True Contradictions

Josh Landy
How could something be both true and false at the same time?

Ray Briggs
If we accepted contradictions, would we end up believing just anything?

Josh Landy
Or would we simply be more open to the mystery of the world?

Ray Briggs
Welcome to Philosophy Talk, the program that questions everything…

Josh Landy
…except your intelligence. I’m Josh Landy.

Ray Briggs
And I’m Ray Briggs. We’re coming to you from the studios of KALW San Francisco Bay Area.

Josh Landy
Continuing conversations that begin at philosophers corner on the Stanford campus where Ray teaches philosophy, and I direct the philosophy and literature initiative.

Ray Briggs
Today, we’re thinking about True Contradictions.

Josh Landy
The world is full of contradictions, Ray. Like “parting is such sweet sorrow.” Parting is sweet, but parting is also sad. And sweetness and sadness are opposite. So… contradiction!

Ray Briggs
Oh, that’s not a contradiction, Josh—it’s just mixed emotions. A real contradiction would be like if Romeo was both sad and not sad. Something would have to be true and not true at the same time.

Josh Landy
You mean, okay, like this: I’m lying right now.

Ray Briggs
Oh, it’s the famous liar paradox. So you tell me you’re lying. And so if you’re actually lying, then the sentence you said is true, in which case you’re not lying. But if you’re telling the truth, that means you’re lying. So either way, you’re both lying and telling the truth.

Josh Landy
Exactly. So that right there is a true contradiction.

Ray Briggs
Yeah, nice try. But actually, your sentence wasn’t both true and false. It was neither.

Josh Landy
Okay, let me rephrase myself, Ray. I’m not telling the truth right now. Okay, get out of that one!

Ray Briggs
Well, that one is also neither true nor false.

Josh Landy
Okay, so that means I wasn’t telling the truth, which is exactly what I said. Which means I was telling the truth.

Ray Briggs
Ah, that’s a lot of logic before I’ve had my coffee.

Josh Landy
I see what you’re doing, Ray—trying to use comedy to get out of a tight spot. It’s not gonna work.

Ray Briggs
Okay, fair enough, you got me. Maybe I need more coffee so that I can come up with a better answer. But I do know that whatever the story is about these liar, paradoxes, true contradictions just cannot exist. Nothing can be both true and false at the same time,

Josh Landy
Why not?

Ray Briggs
Well, think about what would happen. You’d be able to prove just anything: that Santa Claus exists, that birds aren’t real, that the moon landing was faked, that pineapple belongs on pizza like—you name it.

Josh Landy
I like the pineapple on pizza example. But I don’t understand the logic, Ray. How do you get from the liar paradox to the moon landing?

Ray Briggs
We’ll just think about proving things by process of elimination.

Josh Landy
Like Sherlock Holmes!

Ray Briggs
Exactly. So Holmes says, when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

Josh Landy
So you’re telling me Holmes, the arch rationalist is going to help us support conspiracy theory?

Ray Briggs
Well, if you add true contradictions to the mix, then yeah, here’s how it works. So I want to use the process of elimination to prove something like say that my enemy committed a murder. So I make a list of hypotheses. One of them is that my enemy committed the murder and the other is the liar paradox.

Josh Landy
That’s a weird list, Ray.

Ray Briggs
Yeah, but we know that one of the hypotheses on the list is true because you said it yourself. The liar paradox, both true and false.

Josh Landy
You’re gonna make a great detective.

Ray Briggs
Yeah, but you see where I’m going right. And by process of elimination, I can get rid of all the false hypotheses on my list. And guess which one we know is false.

Josh Landy
Oh, no. What have I done?

Ray Briggs
Yup. Since the liar paradox is false. The only remaining possibility is that my enemy is the murderer.

Josh Landy
Could it be my enemy instead?

Ray Briggs
I mean, sure, it can be whatever you want.

Josh Landy
I admit, I’m kind of tempted, Ray. But still, I do think we can embrace the idea of true contradictions without giving up on reason and common sense. And without framing anybody for crimes. I bet our guests will back me up. It’s Graham Priest, professor of philosophy at the City University of New York, and author of the book “Doubt Truth to Be a Liar.”

But first, we sent our Roving Philosophical Reporter, Holly J. McDede, to look for Through contradictions in literature, including the Bible. She files this report.

Holly McDede
It’s perfectly reasonable to want truth and order but literature is unlikely to help with that. Fiction is filled with paradoxes, plot holes and unreliable narrators.

Molloy
It is midnight. The rain is beating on the windows.

Holly McDede
That’s from Samuel Beckett’s novel “Molloy.” Later, the narrator describes another version of reality.

Molloy
I do not know. I shall learn. Then I went back into the house and wrote, “it is midnight. The rain is beating on the windows.” It was not midnight. It was not raining.

Holly McDede
Another example: “The Semplica-Girl Diaries” by George Saunders. The narrator, who is keeping, a diary writes…

The Semplica-Girl Diaries
Do not really like rich people as they make us poor people feel dopey and inadequate. Not that we are poor. I would say we are middle. We are very, very lucky. I know that. But still it is not right that rich people make us middle people feel dopey and inadequate.

