Here I attempt to clarify the general sense of the question that forms the background of Hegel's section on contradiction: What is the essence of contradiction? To what extent does this question pose a philosophical problem for Hegel? By considering this problem can we come to understand contradiction as a relation pertaining to "objective logic"? Translated by Erin Flynn & Kenneth R. Westphal. Originally published as "Über Hegels Lehre vom Widerspruch," in: Dieter Henrich, ed., Hegels Wissenschaft der (...) Logik: Formation und Rekonstruktion (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1986), 107-28. (shrink)

It is well known that Hegel departs from tradition in his treatment of the concept of contradiction in a way that is scandalous to some. This book explores the question of what Hegel means by contradiction and how it can be made useful for philosophy. Bekannt ist, dass Hegel in seiner Behandlung des Widerspruchs in einer für manche skandalösen Art von der Tradition abweicht. Vorliegendes Buch geht der Frage nach, was Hegel unter einem Widerspruch überhaupt versteht und auf (...) welche Weise er für die Philosophie dienstbar gemacht werden kann. (shrink)

In this paper, I respond to what I have called an epistemological objection to a dialetheist approach to the doctrine of the Incarnation, of which one example is Beall’s contradictory Christ. I discuss Anderson’s book Paradox in Christian theology, in which the author claims to account for the rationality of the doctrine of the Incarnation as a merely apparently contradictory doctrine, and I present my model, based on Anderson’s model, according to which the doctrine has the (...) possibility to be rational by understanding it as genuinely contradictory. I show that this model fits perfectly well with the criteria that, according to Anderson, any model for the rationality of a paradoxical doctrine should meet. Beall does not address the problem of the rationality of the doctrine in his works about the contradictory Christ, and he asserts that he is not interested in it. However, I think that if he wants to make his theory more robust, less suspicious, and more convincing for theologians, philosophers, and ordinary people, he should consider this problem. (shrink)

The doctrine of the Intelligent Design offers an intuitive explanation of why the ordering in the Universe is authored by an intentional agency. Due to its appeal to common-sense perception, this doctrine is endorsed even by scientifically literate circles despite of its obvious contradiction with the discoveries of science. In this article, an attempt to apply the tools of the cognitive science of religion to the appraisal of the methodological and epistemic status of the ID doctrine (...) is presented. It is concluded that the ID doctrine may serve as means of the real-time metaphorical reassurance of the creative power of God while it cannot give grounds to any literal inferences on the nature of the Divine action. (shrink)

This article proposes an analysis of the doctrine of sufficiency. According to my reading, the doctrine's basic positive claim is ‘prioritarian’: benefiting x is of special moral importance where (and only where) x is badly off. Its negative claim is anti-egalitarian: most comparative facts expressed by statements of the type ‘x is worse off than y’ have no moral significance at all. This contradicts the ‘classical’ priority view according to which, although equality per se does not matter, whenever (...) x is worse off than y, at least some priority should be assigned to helping x. Section I elaborates and defends this reconstruction of the doctrine of sufficiency, and section II shows that the privileged utility level presumed within the sufficiency framework exists. (shrink)

This is the first translation into English of a milestone in Nietzsche interpretation. Wolfgang Mller-Lauter examines Nietzsche's doctrines of the will to power and the overman in light of Nietzsche's philosophy of real contradictions.

The doctrine of Microphysical Supervenience (MS) states that: Necessarily, if atoms A1 through An compose an object that exemplified intrinsic qualitative properties Q1 through Qn, then atoms like A1 through An (in all their respective intrinsic qualitative properties), related to one another by all the same restricted atom-to-atom relations as A1 through An, compose an object that exemplifies Q1 through Qn. I show that MS entails a contradiction and so must be rejected. And my argument against MS provides (...) the resources to show that Global Microphysical Supervenience (GMS) is false. GMS states that possible worlds qualitatively exactly alike at the microphysical level are qualitatively exactly alike at the macrophysical level. (shrink)

On the key concept of Maya, principle of unifying contradiction between Brahman and the world, cause and the effect, the subject and the object, according to Vedanta school in Hindu philosophy; a study.

