Dictionary

aporia en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /əˈpɔːɹɪə/ (UK)
• (Southern-England) audio
• /əˈpɔɹiə/ (General-American)

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin aporia, from Ancient Greek ἀπορία (aporía), from ἄπορος (áporos, “impassable”), from ἀ- (a-, “a-”) + πόρος (póros, “passage”). By surface analysis, a- + pore + -ia.

Meanings

1. (rhetoric) An expression of deliberation with oneself regarding uncertainty or doubt as to how to proceed.
   • What they intend sickens and frightens them, and they can never speak of it directly. Instead, wrapped in whispers are ellipses, euphemisms, mumbled aporia followed by throat-clearing and a brisk change of subject. 2016, Ian McEwan, Nutshell, Vintage, page 9:
   • Meanings are superposed in an aporia – not ‘either/or’, but ‘and/and’. 2012, Andy Martin, “Text Messenger”, in Literary Review, section 404:
   • Aporia oft in doubt and fear will rest, And reason with itself what may be best. 1835, L[arret] Langley, “[Rhetorical Figures.] Aporia.”, in A Manual of the Figures of Rhetoric, […], Doncaster, South Yorkshire: […] C. White, […], →OCLC, page 55:
2. An apparently insoluble contradiction or tension, especially in a text's meaning; a logical impasse suggested by a text or speaker; a paradox.
   • But Green issues are already a contested zone, already a site where politicization is being fought for. In what follows, I want to stress two other aporias in capitalist realism, which are not yet politicized to anything like the same degree. The first is mental health. 2009, Mark Fisher, chapter 3, in Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?, Zero Books, →ISBN, page 19:
   • EL James's multimillion selling series of novels ‘encodes the aporias of heterosexual relationships’, according to Professor Eva Illouz[.] 2014 May 27, Alison Flood, quoting Eva Illouz, “Fifty Shades of Grey is really a self-help book, says academic”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
   • Plato believed that the core impulse to philosophizing lies in aporia, the point at which, in struggling to understand a phenomenon or answer a question, we come up against a seemingly irresolvable contradiction. 2018, David Auerbach, Bitwise: A Life in Code, Vintage, →ISBN:

Forms

Deriveds

aporic

Synonyms

paradox · impasse · contradiction

Translations (16)

pl aporia (expression of doubt) · nl onzekerheid (expression of doubt) · id aporia (expression of doubt) · pl aporia (contradiction, logical impasse) · el απορία (expression of doubt) · he אפוריה (contradiction, logical impasse) · fi aporia (contradiction, logical impasse) · nl twijfel (expression of doubt) · fi ristiriita (contradiction, logical impasse) · fi aporia (expression of doubt) · es aporía (contradiction, logical impasse) · pt aporia (contradiction, logical impasse) · ca aporia (contradiction, logical impasse) · de Aporie (contradiction, logical impasse) · pt aporia (expression of doubt) · ru апори́я (contradiction, logical impasse)