Holly McDede
And the next day he writes a clarification.

The Semplica-Girl Diaries
I am not tired of work. It is a privilege to work. I do not hate the rich. I aspire to be rich myself. And when we finally do get our own bridge, trout Treehouse, SGs, etc. At least we will know we really earned them. Unlike, say, the Torrinis, who I feel must have family money.

Holly McDede
What’s true? What’s false? Everything! As novelists and Vietnam vet Tim O’Brien writes in “How to Tell a True War Story”…

How to Tell a True War Story
Absolute occurrence is irrelevant. A thing may happen and be a total lie. Another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth.

Holly McDede
Fiction is important at all. But what about the Bible the most widely circulated book in history? Biblical texts are filled with contradictions.

Jennifer Knust
I think that there are lots of truths that can be found in biblical books.

Holly McDede
Jennifer Knust is a professor of religious studies at Duke University.

I don’t think that the truths are going to be consistent, but rather an opportunity to reflect on how messy it is to be alive and to try to figure out how to be human.

In 2011, Knust published “Unprotected Texts: The Bible’s Surprising Contradictions about Sex and Desire,” at a time and sexuality was also a biblical battleground. In this interview from that period, Piers Morgan talked to American televangelists Joel Osteen

Piers Morgan
What’s your view now?

Joel Osteen
You know, Piers, it really never changes because mine was man’s based out of the Scripture. That’s what I believe that the scripture says that, that homosexuality is a sin. So, you know, I believed it before and I still believe it now.

Holly McDede
The Ethics and Religious Library Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention had filed a brief before a district court in favor of Proposition eight the California ballot initiative that said marriage must be between one man and one woman. The brief argues Southern Baptists have no choice but to oppose same sex marriage. canoes found that all very frustrating because there is no biblical sexual standard.

Jennifer Knust
I just thought things that were being said around how the Bible is some kind of clear rule book about sexual morals was just so wrong and so bad for the Bible and so bad for us as human beings who were trying to come up with a way to be sexually moral and kind and compassionate beings to one another sexually and and in every other way.

Holly McDede
In the New Testament, there are letters ascribed to the apostle Paul, who says he wishes everyone could be celibate like him.

Preacher
Verse one, First Corinthians 7. Now concerning the matters about which you wrote, It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman. But because of the temptation…

Jennifer Knust
He thinks that Jesus is returning soon for the Second Coming to bring heaven and earth together into a new creation. And why would you waste your time getting married when you could be celibate, and concentrate on getting ready for that event.

Preacher
but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self control?

Holly McDede
Then there’s another letter possibly written by Paul, depending on what you believe, called First Timothy were an opposite argument is made.

Jennifer Knust
In fact, there’s a passage in the letters to Timothy where younger widows are specifically told that they should get married again. And also, young women are told that they are saved through childbearing, which is a pretty different argument than is in First Corinthians

Holly McDede
Knust says contradictions are an invitation to pay attention. Her mom was an amateur Bible scholar. Growing up, they would read a big picture bible together on a big gold couch, and her mom encouraged her to ask questions. She’s still part of Christian communities that are open to multiple interpretations

Jennifer Knust
And consider love and kindness and generosity and compassion to be values that are more important than clobbering someone over the head with a passage that has been multiplied, interpreted and is contradictory with other passages.

Holly McDede
Not demanding or pushing a single absolute correct answer to big questions is a powerful thing.

Bob Dylan
My love, she speaks like silence / without ideals or violence / She doesn’t have to say she’s faithful / yet she’s true like ice, like fire

Holly McDede
For Philosophy Talk. I’m Holly J. McDede.

Ray Briggs
Thanks for that fascinating report, Holly. I’m Ray Briggs, with me is my Stanford colleague, Josh Landy. And today we’re thinking about true contradictions.

Josh Landy
We’re joined now by Graham Priest, He’s professor of philosophy at the City University of New York, and author of many excellent things, including “Doubt Truth to Be a Liar.” Graham, welcome to Philosophy Talk.

Graham Priest
Hi guys, pleased to be with you from New York.

Ray Briggs
So Graham, you’re a philosopher, and you’ve written a lot of philosophy. But you’re also interested in martial arts. Have you found connections between those two topics?

Graham Priest
Sure. I wasn’t interested in the martial arts because of philosophy. But there’s an historical connection between Buddhism and the martial arts. So practicing the martial arts got me thinking about some misuse in Buddhist philosophy, both the ethics and the metaphysics, and I’ve thought about those quite a bit over the years now.

Josh Landy
That’s fantastic. Let’s get back to your country because they are a lot of fun, at least in my opinion. So So what do people have against them?

Holly McDede
Well in Western philosophy, it goes back to Aristotle, who enunciated this thing called the principle of non contradiction, which is essentially that you can’t have a true contradiction. And he gave a bunch of arguments for this, which were frankly terrible, as most modern commentators will agree. But notwithstanding it sort of entrenched the principle of non contradiction into the core of Western philosophy, and most Western philosophers since then, with a few notable exceptions, have accepted it without question.

