aporia
- noun
- /əˈpɔːriə/
- Literature
:
aporía
- The author's deliberate use of aporia invited the audience to consider the complexities of the issue at hand.
Examples
-
In her speech, she expressed an aporia regarding the effectiveness of the current policies, making the listeners reflect on possible alternatives.
-
Why couldn't it just be a simple aporia that was meant to entertain rather than convince?
Fiction book (1995) -
Deconstructive reading strategies are crucial in Chakrabarty's identification of a specific kind of disciplinary crisis, or aporia, within the professional discourses of history: "Subaltern pasts thus act as a supplement to the historian's pasts."
Academic text (2007) -
That American studies faces an uncertain future is a sign of the faded status of the early 20th-century "critics of culture," since Americanist critics give so little credibility to Whitman's aporia about the convertibility of America and democracy, its having been debased by being used so cynically in U.S. foreign policy.
Academic text (2007) -
During the debate, the speaker skillfully used a aporia to highlight the flaws in the opposing argument.
Synonyms
1
6.6
A way of using language to persuade or add emphasis
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Etymology
Aporia comes from Greek parts a- meaning 'not' and poros meaning 'a way through', like in porous. So as a rhetorical device an aporia is when a speaker shows doubt or says 'I do not know' to make the audience think.