This article examines Pauline Kleingeld’s “volitional self-contradiction” (VSC) interpretation of Kant’s formula of universal law. It begins in §1 with an outline of Kleingeld’s interpretation and then proceeds in §2 to raise some worries about how the interpretation handles Kant’s egoism example. §3 considers VSC’s handling of the false promise example comparing it in §4 with the Logical/Causal Law (LCL) interpretation, which arguably does better than its VSC competitor in handling this example. §5 deploys the LCL interpretation to consider (...) the related objections that the VSC interpretation is “superfluous” or at least “misguided” as a (formal) criterion of the permissibility of action on a maxim. These objections, it is argued, help reveal two distinct roles for contradictions in Kant’s applications of the formula of universal law – one for delivering moral judgments and one reflective of a formal coherence constraint on all deliberation having psychological significance for agents who contemplate violating duty. Disentangling these helps reveal some of the complexity in the use to which Kant puts the formula of universal law in his sample applications revealing the true significance of what Kleingeld refers to as volitional self-contradiction. In §6 is summary. (shrink)

The writer is an engineering science technician. Based on the epistemology and methodology of materialist dialectics, understanding the thought of the universe origin of Taoist philosophy and Buddhist philosophy, and combining the modern scientific information of modern physics, system science and physical cosmology, the author has put forward a series of new ideas on the universe origin. The new scientific universe ontology calls on the scientific community to prove and explain the origin of the universe with science, solve the doubts (...) of the theoretical scientific community about quantum mechanics, realize the scientific understanding of the universe space and the existence in space, create new ideas and understanding of space and time, and create a new universe view. This is not only the inspiration and verification of modern science to the primitive thought of the universe of our ancestors, but also a new method to solve the contradiction of modern physics, which inspires human beings to think about survival and existence. (shrink)

The Problem of the Paradoxes came to the fore in philosophy and mathematics with the discovery of Russell's Paradox in 1901. It is the "forgotten" intellectual-scientific problem of the Twentieth Century, because for more than sixty years a pretence was maintained, by a consensus of logicians, that the problem had been "solved".

From the point of view of proof-theoretic semantics, it is argued that the sequent calculus with introduction rules on the assertion and on the assumption side represents deductive reasoning more appropriately than natural deduction. In taking consequence to be conceptually prior to truth, it can cope with non-well-founded phenomena such as contradictory reasoning. The fact that, in its typed variant, the sequent calculus has an explicit and separable substitution schema in form of the cut rule, is seen as a crucial (...) advantage over natural deduction, where substitution is built into the general framework. (shrink)

Discussion of sexuality in African cultures has a long history, but since the 1990s ethical reflections on homosexuality on the continent have often degenerated into furors and provoked a spate of anti-gay legislation in several countries. Refutations of homophobic dispositions encounter as barrier a pervasive belief in African cultures, that childbearing for community replenishment is a cherished moral duty. Several philosophers consider these to be exaggerated inhibitions that unjustifiably impede social acceptance of homosexuality, and have proposed as a solution what (...) they consider to be self-justifying political-moral principles, that terminate in value-pluralistic ideas such as the acceptance of the equality of sexual orientations and vindication of the right to the freedom to choose and satisfy sexual desire. I question the adequacy of such self-justificatory normative principles and consider the solutions they proffer as depreciating the moral point of the African pro-natalist position. Consequently, I develop a moral argument grounded in the ontology of Kwame Gyekye’s moderate communitarian theory of personhood as the most persuasive justification for homosexuality. (shrink)

"--David Ruelle, author of "Chance and Chaos" "This is an important book, one that should cause an epoch-making change in the way we think about mathematics.