Ray Briggs
So in your opinion, it’s basically dogma.

Graham Priest
Yeah.

Ray Briggs
So what about the argument I was giving with Josh a minute ago that if you have a true contradiction, you can prove just anything you want.

Graham Priest
So the principle that you’re referring to is usually called explosion, that from a contradiction, anything follows, and you gave an argument for exposure, and we can come back to that in a second. But this principle explosion is a part of Orthodox contemporary logic, that is logic that was formulated towards the end of the 19th century. But it’s not orthodox in the history of logic. I mean, if you ever teach logic 100, then before you’ve taught any, if you ask students whether, you know, the moon is round, and the moon is not around, so Donald Trump is a crook, that’s a valid inference. They’ll say, No, that’s crazy. There’s no connection between premises and conclusions. And that, that seems about right.

Ray Briggs
So I guess, one thing you could think is that contemporary logic has kind of got things wrong, and it’s overshot. And another opinion you could have is like, well, these logical principles that were actually true all along, and people just didn’t know about them. And contemporary logic is an advance how do I make that judgment?

Graham Priest
Well, views on what correct logic is the correct logic is if there is one has been having changing now, for two and a half, 1000 years, and so called classical logic, that’s the logic that was developed by Frager. And Russell at the turn of the 20th century is suddenly an advance on what’s gone before. But have we got it completely right yet? Probably not. Probably never will. And some of the principles that are built into classical logic are highly contentious, as most logicians know, so there’s lots of things to think about here. And you can question most things, as you’d like to say in in about your program.

Josh Landy
Everything except your intelligence, what about more, I don’t know, less sort of logic based objections and more kind of almost existential objections. So you know, Nietzsche has this lovely line, he says, my formula for happiness is a yes or no, a straight line, a goal. So what about just wanting to believe that the world kind of makes sense and hangs together and isn’t full of contradictions?

Graham Priest
Are you identifying “hanging together” with not being contradictory?

Josh Landy
Yeah. In a very unformed way. Yeah. Right. So, you know, I want it not just to hang together in a general way, but I want to kind of to make sense and be relatively predictable and consistent. And, and I want to be able to make claims about things that kind of that I don’t have to then just sort of retract a minute later.

Graham Priest
Well, there’s a lot of things going on here. But we, we’d like to tell a coherent story about the world, it may well be that the best story, the most coherent story we can tell, is or has some inconsistent features. We look to science, mathematics and philosophy to tell us what the world is like. And maybe in the end, the best story we’ve got will be an inconsistent one. But as for taking things back, well, you know, any belief we come up with about the world at any time probably in the future is going to be a fallible one. And as the evidence evolves and use there is a merge and we discover new things, you might have to take back things you believed that’s just a feature of being an adult being a rational person. And that has got nothing particular to do with contradiction.

Josh Landy
You’re listening to Philosophy Talk. Today, we’re thinking about true contradictions with Graham priest from the City University of New York.

Ray Briggs
Do you have a love-hate relationship with something? Could a judge legislate a contradiction into existence? Could God make a rock so big he couldn’t move it?

Josh Landy
True, false, both and neither—along with your comments and questions, when Philosophy Talk continues.

Weezer
Say it ain’t so / my love is a life-taker

Josh Landy
If something ain’t, so could it also be so? I’m Josh Landy. And this is Philosophy Talk the program that questions everything…

Ray Briggs
…except your intelligence. I’m Ray Briggs, and we’re thinking about true contradictions with GrahamPpriest from the City University of New York.

Josh Landy
Got a consistent question or contradictory comment? Email us at comments@philosophtalk.org, or comment on our website. And while you’re there, you can also become a subscriber and listen to our whole library of more than 500 episodes.

Ray Briggs
So Graham earlier, we were considering arguments that there can’t be true contradictions. What’s the case in favor of your contradictions?

Graham Priest
Well, what’s the case in favor of the truth of anything? You got to look at reasons and give reasons? So you’re questioning them out? So this? Are there good reasons for supposing that certain contradictions are true. And there’s a bunch of these and probably the one that’s got the most airtime in the last 40 or 50 years has been the liar paradox, which you talked about before. But logicians have been struggling with this, since it was put on the table by utilities two and a half, 1000 years ago. And no one has succeeded yet in explaining what’s wrong with it, at least, if consensus is a marker of success, because there’s still no consensus on the matter after two and a half, 1000 years. So the thought is way, maybe there’s nothing wrong with the argument. It’s a radical argument. It establishes a contradiction. And the argument is what it seems. And it’s something that establishes its truth.

Ray Briggs
So that there is one possible response, but but if I’m kind of an opponent of this view, I might have others. So one thing I might think is like, there are lots of sentences that aren’t true and aren’t false. First of all, there are sentences that aren’t assertions like questions like Is liar sentence true? Like that’s not a true sentence or a false sentence, but even even an assertion, like if it’s kind of ill formed in some way. So if I say that colorless Green Ideas sleep furiously, I’m not sure that that’s true or false. Why Why couldn’t I sort of dismiss the liar sentence and say, it’s just kind of ill formed?

