Principle of contradiction

“ Rarely does any one deny the principle of contradiction, and admit that of evidence; yet, making this extravagant supposition, this principle alone would be of avail, because the question would be reduced to this: does he admit the principles to be evident? If he does not, his intellect is unlike that of other men; if he does, the argument brought against him is conclusive. You admit that whatever is evident is true; such or such a principle is evident for you, therefore it is true. The premises are evident of themselves; the legitimacy of the consequence is also evident ”

“ The principle of contradiction, indispensable condition of all certainty, of all truth, and without which the external world, and intelligence itself, would become a chaos, offers us a good example of the intrinsic value of purely intellectual conceptions independent of sensible intuition. ”

“ Negation itself, as we shall hereafter see, is known to us, but this it could not be were we to admit that the understanding knows nothing save inasmuch as it is being; in which case the indispensable condition of all cognition, the principle of contradiction, would deceive us. ”

“ Now what makes it natural to call this principle a law of thought is that it is by thought rather than by outward observation that we persuade ourselves of its necessary truth. When we have seen that a tree is a beech, we do not need to look again in order to ascertain whether it is also not a beech; thought alone makes us know that this is impossible. But the conclusion that the law of contradiction is a law of thought is nevertheless erroneous. What we believe, when we believe the law of contradiction, is not that the mind is so made that it must believe the law of contradiction. ”

“ The difficulty is to know how the transition from the principle of contradiction to real truths, is made; because not affirming any thing determinate in it, but solely the repugnance of yes to no, and of no to yes, we assert that it would be impossible to affirm either one of these extremes without denying the other ”

“ We cannot therefore escape the conclusion that the rule of reasoning by recurrence is irreducible to the principle of contradiction. ”

“ One of these conditions is the principle of contradiction, which would, were it to fail, annihilate all knowledge. True, by a series of intellectual constructions one may ascertain the size of a sphere ”

“ Necessary truths, on the other hand, are founded upon the principle of contradiction, and upon the possibility or impossibility of the essences themselves, without regard here to the free will of God or of creatures. ”

“ It is, therefore, absurd to excite reason against the primary postulates of pure time, as, for example, continuity, etc., since they follow from laws prior and superior to which nothing is found, and since reason herself in the use of the principle of contradiction cannot dispense with the support of this concept, so primitive and original is it. ”

“ But neither contradiction nor antinomy, which analysis discovers at the bottom of every simple idea, is the principle of truth. Contradiction is always synonymous with nullity; as for antinomy, sometimes called by the same name, it is indeed the forerunner of truth, the material of which, so to speak, it supplies; but it is not truth, and, considered in itself, it is the efficient cause of disorder, the characteristic form of delusion and evil. ”

“ Thus it is a fact, that, as all men believe and maintain, by a necessity of nature, the principles of common sense, every false principle or error which they defend, is a flat contradiction to some of their other declarations on other occasions. ”

“ The principle of non-contradiction does not mean Do not contradict yourself; produce a harmony, a system in your acts and yourself; realize yourself as an organic whole. That would be vague enough without further directions; but what our principle here says is not that. It says the act must not contradict itself. ”

“ It should be observed that, in all cases of general principles, particular instances, dealing with familiar things, are more evident than the general principle. For example, the law of contradiction states that nothing can both have a certain property and not have it. ”

“ In this refusal to do justice there is contradiction; and as error exists where contradiction lies, it is precisely in that contradiction that we must seek the means of refuting error and assert the power of truth. ”

“ This contradiction, like many other contradictions, is one which ought first of all to be registered as a mere fact; long before we attempt to explain why things contradict themselves, we ought, if we are honest men and good critics, to register the preliminary truth that things do contradict themselves. ”

“ Does it follow, as has been said with such ridiculous emphasis, that every truth, every idea, results from a contradiction,— that is, from a something which is affirmed and denied at the same moment and from the same point of view,—and that it may be necessary to abandon wholly the old-fashioned logic, which regards contradiction as the infallible sign of error? ”

“ But if one ought to contradict for the truth’s sake, then a single contradiction is enough; when opinions are once acknowledged and firmly fixed, continued disputation about them is entirely fruitless. ”

“ The reason of the contradiction is the fact that man is a contradiction. But man is more; he feels or knows himself as such, and this makes a vital difference; for to feel a contradiction is ipso facto to be above it. Otherwise, how would it be possible to feel it? A felt contradiction which does not imply, beside its two poles, an unity which includes and is above them, will, the more it is reflected on, the more be seen to be altogether unmeaning. ”