The concept of organizational stigma has received significant attention in recent years. The theoretical literature suggests that for a stigma to emerge over a category of organizations, a “critical mass” of actors sharing the same beliefs should be reached. Scholars have yet to empirically examine the techniques used to diffuse this negative judgment. This study is aimed at bridging this gap by investigating Goffman’s notion of “stigma-theory”: how do stigmatizing actors rationalize and emotionalize their beliefs to convince their audience? We (...) answer this question by studying the stigma over the finance industry since 2007. After the subprime crisis, a succession of events put the industry under greater scrutiny, and the behaviors and values observed within this field began to be publicly questioned. As an empirical strategy, we collected opinion articles and editorials that specifically targeted the finance industry. Building on rhetorical analysis and other mixed methods of media content analysis, we explain how the stigmatizing rhetoric targets the origins of deviant organizational behaviors in the finance industry, that is, the shareholder value maximization logic. We bridge the gap between rhetorical strategies applied to discredit organizations and ones used to delegitimize institutional logics by drawing a parallel between these two literatures. Taking an abductive approach, we argue that institutional contradiction between field and societal-level logics is sufficient, but not necessary to generate organizational stigma. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Classical and intuitionistic logic both validate Ex Contradictione Quodlibet, according to which any proposition whatsoever follows from a contradiction. Many philosophers have found ECQ counter-intuitive, but criticisms of the principle have almost universally been directed from a position of support for relevance or other orthodox paraconsistent logics, according to which some, but not necessarily all, propositions follow from a contradiction. This paper draws attention to the historically significant view that nothing whatsoever follows from a contradiction – (...) Ex Contradictione Nihil. It addresses the key arguments – model-theoretic, proof-theoretic, meaning theoretic and holist – deployed by proponents of ECQ against their standard opponents, and shows that each can be defeated from a position of support for ECN. In the course of answering these arguments, some understanding is developed of possible motivations for ECN and a solid case is built that ECN deserves further investigation. (shrink)

A common response to those who question the Law of Non-Contradiction is that it is impossible to debate such a fundamental law of logic. The reasons for this response vary, but what seems to underlie them is the thought that there is a minimal set of logical resources without which rational debate is impossible. This chapter argues that this response is misguided. First, it defends non-apriorism in logic: the view that logic is in the same epistemic boat as other (...) scientific theories. It then offers an account of logical theory change in terms of this epistemology. The LNC is discussed in terms of this account of logical theory change, and it is shown that rational debate over this law can, and does, proceed. Finally, arguments for and against the LNC are discussed, and how and where non-a priori considerations arise in these arguments are illustrated. (shrink)

The book analyzes how one might philosophize about some of the most difficult and controversial issues in ethics and politics without abandoning either the demands of rigor or the joys of clear vistas.

Midway through How to Do Things With Words, J.L. Austin’s announces a “fresh start” in his efforts to characterize the ways in which speech is action, and introduces a new conceptual framework from the one he has been using up to that point. Against a common reading that portrays this move as simply abandoning the framework so far developed, Marina Sbisà contends that the text takes the argumentative form of a proof by contradiction, such that the initial framework plays (...) an instrumental role as part of a proof in favour of the subsequent one. Despite agreeing with Sbisà’s broad instrumentalist approach, we argue that her regimentation of Austin’s narrative into a proof by contradiction ultimately fails - both as a proof and as an interpretation of Austin. Instead, we suggest that a better way of interpreting the peculiar structure of How to Do Things With Words is as a pedagogical exercise whose point is to bring a concealed alternative into view in a manner that also explains its initial concealment, and that this approach provides richer resources for supporting Sbisà’s own conventionalist understanding of illocution than that afforded by reading the text as a proof by contradiction. (shrink)

It is sometimes said that there are two, competing versions of W. V. O. Quine’s unrelenting empiricism, perhaps divided according to temporal periods of his career. According to one, logic is exempt from, or lies outside the scope of, the attack on the analytic-synthetic distinction. This logic-friendly Quine holds that logical truths and, presumably, logical inferences are analytic in the traditional sense. Logical truths are knowable a priori, and, importantly, they are incorrigible, and so immune from revision. The other, radical (...) reading of Quine does not exempt logic from the attack on analyticity and a priority. Logical truths and inferences are themselves part of the web of belief, and the same global methodology applies to logic as to any other part of the web, such as theoretical chemistry or ordinary beliefs about ordinary objects. Everything, including logic, is up for grabs in our struggle for holistic confirmation. The purpose of this paper is to examine the law of non-contradiction, and the concomitant principle of ex falso quodlibet, from the perspective of the principles advocated by the radical Quine. I show that he has no compelling reason to accept either of these. To put it bluntly, neither the law of non-contradiction nor the rule of ex falso quodlibet is empirically confirmed, and these principles fare poorly on the various criteria for theory acceptance on the methodology of the radical Quine. So the radical Quine is led rather quickly and rather directly into something in the neighborhood of Graham Priest’s dialetheism. (shrink)

Nietzsche s work was heavily influenced by ancient Greek philosophy. Meyer shows how Nietzsche attempted to revive the Heraclitean-Protagorean position that is critically analyzed by both Plato and Aristotle in the Theaetetus and Metaphysics IV, and establishes Nietzsche as a naturalist who believes that there are objective facts.The book not only highlights the foundations of his thought, but also restores order to Nietzsche s work.".