Graham Priest
Well, there are many views of how you solve the liar paradox. And a very common one is to give it some kind of intermediates, or, or some third status, not true, not false. But number four, meaningless, not make a proposition etcetera, etcetera, cetera. And the problem with all these solutions is that they’re subject to something that’s usually called Revenge paradoxes. So just consider the following statement. I will take this carefully for your listeners, this sentence is either false, or the third status.

Ray Briggs
So this sentence is either false or the third status. And then I’m like, what is the status of that?

Graham Priest
Well, look, if it’s true, it’s either false or the third status, and that’s a contradiction. If it’s false, well, then it’s either the fault or the third status. So it’s true. And now is the other possibility. It has the third status. But if as a third status is either false, or has the third slide, so it’s true again, so you sent him back in the problem.

Ray Briggs
So the idea is like once a name what I think the problem with the liar sentence is I can I can just say, so I’m like, here’s the property that makes the liar sentence bad. I can make a new liar sentence that basically says, this sentence is either false or has the bad property and then I’m just back in the whole mess again.

Graham Priest
Correct.

Josh Landy
Yeah. And, and, you know, there are so many other lovely paradoxes that I for one, at least think are genuine, right, genuine contradictions in the nature of reality, like Zeno’s paradoxes I find pretty persuasive and all the stuff about infinity, right, that somehow the set of even numbers is the same size as the set of whole numbers, even though you’d think that the set of whole numbers is larger than set Have you ever numbers and and Schrodinger cat that’s both dead and not dead? Do you have some other favorite scream other sort of features of the world that you take to be real but also genuinely contradictory?

Graham Priest
Well, lots of suggestions have been made in the last 40 or 50 years that contentious but then this is philosophy. So that’s okay. But some people and I’m find this very plausible have argued that art has the ability to produce these kinds of things. So there’s a famous work of art in the 1920s, by muscle, the show called fatten. And what he did was get to a urinal he bought at the hardware store, and exhibited in an art gallery. And there was contention about whether or not this was art. Eventually, the consensus was that it was art. But it was art precisely because it wasn’t art.

Ray Briggs
So I don’t know I have to express a little bit of skepticism about all of these kinds of examples. So sure, fountain wasn’t art by the standards that Duchamp was responding to. And by a more capacious set of standards, it was art, but like it was art in one sense, and it wasn’t art in a different sense. There’s no sense in which it both wasn’t wasn’t art, like, Why Why shouldn’t I read describe it in this consistent way?

Graham Priest
Yeah, this raises another problem. The notion of art doesn’t fall apart, like a well cooked chicken, as you suggest, it’s a kind of vague notion. And it doesn’t quite work to cut it up in the way you suggest. Which brings us to other paradoxes of atheists.

Ray Briggs
So we have a question from Joe in Tel Aviv, who writes, To what extent is the principle of non contradiction, an artifact of a logic that doesn’t necessarily adhere in nature? What do you think of that? Graham?

Graham Priest
I would like to ask more questions about what the question means. Contradictions has to do with statements or propositions or something, something that is the case. Now, nature does not obviously comprise such things. It comprises chairs and tables. These aren’t the kinds of things that can be consistent or inconsistent, they’re just the wrong kind of thing. Now, it may be the case that you can make sense of the thought that nature is consistent or inconsistent. But at that point, I’d like to know more about what this thought means what the question means. Why this?

Ray Briggs
Yeah, so I guess this raises a kind of big bunch of questions for me. So one way you could think about true contradictions is like, Oh, we could choose to talk so that we sometimes say, Oh, yes, this is true, and it’s false. And that’s just about the way that we talk. And another way of seeing it is that like, no, there are ways that the world cannot be that you cannot describe the world to be. And like it just you can’t have a table that’s both in the room and not in the room because of how the table is. So it sounds like you, you’re more on the first side where we’re no true contradictions as a principle about how we talk.

Graham Priest
I’m not sure that I accept your distinction. Look, truth is expressed in language languages about how we talk. So of course, if some contradictions are true, then we we use language to express that, but that’s not a feature of contradictions. That’s a feature of truth. Now, we naturally think, probably correctly, that the way we talk describes reality. And when what we say is true, the description is correct. And if certain things we say about reality are true and contradictory. Well, in that sense, reality is true and contradictory. That’s fine. But that’s just, I didn’t that’s a very surprising view.

Josh Landy
You’re listening to Philosophy Talk. Today, we’re thinking about true contradictions with Graham priest from the City University of New York. And Graham, there’s an email from Kevin in San Francisco that kind of goes along the lines of the conversation we’re just having about different examples. Kevin says, to say Jesus is both divine and not divine. Could this be viewed as a kind of true contradiction? What might be some other examples from Christianity or other religions?

Graham Priest
Okay, yeah, well, this was not Orthodox Christianity. This sort of thing could have got you burned at the stake in the 13th century, because of the Aristotelianism of the dominant theological views. But as a matter of fact, there are there is one well known contemporary, diluted, JC bill, not today now, who has just published a book arguing that Christ was exactly contradictory in that way.

