Buridan's ass

名词 n. 专有名词

英文释义

名词 n.
  1. A person or organization who does not make a choice. countable,derogatory
    — The National Peace Council was, I will not say a Buridan's Ass, but a kind of eunuch organisation, unable to take a decision one way or another.
  2. Collectively, people who do not make a choice. derogatory,uncountable
    — Not that they are Buridan's ass; they just do not believe in categorical decisions.
专有名词
  1. The hypothetical donkey who is placed precisely midway between two sources of food or water.; The hypothetical donkey in the context of certainly dying of hunger or thirst by being unable to choose between the two equidistant options.
    — 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, [...]
  2. The hypothetical donkey who is placed precisely midway between two sources of food 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.
    — 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.

词形变化

Buridan's Ass alternative Buridan's asses plural Buridan's Ass alternative

词源

词源 1
After the fourteenth-century French philosopher Jean Buridan, whose philosophy of moral determinism it satirizes.
词源 2
After the fourteenth-century French philosopher Jean Buridan, whose philosophy of moral determinism it satirizes.
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