This article challenges the prevailing interpretations of Hegel's account of the concept "contradiction" in the Science of Logic by arguing that it is concerned with the principle of Hegel's method rather than with the classical law of non-contradiction. I first consider Hegel's Doctrine of Essence in view of Kant's discussion of the concepts of reflection in the first Critique. On this basis, I examine Hegel's account of the logical principles based on the concepts "identity," "opposition," and " (...) class='Hi'>contradiction." Finally, I point out how the principle Hegel derives from the concept of contradiction actually informs his own method. (shrink)

Under the standard formulation of the Doctrine of Double Effect, an act is permissible only if it is the result of an intention to do good and not the result of an intention to do bad. Many find that this absurdly ties the act’s permissibility to the agent’s character and not to features of the act itself. In light of such criticism, some philosophers have reformulated the doctrine so that it holds that an act is permissible given that (...) it results from an intention to do good by some agent. I argue that this appeal to possible intentions to do good fails. There is no modal or moral reason to privilege intentions to do good over those to do bad, and without privileging them, this version of the Doctrine of Double Effect leads to contradiction. In many scenarios, if a possible intention to do good is considered to be sufficient for permissibility, then in that same scenario a possible intention to do bad should be sufficient for impermissibility. However, one and the same act can have both possible intentions to do good and possible intentions to do bad. Thus, the principle leads to the contradictory ruling that one and the same act is both permissible and impermissible. (shrink)

The crisis situation of the present human society is considered in modern theology as a state of spiritual degradation, which in general is inherent in the whole human race. Ignoring the spiritual factor in public life, according to theologians, is a major source of deepening social contradictions. Impotence is the source of all misery in personal, family and social life. Therefore, today sermons from the church's ambon sound with appeals to the moral and spiritual revival of man, with the teachings (...) of how to understand in their hearts. (shrink)

'God needs no instruments to act', Malebranche writes in Search 6.2.3; 'it suffices that He wills in order that a thing be, because it is a contradiction that He should will and that what He wills should not happen. Therefore, His power is His will' (450). After nearly identical language in Treatise 1.12, Malebranche writes that '[God's] wills are necessarily efficacious ... [H]is power differs not at all from [H]is will' (116). God's causal power, here, clearly traces only to (...) His volitions - not merely to the fact that He wills, but specifically to the content of His volitions ('"what" He wills'). Yet despite the obviously key role the ordinary notion of volitional content plays for Malebranche, recent writers have paid surprisingly little attention either to it or its exegetical implications. I hope to rectify this situation here. The plan of this paper is this: first, to borrow current work in the philosophy of mind to sketch the notion of an incomplete volition, i.e. one whose content is 'incomplete' in a sense to be explained; second, to show that Malebranche clearly allows and uses something like this notion; third, to apply the notion to Malebranche's doctrine of human freedom. In so doing, I believe, we can understand this doctrine in a new way, and one which: (i) is clearly consistent with his texts, and (ii) unlike other interpretations makes coherent sense out of the conflicting streams in his heroic attempt to reconcile his occasionalism - the doctrine that no finite substances have genuine causal powers - with our freedom; fourth, Contrast my interpretation with those of two recent writers: Sleigh et al. (1998) and Schmaltz (1996); and Fifth, Summarize the major results. (shrink)