In Metaphysics III, Chapter 4, Aristotle sets out and defends the Law of Non-Contradiction. The arguments are, however, rather less satisfactory than one might have expected, given the enormous historical influence the text has had. His major argument is a particularly tangled one, and the others are often little more than throw-away remarks. This essay is a commentary on the chapter, but its aim is less to interpret the text , than to see whether there is anything that Aristotle (...) could have meant that would have served his purpose. Whilst other commentators have sometimes attempted this, they have always taken his conclusion to be correct, even if his arguments were not; I do not. The commentary is therefore a confrontation between Aristotle and modern dialetheism. (shrink)

Aristotle gave seven arguments for the law of non-contradiction. The first one is against a special case of dialetheism, the view that only some contradictions are true, and other six arguments are mostly against trivialism, the view that everything and consequently every contraction is true. Aristotle never argued that dialetheism entails trivialism. Unlike Aristotle, Avicenna, in his defense of LNC, not only considers trivialism and argues against it, but also argues that dialetheism entails trivialism. The argument that dialetheism entails (...) trivialism is called explosion. It is usually known that the first argument for explosion is given by the twelfth century logician William of Soissons. In this paper, we will meet Avicenna’s different argument for explosion and then I will demonstrate that this argument is a non-sequitur. (shrink)

You 遊 is a crucial term for understanding the Zhuangzi . Translated as “play,” “free play,” and “wandering,” it is usually defined as an ideal, playful Zhuangzian way of being. There are two problems with this definition. The first is logical: the Zhuangzi cannot consistently recommend playfulness as an ideal, since doing so vitiates the essence of you —it becomes an ethical imperative instead of an activity freely undertaken for its own sake. The second problem is performative: arguments for playful (...) Zhuangzi as exemplar resemble those of the logicians and philosophers who appear to come in for Zhuangzian criticism. This essay addresses these tensions by demonstrating how the Zhuangzi ambiguates the nature and value of you . Apparent endorsements of you are not freestanding, instead occurring in grudging replies of teachers to overly zealous students. In light of this recontextualization, a new version of you is offered that accommodates “non-playful” ways of being. (shrink)

This article argues that people have legitimate interests in privacy that deserve legal protection on democratic principles. It describes the right to privacy as a bundle of rights of personal choice, association and expression and shows that, so described, people have legitimate political interests in privacy. These interests reflect the ways that privacy rights can supplement the protection for people's freedom and equality provided by rights of political choice, association and expression, and can help to make sure that these are, (...) genuinely, democratic. Feminists have often been ambivalent about legal protection for privacy, because privacy rights have, so often, protected the coercion and exploitation of women, and made it difficult to politicise personal forms of injustice. However, attention to the differences between democratic and undemocratic forms of politics can enable us to meet these concerns, and to distinguish a democratic justification of privacy rights from the alternatives. (shrink)

According to some critics, Aristotle’s elenctic defence (elenchos, elenchus) of the Law of Non-Contradiction (Metaphysics IV) would be ineffective because it viciously begs the question. After briefly recalling the elenctic refutation of the denier of the Law of Non-Contradiction, I will first focus on Filippo Costantini’s objection to the elenchus, which, in turn, is based on the dialetheic account of negation developed by Graham Priest. Then, I will argue that there is at least one reading of the elenchus (...) that might not be viciously question-begging. In doing so, I will leverage, reinterpret and adjust the distinction between two senses of epistemic dependence, offered by Noah Lemos and originally based on some thoughts about George Edward Moore’s ‘proof of an external world.’ The key point of my counter-objection to recover the elenchus is to use the distinction between a necessary-condition relation between propositions (p only if q) and a grounding relation between facts (the fact that an epistemic agent S believes that p is grounded in the fact that S believes that q), where p and q are the content of S’s beliefs. (shrink)

The paper provides a reconstruction of proof by contradiction in Kant’s pure general logic. A seemingly less-explored point of view on this topic is how apagogical proof can account for the formal truth of a judgement. Integrating the argument held by Kjosavik (2019), I intend to highlight how one can use proof by contradiction, conceived as a modus tollens, to establish the logical actuality (logical or formal truth) of a cognition. Although one might agree on the capacity of (...) the proof to prove formal falsity, the logical actuality of a judgement is assessable based on a logically grounded judgement and, as for transcendental logic, this cognitive operation has to presuppose the real possibility of an object. (shrink)

In 'Metaphysics' book 4 Aristotle offers several arguments in defense of the principle of noncontradiction (PNC). In this paper I want to focus on the stretch of argument from 1006a11 to 1006b34 which Aristotle calls a proof by refutation (elenktikos apodeixai), (1006a11). Contrary to Elizabeth Anscombe and others, I will argue that in this section of the defense Aristotle can defend a version of the principle that extends to nonessential predication, predication of properties, aggregates, and transcategorials.

