I sometimes hear people say that it is impossible to have a rational conversation with someone who denies the principle of non-contradiction. I've read this claim in editorials, I've heard it from friends and family, and I've heard it from the pulpit.
I actually feel like I can't talk to people who say this. At least, I can't imagine a conversation of much depth with a person who polices the boundaries of logic so assiduously. How are you going to expand my understanding of reality without uttering what to me will sound like contradictions?
I actually feel like I can't talk to people who say this. At least, I can't imagine a conversation of much depth with a person who polices the boundaries of logic so assiduously. How are you going to expand my understanding of reality without uttering what to me will sound like contradictions?
Great point --I couldn't agree more....I wonder though, whether one shouldn't be careful to draw a distinction between someone who is willing to accept what to them "will sound like contradictions" and one who is willing to deny non-contradiction IN PRINCIPLE. It may well be true that this person is "unintelligible" --at least in principle. However it also occurs to me that this only MAY be the case. There is perhaps more than one kind of denial --and for that matter, more than one meaning of a principle. One might indeed say that there is something contradictory about formulating non-contradiction as a principle --but this problem, which I first stumbled upon years ago in a tiny undergrad thesis, opens up, as they say, a whole can, not to say diet, of worms.
ReplyDelete