Hegel’s theory of dialectic has long been a source of both endless confusion and bitter debate. It has, for instance, been oversimplified and characterized as the mechanical movement from thesis to antithesis to synthesis. In a similar vein, some philosophers in the analytic tradition have reproached Hegel’s notion of dialectic, claiming that it amounts to an outright and absurd denial of the law of contradiction. The dialectic has, moreover, been co-opted and developed by some of Hegel’s most impassioned critics (...) such as Marx and Kierkegaard. One of the most controversial aspects of Hegel’s theory of dialectic has been his perplexing doctrine of determinate negation, which has proven to be difficult for even the most sympathetic interpreters to make sense of. Determinate negation is Hegel’s way of referring to the positive aspect of the dialectic which makes the conceptual movement a constructive one and not a purely destructive or negative one. Although Hegel discusses his notion of determinate negation at some length in the Phenomenology, interpreters have traditionally gone to the Science of Logic in order to illustrate this doctrine. In this essay by contrast, I would like to discuss this difficult and disputed concept of determinate negation by means of an example drawn from the “Consciousness” chapter of the Phenomenology of Spirit. At the transition from “Sense-Certainty” to “Perception,” the first two sections of that chapter, Hegel describes explicitly the aspect of determinate negation that the dialectic evinces at that point, and it is this transition and this uncharacteristic passage that I wish to examine in some detail. In the first section of this essay, I will discuss Hegel’s notion of dialectic generally in order to pinpoint the role of determinate negation in relation to the dialectic’s other aspects. Then in the second section, I will proceed to analyze his account of determinate negation specifically, drawing on various passages throughout the Hegelian corpus. I will give a brief account of “Sense-Certainty” in my third section in order to set the context for the transition to “Perception.” Finally, in the fourth section, I will analyze this transition to “Perception” in terms of the doctrine of determinate negation. (shrink)

This essay is a response to Ron Highfield’s critique of Rahner’s doctrine of sin and freedom. Highfield holds that Rahner’s doctrine of sin is erroneous because it is rooted in Rahner’s attribution of a divine-like character (i.e., definitiveness) to human freedom. This attribution, according to Highfield, leads to Rahner’s misunderstanding of biblical and dogmatic texts on human freedom, internal contradictions in his doctrine of sin, and the blurring of the distinction between Creator and creature, nature and grace, (...) philosophy and theology.The essay rebuts these charges by drawing attention to Rahner’s emphasis on the analogical character of our discourse about human freedom, to his theology of death, to the difference between absoluteness and definitiveness, to the distinction between liberum arbitrium and libertas, and to Rahner’s theology of time andhistoricity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Nietzsche. His Philosophy of Contradictions and the Contradictions of His PhilosophyAlan D. SchriftWolfgang Müller-Lauter. Nietzsche. His Philosophy of Contradictions and the Contradictions of His Philosophy. Translated from the German by David J. Parent. Foreword by Richard Schacht. Ghicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999. Pp. xviii + 246. Paper, $21.95.Since this work first appeared in 1971, Wolfgang Müller-Lauter has been at the forefront of German Nietzsche scholarship. The long (...) overdue appearance in English translation of this important work is a welcome addition to the Nietzsche literature and, although dated in some respects, it remains an important work that warrants careful attention. As Richard Schacht notes in his foreword, the original publication of this work was a significant event in the history of Nietzsche studies in Germany. Coming ten years after the publication of Heidegger's massive two-volume Nietzsche, Müller-Lauter's book "provided a much-needed counterweight" to Heidegger's idiosyncratic treatment (ix). Aside from proferring a significant rejoinder to the Heideggerian interpretation, Müller-Lauter also responds to a vast array of German Nietzsche scholars, some well-known (K. Löwith, K. Jaspers, E. Fink, K. Schlechta), but many much less familiar. As such, this book is an important piece of historical scholarship, offering the contemporary English-speaking reader an interesting picture of German scholarship on Nietzsche before Heidegger's work took center stage as the dominant (unfortunately, some would say only) German work worth engaging.But Müller-Lauter's book is not just of historical interest; it offers a powerful and profound reading of Nietzsche's corpus focused on the question of contradiction, both the contradictions readers find amidst Nietzsche's various works and Nietzsche's own philosophy of contradiction, namely, that contradictoriness is in some sense constitutive of the world. For Müller-Lauter, contradiction, the unresolvable conflict between essentially antithetical perspectives, grounds Nietzsche's philosophizing in wills to power. Emphasizing the plurality of conflicting wills to power, Müller-Lauter offers in successive chapters interpretations of Nietzsche's views on history as the "concrete occurrences" of these conflicting wills to power; nihilism as the process by which an organized system of forces (physical, social, intellectual, cultural) disintegrates into an antagonistic multiplicity of competing wills; morality as demanding truths that, once discovered, it can neither face nor accept, fleeing instead into a fictitious world of its own creation; Christian truthfulness as a destruction of truth that presents a "multiplicity of mutually opposing untruths" (72). All of these interpretations are shown to rest upon a contradiction at the heart of Nietzsche's own account of will to power, namely, that the strong will to power both affirms the multiplicity of perspectives and yet imposes its perspective as absolute.This is the paradox of the overman, a paradox Müller-Lauter addresses in his final chapter on "the doctrine of eternal recurrence." Not surprisingly, the eternal recurrence reveals itself to be essentially contradictory. But this contradiction is not self-refuting; rather "since the eternal recurrence is only as a thought and a doctrine, its meaning remains insurmountably split into a duality" (121) reflected in two ultimately incompatible types of overman. There is, on the one hand, the "powerful overman" who sees the entirety of what is as necessary for his own existence; to affirm eternal [End Page 453] recurrence is to understand everything that has been as a necessary series of events that ends with himself at its apex. But there is also the "wise overman," who understands the totality of what has been and is as necessary for his having arrived at the present moment in which he transcends himself and becomes other. Where the meaning of the powerful overman's affirmation of eternal recurrence resides in his appearance as the being who is dominant, the meaning of the wise overman's affirmation lies in understanding and accepting what has been as the precondition for both what he presently is and what he can become. Although both types of overman want recurrence, Müller-Lauter concludes they want something different in it and by it: the wise overman "is concerned with dissolving in the stream of... (shrink)

