Roy Sorensen's history of paradoxes wasn't really quite what I was expecting. Nevertheless, I still found it entertaining. It's actually more a history of philosophy as told through the lens of the concept of the paradox that it is a deep exploration of the concept itself. Sorenson spends quite a lot of time on the ancients, including discussions of Pythagoras, Sextus Empiricus, and perhaps most interestingly, Parmenides. But the story stretches all the way up to the modern era, ending with Wittgenstein's philosophical suicide and Quine's reign of logical terror.
Sorensen is an analytic philosopher. Sometimes this unfortunate fact shows up in his terse writing style that leaves everything interesting unsaid. But most of the time he avoids delving too deeply into argumentation and keeps the tone light; there are humorous examples and little biographical thumbnails of the various thinkers he discusses. Despite this lightness, you can still get a flavor for the overall philosophy of each of these thinkers. I'm not sure there's anything particular from his book that will stay with me, but if you want to read a quirky history of philosophy, this might be just the thing.
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