Snail or turtle: philosopher’s identity

The well-known Zeno's paradox about Achilles and the Tortoise is considered in the article in comparison to the analysis of a complex of medieval miniatures on which battle of the Knight with a Snail is represented. These images executed in a genre of Gothic grotesque were widespread in the margins of the Western European manuscripts of various contents especially at the end of the 13th - the first quarter of the 14th centuries. In our opinion, hopelessness of both agons (the Knight and the Snail, Achilles and the Tortoise) is a good illustration of some strategies of the relation of the philosopher to the truth.