I focus on the question as to what rationale could possibly underlie the doctrine of double effect or related principles. I first briefly review the correct critiques of the claim that people who intend some evil as a means to a good must be “guided by evil,” and that this is allegedly always wrong. I then argue that Quinn’s claim that violations of the DDE express certain negative attitudes of the agent and that agents violating the DDE must make (...) an additional morally problematic presumption regarding their victims is mistaken. Tadros claims that an agent violating the means principle must force his victims to adopt his goals. I demonstrate that the difference Tadros tries to construe between an agent inflicting intended harm and an agent inflicting merely foreseen harm is non-existent. Sarch’s official rationale for the DDE also fails to distinguish harming as a means from side-effect harming, and reformulations of his rationale that suggest themselves run into severe problems. Walen’s defense of the means principle in terms of the “restricting claims principle” and Øverland’s appeal to “moral obstacles” are susceptible to counter-examples and appear to be question-begging. Recently, Walen has offered a revised formulation of his Restricting Claims Principle, claiming that it overcomes counter-examples and explains the means principle. I will argue that it contradicts the means principle and does not overcome the counter-examples. Thus I conclude that so far we are still left without a reasonable rationale for the DDE or related principles. (shrink)

It is well known that Augustine, Boethius, Anselm and Aquinas participated in a tradition of philosophical theology which determined God to be simple, perfect, immutable and timelessly eternal. Within the parameters of such an Hellenic understanding of the divine nature, they sought a clarification of one of the fundamental teachings of their Christian faith, the doctrine of the Trinity. These classical theists were not dogmatists, naively unreflective about the very possibility of their project. Aquinas, for instance, explicitly worried about (...) and fought to dispel the seeming contradiction between the philosophical requirement of divine simplicity and the creedal insistence on a threefold personhood in God. 1 Nevertheless, doubts abound. Philosophers otherwise friendly to Classical Theism still remain unsure about the coherence of affirming a God that is at once absolutely simple and triune. 2 A less friendly critic has even suggested that the theory of divine simplicity pressured Augustine and his medieval followers away from recognizing that real complexity within the life of God which Trinitarianism expresses. 3. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the genesis of Hegel’s philosophy of nature. It shows us that the formation of the natural philosophical views of the German philosopher took place not only in a speculative way, in the critical reception of Schelling’s works, but, first of all and for the most part, was predetermined by Hegel’s own interest in natural science and acquaintance with some prominent scientists of that time. The focus of the paper is on the evolution of the first (...) part of Hegel’s natural philosophy: the doctrine of space and time as it presented in some excerpts from two revised lecture notes on the philosophy of nature, read by Hegel in the winter semester of 1821/1822 at the University of Berlin and published as an appendix to the article by Bonzipen. In his article, Bonzipen provides historical information on the fate of these texts, raises the question of their authorship, gives a general outline of Hegel’s thought, and also compares both texts with the second edition of the Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences. From his point of view, the revised notes allow partly to illustrate, partly to fill in some gaps in the dialectic of two forms of abstract appearance known on the basis of the Encyclopedia. Bonzipen notes that Hegel’s speculative consideration of space and time is complemented by a discussion with the history of philosophy and the history of mathematics. While reproaching traditional mathematics for being fixed on the quantitative aspect of reality, which does not allow to fully resolve the contradiction between space and time, Hegel at the same time refuses to attempt to build philosophical mathematics that focuses on the consideration of the qualitative certainty of the moments of space and time, declaring that although it is solvable, it is an extremely time-consuming task. This refusal becomes a turning point in the further development of the dialectical doctrine of space and time. (shrink)