Ray Briggs
I want to know what it is about like art and religion that make them not susceptible to my consistency technique. Like you said, they were vague and I want to hear more.

Graham Priest
Well, that such general question. It’s hard to say anything general in reply. But when you meet an apparent contradiction, there’s always a move you can make. I’ve called it parameterization. So you draw a distinction. And you say that the one contradictory is true in one sense. Another is true in a different sense. But then the challenge is to specify exactly those true senses to justify the thought that, indeed, one contradictory is true in one sense. And the other contradictory is true in another sense. But then, to establish that for each other senses, the chosen limit, the contradiction is consistent in that sense. And that’s where the generality gets hard to handle, because you have to consider each case on its merits.

Josh Landy
I mean, that seems like a pretty good rule for telling the difference between actual contradictions and spurious contradictions that are just an artifact of language. I mean, I think of the Sophists as depicted in Plato’s dialogues, where they’re constantly saying things like, so you’re saying, your father is both a father and not a father, because he’s your father, but not my father? And, you know, obviously, well, a father in one sense, and I know, you know, that’s just the kind of trick or, or in Derrida says speech is a special kind of writing, he clearly means writing in a special sense. So is that what do you think Graham, is that a good sort of principle for warding off these kind of spurious contradictions, that just really just artifacts of language, and that, you know, if you could put, quote, quotation marks around one of the terms and show that it’s being used in a special sense, that’s going to rule it out, whereas I’m on your side of the line? Are things like the liar paradox where you can’t make that move?

Graham Priest
Sure, that I mean, getting rid of an apparent contradiction like this, in that way, in the way you describe is obviously the right thing to do sometimes. Let’s say it’s half past one and half past 10. That sounds like a contradiction. But it’s not because we draw a distinction. It’s half past one in New York and half past 10 in San Francisco. So that’s the right thing to do with some apparent contradictions. Now, is it the right thing to do with every contradiction? Well, if you think it is, then the onus is Ilan, the onus is on you to spell out the disambiguation, the parameterization, the two different respects, and establish that once you have drawn a distinction, then you’ve got rid of the problem. But this does not come for free. Because once you’ve drawn the distinction, you’ve got two apparent contradictions, one in each of the two senses, and then the onus is on you to show that those two contradictions are those two different senses are both consistent. And as we seen, with the case of the liar paradox, it’s not at all obvious, you can always do that. In the end, you have to consider each one on a case by case basis.

Ray Briggs
So right now, people use a logic that does not allow true contradictions, or at least most people use a logic that doesn’t allow for true contradictions. And that has this explosion problem.

Graham Priest
You mean people or philosophers?

Ray Briggs
I mean, philosophers. That’s, that’s where most philosophers like explosion, people probably don’t. But like, are philosophers inventing logic? Or are they discovering logic? Like, are there truths about logic that you can discover? Or can you? Can you just to be like, I’m gonna select whichever logical language is convenient for me?

Graham Priest
That’s a good question. That’s an interesting question. Look, logic is about what follows from what, crudely and what follows from what is not at all obvious. And it’s a question we theorize about. And we theorize about nearly everything that has any profound significance in life. We theorize in physics in metaphysics and ethics, in mathematics, in law, in philosophy and in logic. And people have been theorizing about what follows from what, as I say, for two and a half, 1000 years, and we come up with new and better theories all the time. So in that sense, we are creating new logics very human creation, like any theory, but the thing we’re theorizing about is presumably not a human creation. We’re trying to get the facts, right.

Josh Landy
Yeah. And, you know, if we’re trying to get the facts right about the world, it seems to me, you’re really onto something and saying the world kind of is a little bit more weird than people might think. Right. And, you know, we’ve talked about some examples in the realm for example of physics and, you know, infinity and things like that. What about examples that come from the human heart? Right, so, you know, I’m a big fan of louche Foucault is a 17th century French thinker. And he has all these paradoxes. For example, when you when you’re in love you doubt what you most believe. Do you think there were true contradictions when it comes to the the inner world, the world of our beliefs, emotions, our mental life?

Graham Priest
Well, maybe, I mean, any examples is going to be contentious, right? Because there’s always the parameterizing move, which can be made. And you’ve got to consider each case on its merits. But certainly, you might put up cases of this kind. Here’s another one. You’ve maybe had the experience where you drive past this really gruesome traffic accident, and there’s blood and their body parts all over the road. And it’s so horrific that you cannot, but look, so you’re attracted and you’re repelled by it at the same kind. Your cognitive state is drawn in this way. So it’s both attractive and repulsive. Now, you might want to say that those are not really contradictory. And we then have to argue about whether or not they are, but a case can be made that they are, and if they are contradictory. This is a contradictory affair of the heart to use your language.

Josh Landy
You’re listening to Philosophy Talk. Today, we’re talking about true contradictions with Graham priest, author of “Doubt Truth to Be a Liar.”

Ray Briggs
Could embracing contradictions make us more open minded? Or is it a recipe for disaster? What are the consequences for science?