“ And in much the same way we may very profitably recognize contradiction or controversy, whether personal or social, as a necessary condition of all valid experience, but not on that account are we to cultivate what is contradictory, to be always blindly spoiling for a contradiction. Like crime or death, if directly courted, contradiction would lose its peculiar effectiveness. The both-sidedness or the all-sidedness, which at once develops and conserves human life, is only [p.152] that which is maintained with a tenacious, even with a would-be consistent loyalty to each and every side. ”

“ If a ‘contradiction’ is real, it means either a difference of opinion between those who make the incompatible assertions, or, in the case of a real ‘self-​contradiction’, the uttering of ‘nonsense’ and a failure to propound a meaning at all. ”

“ I can see no way out of it unless either frankly to admit that contradiction in terms is the bedrock on which all our thoughts and deeds are founded, and to acquiesce cheerfully in the fact that whenever we try to go below the surface of any enquiry we find ourselves utterly baffled—or to redefine freedom and necessity, admitting each as a potent factor of the other. ”

“ Contradictions in Things and Men.
If any literary society is inclined to undertake a history of contradictions, I will subscribe for twenty folio volumes. The world displays nothing but contradictions. What would be necessary to put an end to them? To assemble the states-general of the human race. But, according to the nature and constitution of mankind, it would be a new contradiction were they to agree. Bring together all the rabbits in the world, and there would not be two different minds among them. ”

“ If it were possible for the law of identity to be violated, no violation of the law of contradiction would necessarily ensue: for a thing might then be something else, without being itself at the same time, which latter is what the law of contradiction militates against. ”

“ Our reasonings are grounded upon two great principles, that of contradiction, in virtue of which we judge false that which involves a contradiction, and true that which is opposed or contradictory to the false ”

“ A long habit of objecting to every thing establishes a monopoly in the right of contradiction; a prescriptive title to the privilege of starting doubts and difficulties in the common belief, without being liable to have our own called in question. There cannot be a more infallible way to prove that we must be in the right, than by maintaining roundly that every one else is in the wrong! Not only the opposition of sects to one another, but their unanimity among themselves, strengthens their confidence in their peculiar notions. ”

“ I have not only what is termed a liberty of contradiction, but what is termed a liberty of contrariety, a power to act one way, or the contrary: to deny this would be to contradict the uniform experience of all human kind. The soul is not necessitated to judge or act by any bodily impulse. ”

“ It makes at least this difference that if anyone calls it impossible you can contradict him, if anyone calls it actual you can contradict HIM, and if anyone calls it necessary you can contradict him too. But these privileges of contradiction don't amount to much. When you say a thing is possible, does not that make some farther difference in terms of actual fact? ”

“ The first of these opinions is set at rest by Proposition IV., which proves that a contradiction is involved in the supposition that material things, by and in themselves, or without a mind being known along with them, can be known by any intelligence. ”

“ This restless activity of the human mind comes from a deep, indefinable, irresistible desire to get rid of contradictions, and reduce things to harmony, to consistency. This is the great desideratum. Contradiction and inconsistency is the infallible indication of falsehood and wrong. For truth and right must be harmonious. They cannot involve contradiction and discord, where they alone exist. Here then is a universal, irresistible law of our nature. It has done much to correct and reform the errors ensuing from human ignorance and depravity. ”

“ As no issue, moreover, can be more central or crucial than the meaning of the contradictions found to pervade our views of things, before completing our confession we shall allow ourselves some reflections, that should prove useful to us in the end, upon the possible worth of contradiction in human experience; for even to casual thinking contradiction, although good ground for scepticism, suggests some positive advantage and opportunity ”

“ It must be noticed that in the case of a singular proposition there is only one mode of contradiction possible. Since the quantity of such a proposition is at the minimum, the contrary and contradictory are necessarily merged into one. ”

“ If a man's capacities are hinted at or even stated by himself to his fellow-creatures with a certain amount of discretion, and if he does not court failure by putting them to the proof, it does not occur to most people to contradict him, and the possible truth of the contradiction soon sinks out of sight. ”

“ M. You do not perceive that you are asserting contradictions; for what is a greater contradiction, than that that should be not only miserable, but should have any existence at all, which does not exist? ”