In the article by О.Pidluzhna "Pentecostal hamartiologiya and the doctrine of the salvation of man in the theology of Christians of the Evangelical Faith" it is pointed out that Pentecostals do not have the doctrinal corpus of documents of their faith unified for all communities. This gives rise to certain difficulties in their own self-presentation and agreement with each other, as well as in scientific attempts to interpret Pentecostal practices. The author proves that the doctrine of saving man (...) in Pentecostal is the most multifaceted and perfect, it is almost impossible to find differences for the existence of other interpretations, otherwise it will contradict the Holy Scripture. An attempt has been made to emphasize the study of the main components of the biblical doctrine of human salvation within the theology of the Assemblies of the Churches of God, in contrast to the scientific generalized joint experience of the classical Pentecostals and charismatics. (shrink)

The problem of the dynamic of development is a fundamental problem over which materialist dialectics has been struggling with metaphysics for a long time. The metaphysical cant of the "gang of four," which frantically promoted the "philosophy of struggle," distorted and perverted this problem beyond recognition. In order to correct the confusion and accelerate the realization of the four modernizations, a thorough critique of the false doctrines of the "gang of four" must provide a correct response to this problem.

My target in this paper is a view that has sometimes been called the ‘ Linguistic Doctrine of Necessary Truth ’ and sometimes ‘Conventionalism about Necessity’. It is the view that necessity is grounded in the meanings of our expressions—meanings which are sometimes identified with the conventions governing those expressions—and that our knowledge of that necessity is based on our knowledge of those meanings or conventions. In its simplest form the view states that a truth, if it is necessary, (...) is necessary because it is analytic. It is widely recognized that this simple version of the view faces a prima facie problem with the existence of the necessary a posteriori. Assuming that all analytic truths are a priori, if there are necessary a posteriori truths then there are necessary synthetic truths—contradicting the view’s claim that all necessary truths are analytic. Contemporary L-DONTers have things to say about the problem, but in this paper I want to suggest that there is a different, more serious, problem which arises from the phenomenon of indexicality, which L-DONTers have not taken account of. Though there are many versions of the problem, a simple one is this. Consider Kaplan’s celebrated sentence. (shrink)

MANY COMMENTATORS HAVE SAID THAT KANT'S DOCTRINE OF THE HIGHEST GOOD - AS EXPRESSED IN THE SECOND CRITIQUE, FOR EXAMPLE - IS SERIOUSLY FLAWED BOTH IN ITSELF AND IN THAT IT CONTRADICTS OTHER IMPORTANT CLAIMS OF KANT'S MORAL PHILOSOPHY. I ADVANCE AN INTERPRETATION OF KANT'S DOCTRINE ON WHICH IT SUFFERS FROM NONE OF THESE ALLEGED FLAWS.

