paradox
    • *Set-theoretic definition of natural numbers
    • *Barber Paradox: If there is a barber who only shaves people who do not shave themselves, does the barber shave himself?
  • Curry’s Paradox
  • Buridan’s Ass: If a donkey is equally hungry and thirsty and placed equally distant from food and water, what will it choose?
• Epistemic Paradoxes
  • Surprise Test/Unexpected Hanging Paradox
  • *Lottery Paradox
  • *Monty Hall Problem
  • *The Problem of Induction/Grue Paradox
• *Decision Theory
  • The Puzzle of the Self-Torturer
  • Ever Better Wine Paradox
  • *Newcomb’s Problem
  • *Wait/walk Dilemma
  • *Multi-Armed Bandit
  • *Secretary Problem (Optimal Stopping)
• Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorems: A mathematical system can either be complete or consistent.
• *Personal Identity: What makes you you?
  • Parfit’s Theory of Identity: Parfit believes that psychological continuity as personal identity (roughly).
• Wittgenstein: Wittgenstein famously asserted, among other things, that all problems of philosophy were simply problems of language.
• Moral Responsibility: If we do not have free will, are we responsible for our own actions? Can we be held liable for consequences of our actions?
• Doing versus allowing harm: Is there a difference between killing someone versus letting someone die?
  • *Thick Concepts