Philpropsophy – Philosophy Articles and Article Summaries

It is not uncommon to hear in a discussion the accusation “you’re contradicting yourself.” But what is the role of contradictions in human thought? It is certainly a meaningful statement as evidenced by its use, but what does that actually mean? Using a particular set of grammatical rules and language guidelines (i.e. strict word definitions), it is certainly possible to write down two contradictory things. One popular, almost hack-neyed example often used in philosophy is the classic “round square.” We can certainly write it, though it is a contradiction “on paper.” In other words, with the definitions of “round” and “square” as we know them, no such thing exists or could ever exist. One valid test is whether you can think of – or more precisely, conceive of – the purported object. Can you think of a “round square”? Some people might think they have come up with a solution, but I can assure you that it’s impossible, though my assurances aren’t worth jack (which is why I will discuss it in better detail later on). More generally, the question to ask is, “can someone ever think a contradiction?”

This issue can become exceedingly complex when contradictions are considered in the many possible senses of the word: linguistic contradictions, metaphysical contradictions, ethical contradictions, etc. Contradictions in the metaphysical sense are by far the easiest to understand, because their constituent parts are easily manifest-able in space and time. I can show you some round object, and I can show you some square object, making it fairly easy to see that there is no possible referent when you (accurately) combine the two concepts together. Likewise, you can disprove the statement “’round square’ is a contradiction” by showing me an object that properly conforms to the words’ definitions. But what about contradictions in ethics? After all, how can we possibly draw or point to the statement, “murder is wrong”? While we can point to “murder” by showing an example of it, what the heck is “wrongness”? Yet any sane person would agree that “Murder is wrong” and “killing another human being is right” are contradictory statements. As long as ethical statements are subject to the conditions of truth and falsehood, there must be an essential similarity between them and metaphysical statements.

Before moving to the problematic issue of ethics, the nature of contradictions “in” the universe should be elucidated. (“In” is in quotes because contradictions do not exist so they are not “in” anything, but we are unable to talk about them in any other way. The same applies for phrases like “contradictory things,” “contradictory entities,” etc.) There is a distinct difference between the property of being contradictory and the property of being nonexistent. The former entails the latter, but the latter does not entail the former. Contradictions don’t exist in reality, but neither do lots of other things, like unicorns. However, humans have the useful ability of being able to take concepts formed from previous experience, and recombine them to form “counter-factual” scenarios. With our knowledge of things that are, we can think of things that aren’t: unicorns (a horse and a horn), the U.S.S. Enterprise (a vessel, space travel, an engine, a captain, a crew, etc.), or the love-children of George Bush and Hillary Clinton (big ears, a grin, a freaky facial expression, scary hair, etc.). These things need not have physical existence in reality in order for them to be meaningful. If such imagination weren’t the case, then humanity would never be able to innovate or construct new things or even new ways of using existing things. Without imagination, “rock and stick make spear for kill food” would never have occurred. Reason and our ability to imagine- functions of our brains- became our evolutionary means of survival and adaptation, as opposed to claws, flippers, fins, or little lights dangling from our foreheads.

So to rehash a basic point, when one refers to a “round square,” he is actually referring to nothing. “Roundness” is a property logically incompatible with “squareness.” This summarizes contradictions regarding strictly material entities. On the other hand, unlike how we could with a physical object, we can not easily draw or otherwise represent ethical statements. This makes ethics an ideal breeding ground for logical contradictions. Still, if ethical statements are facts as much as statements about physical objects are facts, then the properties of contradictions outlined above have to apply, at least applying in some way with regards to human psychology. Indeed, human psychology plays a role, primarily in allowing us to linguistically posit and act upon contradictions. Nothing stops us from declaring or acting in accordance with contradictory moral premises. One need only hear some authority figure utter a moral absolute and then do it himself, and when questioned rationalize it. “For me it’s different, because…” “Do as I say, not as I do.”

Reality only forces us to recognize contradictions by preventing us from thinking anything illogical, and by never manifesting something illogical for us to observe. The reconciliation between two contradictory propositions or attributes is a process that can be understood as rationalization. Language, serving its function, has the tendency to provoke the imagination to manifest the referents of a word, phrase, or proposition. When someone says, “cat,” naturally, we think of the image of a cat, perhaps with a particular kind of fur, or it napping and licking its paws- whatever it is that we associate with cats. When someone says, “round square,” of what do we think? If any image is called to mind, it will be something like a square circumscribed within a circle, or perhaps something that has 4 flat sides but with curves connecting them in place of the 90 degree angles. However, this not a true “round square,” leading to my point: we can alter the definition, of either squareness or roundness, to make the concept logically compatible in order for any image to be called to mind. What we cannot do, though, is stay true to the definition of “round” as curved, and “square” as “a polygon with 4 equal sides connected by right angles” and produce a conceivable referent, whether as a real object or a mental picture. Whether consciously or subconsciously, we search for the closest definition to round square we can find and call the corresponding image to mind if we must call to mind an image. This is a valid explanation, for example, for anthropomorphic portrayals of supernatural, incorporeal deities, ghosts, spirits, souls, etc. The supernatural is inconceivable by human perception. If it could be perceived by any of the five senses, it would not be supernatural. But God has a beard, or a booming voice, or at the very least is represented by a bright light (a strictly physical phenomenon). Souls or spirits are white wispy things named “Casper.”

Ethics, as a subsidiary of epistemology (which is subsidiary to metaphysics), can also be subject to this kind of rationalization. After all, how can someone hold the principle “violence should never be initiated against another human being,” yet simultaneously advocate “people have a right to healthcare”? What makes these two propositions incompatible is a state of affairs in the world: since essential components of healthcare – doctors’ and nurses’ labor, machines, medicine, etc – do not just fall from the sky and must be provided by someone’s toil, the only way to guarantee that right is to use violence by threatening those able to provide healthcare or those able to pay for it with harm and ultimately death unless they comply. One way to rationalize this clear contradiction is by incorporating the new belief, “violence should never be initiated against another human being, except if done by the government.” The revised statement itself may be subject to a contradiction, of course (who’s the government? Is it not composed of human beings itself?, etc.), but assuming that (highly dubious) claim is true, it resolves the contradiction.

In light of that, how is it that we can hold a belief, which, in principle, contradicts another one of our beliefs? We have already established one general form of this: keeping the words used to represent the beliefs the same while changing the underlying definitions to make the statements logically compatible. However, rationalization can involve more elements than simply this, including unintentional or unresolvable ones. Hopefully this will lay the groundwork for the next article, in which we will explore more comprehensively the relationship between contradictions and human psychology and action.