Josh Landy
Embracing the impossible—plus commentary from Ian Shoales the Sixty-Second Philosopher when Philosophy Talk continues

21st Century Monads
In the land of P and not P / you’d both be and not be mine

Josh Landy
If you’re both mine and not mine, is that a healthy relationship? I’m Josh Landy. And this is Philosophy Talk, the program that questions everything…

Ray Briggs
…except your intelligence. I’m Ray Briggs. Our guest is Graham priest from the City University of New York. And we’re thinking about true contradictions.

Josh Landy
So Graham, we’ve got a comment from a referral in Berkeley. Raphael says, I always thought that being comfortable with contradiction is the answer to some of the hard problems in ethics. Like the trolley problem, there are some situations in which the best thing to do is really only the least bad thing to do. And it might result in someone’s death or suffering. And the actress should still feel comfortable, even though there was no better choice. That’s part of the tragedy of the situation. Maybe this isn’t exactly a contradiction. But the right thing to do is still wrong, I guess, would be the formulation that makes it into a contradiction. So what do you think grim? Is that those kinds of thing, a contradiction, a true contradiction?

Graham Priest
Yeah, that’s interesting. This sort of situation that the listener is gesturing at, are sometimes called dilemmas. So a dilemma is a situation where you ought to do something and you ought to do something else. And those two things are compatible. So if you’d like to bring it about the day, you want to bring it about that not a. And I really think that there are certainly such things in ethics. Sometimes, I mean, our values often conflict, and that’s just a fact of life. But that’s not a contradiction. Let me say it again, a dilemma. The sort of thing I’ve been describing is where you ought to bring it about that A, and you ought to bring it about and not a, okay, a contradiction will be, you ought to bring it about the day. And it’s not the case, that you’re to bring it about that I now, it’s not so obvious that there are such things I actually kind of think there are, I think that norms themselves are generally subject to dilute is, but you need a lot more work to get to normative dilute theists than you do to get to normative dilemmas.

Ray Briggs
So okay, so we can have normative dilemma is where there’s something you ought to do and also that you ought to do another incompatible thing, but not normative. dialy. Thea is where it’s true and false that you want to do a thing?

Graham Priest
Well, I didn’t say you couldn’t have them. I I actually think there are. But I think the case for normative dilemmas is pretty straightforward. The case will dilute is is much more complicated and much more contentious.

Ray Briggs
Got it. So what would be an example of a normative dialythea if there is one?

Graham Priest
Well, let me give you a hypothetical example because it strips off some irrelevant features, but consider law. Okay. Laws are symptoms of norms, of course. And you can imagine that a duly constituted legislative bill passes a law to the effect that is less concerned with granting and taking away rights. And one clause of law might say, people in category X has the right to vote. People in category wide don’t have the right to vote. And X might be property holders, rich men, people who vote for a certain party, okay? People in the case of y might be, you know, women, or people of color have chooser categories. And as long as no one is actually in categories x and y, then things are perfectly consistent. But you can imagine that as society evolves, someone in category X and Y turns up. So maybe one law said, property owners have the right to vote, but women don’t have the right to vote. And then as the law as it changes, some women hold property, then in that case, this person who is in category x and y both doesn’t doesn’t have the right to vote, and that is a normative dilute here.

Ray Briggs
We’ve got a question from Joshua in Portland, who asks, isn’t the exploiting of these contradictions the basis of dialectics like a hinge separates a door from the wall but also connects it? Is that a true contradiction?

Graham Priest
I want to know more about what dialectics is doing it the word dialectics gets thrown around in many different ways. But certainly, in the history of philosophy, one of the philosophers who’s most closely connected with the notion of dialectic is Hegel. And Hegel, is in my books, one of the few philosophers in the history of Western philosophy, who was prepared to go against Aristotle and the law of non contradiction, because in the dialectical process, in the way that concepts evolve for Hegel, contradictions do arise, and they’re transcend it. But that does not mean that you get rid of them. They’re preserved in a certain sense. So, for that notion of dialectics, at least, I think there’s a good case to be made that dialectics is committed to dial atheism.

Josh Landy
Graham, what do you think? I mean, I love true contradictions make they make me very happy. But are there any practical consequences? Are there any consequences, for example, for science from thinking about this way?

Graham Priest
That’s a good question. I think perhaps the most interesting possible practical contradiction is Science uses mathematics. Okay? That’s not news. And at various times in the past, sites have used it EU has used inconsistent mathematics. That might be a surprise to some listeners. But the case is pretty obvious. In the 17th century, when Newton produced his theory of gravitation, he had to invent a whole new branch of mathematics to do the mathematics. And it was called the infinitesimal calculus. And infinitesimals had inconsistent properties. They were both zero and nonzero at different points in the mathematical calculations. And this was well known it was pointed out by Barkley. So physicists are prepared to using consistent mathematics. Now, I’m not sure there are any good cases at the moment where this is, in fact, the case. But because of the developments in paraconsistent, mathematics, that is mathematics, which based on logics which accept contradictions. We, we are now developing inconsistent mathematics in the full knowledge that it’s inconsistent, and we know what we’re doing for the first time. Now. Who knows what applications this mathematics will bear in the future? Often mathematics is developed without a particular application, and then physicists find applications for it later. Could this happen in the future physics? Well, maybe.