Discussion of von Wright's account of logic and time in relation to Marxist dialectics.

The article aims to show that Priest wrongly associates Hegel’s dialectic with his dialetheism. Even if Priest correctly argues that the notion of contradiction in Hegel’s logic is a logical one and that contradiction is meant to be true, Hegel goes a long way beyond Priest’s dialetheism insofar as he is not committed to a dialetheist conception of a three truth-values logic. I start my analysis with a brief introductory overview of the dialetheist’s thesis of the truth of (...) contradiction. Then, in the first part of the article, I show that Hegel’s notion of contradiction can be equated with a logical contradiction and that Hegel argues that some contradictions are true. In the second part of the paper I show that Hegel’s thesis of the truth of contradiction is different from Priest’s, because Hegel endorses a developmental conception of truth which allows him to account for complex and dynamic properties of reality in a way that Priest’s does not allow. (shrink)

The discussion on the principle of non-contradiction (1946–1957) between Marxist and non-Marxist philosophers was one of the major philosophical discussions in Polish philosophy of this period. In my text, I carefully reconstruct this discussion and outline its relation to Soviet debates on the subject. I show that the change in Schaff’s position happened in the early 1950s under the combined influence of the Lvov–Warsaw School and the changes in the official Soviet position regarding formal logic. I discuss the aftermath (...) following Schaff’s change in attitude towards the analytic tradition for the development of Polish philosophy, as well as the critique of this change by Jarosław Ładosz. In my reconstruction of the latter, I focus on the problem of the historical development of science. I refer to Ilyenkov’s critique of Schaff, opposing synchronic (“positivist”) and diachronic (“dialectical”) concepts of knowledge. As I argue, these opposing concepts of science can be seen as a genuine issue at stake in the Polish discussion as well, especially in the polemic between Schaff and Ładosz. (shrink)

Improving the treatment of life threatening emergency illness or disease requires that new or novel therapies be assessed in clinical trials. As most subjects for these trials will be incapacitated there is some controversy about they might best protected whilst still allowing research to continue. Recent European and UK clinical trials legislation, which has effectively stopped research into emergency conditions, is discussed. Possible changes to these regulations are proposed.

Peng and Nisbett put forward an influential theory of the influence of culture on the resolution of contradiction. They suggested that Easterners deal with contradiction in a dialectical manner, trying to reconcile opposite points of view and seeking a middle-way. Westerners, by contrast, would follow the law of excluded middle, judging one side of the contradiction to be right and the other to be wrong. However, their work has already been questioned, both in terms of replicability and (...) external validity. Here we test alternative interpretations of two of Peng and Nisbett’s experiments and conduct a new test of their theory in a third experiment. Overall, the Eastern and Western participants behaved similarly, failing to exhibit the cross-cultural differences observed by Peng and Nisbett. Several interpretations of these failed replications and this failed new test are suggested. Together with previous failed replications, the present results raise questions about the breadth of Peng and Nisbett’s interpretation of cross-cultural differences in dealing with contradiction. (shrink)

The topic of this paper is Aristotle’s ‘proof by refutation’ of the Principle of Non-Contradiction (Metaphysics Γ 4, 1006a11–1007a20). I consider a worry which has often been raised in connection with this proof. The worry is that, faced with an opponent who is prepared to tolerate contradictions, the argument is dialectically powerless: it is incapable of getting them to abandon their position. In reply, I argue that the proof needs to be seen in its proper context, that is, as (...) part of Aristotle’s response to an opponent who demands a demonstration of the principle. This allows us to clarify the purpose of the argument and answer the worry about its effectiveness. (shrink)

In Contradiction advocates and defends the view that there are true contradictions (dialetheism), a view that flies in the face of orthodoxy in Western philosophy since Aristotle. The book has been at the center of the controversies surrounding dialetheism ever since its first publication in1987. This second edition of the book substantially expands upon the original in various ways, and also contains the author's reflections on developments over the last two decades. Further aspects of dialetheism are discussed in the (...) companion volume, Doubt Truth to be a Liar, also published byOxford University Press in 2006. (shrink)