'All generalizations are false.' 'The smallest integer that cannot be identified in less than fourteen words.' 'If your dog is a father then he must be your father.'

Paradoxes, which start from the seemingly acceptable and arrive at the seemingly unacceptable, have puzzled and inspired thinkers since the dawn of history. Paradoxes range from the trivial and easily solvable to the genuinely mystifying and profound. Attempts to solve them have sometimes changed the course of philosophy, logic, and mathematics.

Nicholas Rescher's new book not only presents a readable account of more than 130 paradoxes, including all the best-known ones, but also develops a new general theory of paradoxes. The author's theory encompasses several innovations, such as: the exploration of the distinction between truth and plausibility; cycles of inconsistency; the distinction between simple and complex paradoxes; epistemic prioritization in paradox resolution; and acceptance profiles for the comparative assessment of alternative resolutions of a paradox.

Professor Rescher demonstrates in detail that paradox analysis is more straightforward than generally believed, and that it can be standardized by the system he calls "general aporetics," offering a practical method of paradox management.