Ray Briggs
So I know how the story about infinitesimals ends was, which is actually with with the thing you called RE parameterization. Like, eventually, mathematicians came up with a consistent description. So one way of thinking about what was happening in the meantime, is that physicists had a theory that wasn’t true. It was contradictory. But that’s, that’s a case where like, re parameterization was the right answer. So it’s maybe weak evidence that like science, like fully developed science shouldn’t use contradictions.

Graham Priest
A small point: it wasn’t resolved because of parameterization. It was resolved because infinitesimals work gotten rid off from the menagerie of philosophy of mathematical objects.

Ray Briggs
So right So we replaced them with a different definition of what a limit was. And we did all of our calculus in terms of limits. And that was consistent. Well,

Graham Priest
Yeah, so the notion of a limit was invented, and it got rid of infinite decimals. But I gave that example merely to show that physicists are prepared to work with inconsistent mathematics. And they will use whatever mathematics gives the right makes the right predictions. And if it turns out that inconsistent mathematics makes the right predictions, then they’ll use it. And at least while there’s no better theory, they’ll take that to me as a correct description of reality. Will better theories turn up in due course? Who knows? Maybe they will. Maybe they won’t, maybe there’ll be inconsistent, maybe they won’t. When it comes to predicting the future of science, most bets are off.

Josh Landy
That makes sense. And you know, my bet would be Zeno’s Paradox isn’t gonna stay with us, because, you know, he makes some pretty good arguments for thinking there is a smallest unit of, of space or time and good arguments for thinking there isn’t as small as eternal space or time. And, wow, that’s a real fracture in the in the world, which brings me to a different kind of consequence for embracing true contradictions, which is one of my favorite quotes from Jorge Luis Borges who, in one of his essays says, We have dreamt the world. We it’s very Buddhist line, getting back to Buddhism, right? We’ve dreamt the world we’ve dreamt it is firm and durable. But in its architecture, we’ve allowed crevices of unreason, which tell us it’s false. It’s such a beautiful cosmological hypothesis that, you know, that being able to detect these true contradictions in the fabric of of the world opens our minds or could open our minds the possibility that something very interesting is going on maybe maybe humanity somehow drempt collectively drempt The experience that we’re having, what do you think about that kind of? You know, that it’s very, obviously very lyrical. But do you think there could be something to it?

Graham Priest
Well, it’s I like Borges, he’s one of my favorite writers. The view that he describes in this short story is a version of idealism, to the effect that, essentially, reality is some kind of mental fabrication. I guess, I’ve always been a kind of knee jerk reaction realist. But really, one of the features of realism is that the world is bloody complicated, and probably much more complicated than that we will ever understand. And one thing you should, one lesson you should draw from that, if it’s right, is a certain humility. If reality is much more complicated, that we can ever hope to get our head around completely, then you must be prepared to realize that the things you thought about it are indeed wrong, and not because it’s our dream, but because reality is like that. And so you shouldn’t necessarily believe what you’ve been taught in philosophy 100, or physics 100, or logic 100. Because these views are going to be revised probably indefinitely as we try to get our heads around the nature of this complex reality. So there’s a lesson about human humility here about our grasp of the world.

Ray Briggs
So Graham, if you wanted to give our listeners one thing that they could take away, to remind them to challenge sort of what they’d been dogmatically told and get get different perspectives on logic? What would you tell them?

Graham Priest
Well, the bottom line advice is Think for yourself. We all believe things, because we’re told I mean, if you think about it, most of the things we believe we believe them, because we’re told the facts about geography, facts about science, facts about religion, facts about ethics. And we often don’t question these I mean, you can’t question you need to take some things, for granted to act on. But one thing you should do is when the appropriate occasion arises, question these things. And that’s exactly one of the things that is great about philosophy, you have the liberty and in fact, the imperative to step back and think about and question these things. So, you know, when options, new options arise, don’t just write them off. Because you say, Well, you know, I was taught it doesn’t want to live in philosophy 100 OR logic 100. Think about the reasons that are involved. Think about the pros and cons, and examine these things that you’ve taken for granted.

Josh Landy
Great Unfortunately, we’re out of time. And I wish that meant we were also not out of time. But alas, it just means we’re out of time. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Graham Priest
My pleasure.

Josh Landy
Our guest has been Graham Priest, professor of philosophy at the City University of New York and author of “Doubt Truth to Be a Liar.” So Ray, what are you thinking now?

Ray Briggs
Well, I’m thinking that while we’ve seen that, like, a lot of Western philosophy doesn’t like true contradictions, because of Aristotle, there’s this whole other Buddhist tradition, which didn’t have this one guy hitting on true contradictions. And so which develops is really sophisticated way of treating them.

Josh Landy
Yeah, they were blessedly spared Aristotle, and you know, Boris, baby boy has has it more right than this long history of Western thinking. We’re gonna put links to Boris and Aristotle and everything else we’ve mentioned today on our website, philosophytalk.org, where you can also become a subscriber and gain access to our library of more than 500 episodes.

Ray Briggs
And if you have a question that wasn’t addressed in today’s show, we’d love to hear from you. Send it to us at comments@philosophytalk.org, and we might feature it on the blog

Josh Landy
Now, a man so fast he outruns even himself—it’s Ian Shoales the sixty-Second Philosopher.

Ian Shoales
Ian Shoales… America loves the story about George Washington chopping down the cherry tree and confessing to Papa. The story is not true but the lie reveals a truth about Washington, allegedly. Recently another President got us in a tizzy griping about fake news, and rigged elections. But he’s kind of a liar himself, which is maybe why truth seems so false these days. More like a cultural fad, led by conservatives. Take this quote from Ben Shapiro: “Our legacy media do not tell you the whole truth. … they generally pick and choose the narratives they think you are allowed to be told.” Tucker Carlson also said this after losing his gig at Fox. Editors edit the news. Stop the presses! That’s why Glenn Greenwald is on Substack. And now, as of this writing, Tucker is migrating his show to Twitter, where Elon Musk has made a home for free speech. That’s the narrative! Tucker also claimed that we will all be replaced by immigrants. This is actually called the Replacement Theory. So okay. Mexican guy crosses the border, gets bussed to New York to take a copywriting job away from a man of German Lutheran ancestry. How does that work? Is it just, “Get outta here, Bob, Jose’s got the account now.” Who gives the ugly truth to Bob? Some Woke guy from Disney I’ll bet, up from Florida after DeSantis kicked them out. Some Imagineer bureaucrat. A consultant. I thought it was all influencers now anyway. Didn’t Artificial Intelligence take over, replacing truth in advertising with a database of lies as beautiful as a phone call? Half the country still thinks Trump is President. Who’s to say it’s not true? Just the other week, Representatives Grassley and Comer drafted a letter, posted on Twitter, to Attorney General Garland and FBI Director Wray. They said an alleged whistleblower, allegedly, has filed a form with the DOJ and FBI, containing a precise description of the employment and purpose of an alleged criminal scheme between then Vice President Biden and a foreign national. Though Grassley and Comer have “a growing concern about the DOJ and the FBI’s track record of allowing political bias to infect their decision-making process,” they are requesting to see this form. “Based on the alleged specificity within the document it would appear that the DOJ and the FBI have enough information to determine [its] truth and accuracy ….” In other words, this evidence, which may or may not exist, of a scheme which may or not be real, and which you may or may not possess, leads us to ask you to give it to us, otherwise we may have to investigate why we don’t have it. Who’s going to fact check that? What facts are there to check? A blue check mark used to mark you on Twitter as somebody who might know something. Now it’s a participation trophy you pay for. Thanks, Elon. I just read a tweet by some conservative activist, calling for observers for every election day from now on.. Post yourself around polling places, look out for fake ballots, for people trying to sneak ballots in. The poster called them “Scrutineers.” Maybe DeSantis could post Scrutineers around Disney World to keep the Imagineers in line. Truth is fungible, in other words, with your good credit. I’d like to blame Trump for this, but we can also blame the legal system, and the media. Right now there are non zero men on death row who have been exonerated theoretically, because DNA matched the real killer. And yet the guy is still in prison. New trials cost money. We’re tired of science proving everything. Whatever happened to legwork and planting evidence? Once the verdict is in it should be true. When the condemned are innocent, it just throws justice in a cocked hat. That’s why Trump likes being President. He can do anything he wants to, presidents are innocent beings, like angels. Remember he was prepared to alter reality, using his own electors! And before you know it, he’d have been President again yammering to us 24/7 about whatever grievance he can scrape up. Wait, he IS doing that. I’d think it would be hard to maintain the victim pose when you’re running to be the leader of the free world, or, as some claim, still are the leader of the free world, but here we are! I cannot tell a lie, he lied. Is this the way? This way is not the way. Or is it? I gotta go.

Josh Landy
Philosophy Talk is a presentation of KALW San Francisco Bay Area and the trustees of Leland Stanford Junior University. Copyright 2023.

Ray Briggs
Our executive producer is Ben Trefny. The senior producer is Devon Strolovitch. Laura McGuire is our Director of Research.

Josh Landy
Thanks also to Jamie Lee, Elizabeth Zhu, Emily Wang, Merle Kessler and Angela Johnston.

Ray Briggs
Support for Philosophy Talk comes from various groups at Stanford University and from the Partners at our online Community of Thinkers.

Josh Landy
And from the members of KALW, local public radio San Francisco, where our program originates.

Ray Briggs
The views expressed or (mis-expressed) on this program do not necessarily represent the opinions of Stanford University or of our other funders.

Josh Landy
Not even when they’re true and reasonable. The conversation continues on our website, philosophytalk.org, where you can become a subscriber and gain access to our library of more than 500 episodes. I’m Josh Landy.

Ray Briggs
And I’m Ray Briggs. Thank you for listening.

And thank you for thinking.

Montage
I cannot tell a lie. I cannot tell a lie. I cannot tell a lie. I cannot tell a lie. I’m sorry, buddy.