Virtually all schools of Buddhism do not accept a permanent, substantial self, and see everything as non-self. In the first part of this article I recall some arguments traditionally given in support of this perspective. Descartes’ cogito argument contradicts this, by suggesting that we know infallibly that the self, understood as a substantial enduring entity, does exist. The German aphorist Lichtenberg has suggested that all Descartes could claim to have established was the impersonal ‘There is thinking’, which would support the (...) perspective of non-self. Bernard Williams has argued that Lichtenberg’s impersonal version of the cogito is conceptually incoherent, which would entail that the Buddhist perspective of non-self is also incoherent. I propose to defend the coherence of the Buddhist perspective of non-self against Williams’s argument. (shrink)

This is an examination of the dialectical structure of deep disagreements about matters not open to empirical check. A dramatic case in point is the Law of Non-Contradiction . Dialetheists are notoriously of the view that, in some few cases, LNC has a true negation. The traditional position on LNC is that it is non-negotiable. The standard reason for thinking it non-negotiable is, being a first principle, there is nothing to negotiate. One of my purposes is to show that (...) the first-principle defence of LNC is inadequate. A second purpose is to argue that it flows from this inadequacy that LNC stands or falls on economic considerations, much in the spirit of Quine's pragmatism about logic generally. This is a tactical victory for dialetheists. It gives them room to make the case against LNC on cost-benefit grounds. As things presently stand, no such case can be considered decisive. But, given that costs and benefits shift with changing circumstances, it is possible that a winning case for the dialetheist may present itself in the future. Notwithstanding the rivalry between consistentists and dialetheists, they share a common opponent. This is trivialism, the doctrine that everything whatever is true. It is an ironic alliance, in as much as the dialetheist's case against the consistentist can be adapted to a defence of trivialism. How damaging this turns out to be depends on the adequacy of the reasons for the dialetheist's rejection of trivialism. My further purpose is to show that the damage is slighter than dialetheists commonly believe. (shrink)

Science has demonstrated that the universe creates itself through its own history. This history is the result of a probabilistic process, not a deterministic execution of a plan. Science has also documented that human beings are a result of this universal, probabilistic process of general evolution. At first sight, these results seem to contradict Christian teaching. According to the Bible, history is essentially the history of salvation. Human beings therefore are not an “accident of nature” but special creations to be (...) saved. With deeper theological probing, it becomes clearer, however, that creation must create itself. The Christian God is the loving God who enters into a loving relationship with human beings if they desire to reciprocate. If creation could not create itself, human beings could not be free. Without freedom to ignore or reject God's love, the central act of the Christian God, the drama of salvation, would become a parody played by marionettes in the hands of a supernatural manipulator. Christians should welcome the fundamental insight brought forth by science that the universe, including human beings, created itself through its own history. This article will try to show that this scientific insistence is required and confirmed by the intrinsic character of the orthodox, Judeo‐Christian concept of God. That nature has to create itself, including human beings, secures human freedom and with it, the responsibility for human actions. From this perspective one might better understand the Bible in the light of God's revelation through the book of nature. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the genesis of Hegel’s philosophy of nature. It shows us that the formation of the natural philosophical views of the German philosopher took place not only in a speculative way, in the critical reception of Schelling’s works, but, first of all and for the most part, was predetermined by Hegel’s own interest in natural science and acquaintance with some prominent scientists of that time. The focus of the paper is on the evolution of the first (...) part of Hegel’s natural philosophy: the doctrine of space and time as it presented in some excerpts from two revised lecture notes on the philosophy of nature, read by Hegel in the winter semester of 1821/1822 at the University of Berlin and published as an appendix to the article by Bonzipen. In his article, Bonzipen provides historical information on the fate of these texts, raises the question of their authorship, gives a general outline of Hegel’s thought, and also compares both texts with the second edition of the Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences. From his point of view, the revised notes allow partly to illustrate, partly to fill in some gaps in the dialectic of two forms of abstract appearance known on the basis of the Encyclopedia. Bonzipen notes that Hegel’s speculative consideration of space and time is complemented by a discussion with the history of philosophy and the history of mathematics. While reproaching traditional mathematics for being fixed on the quantitative aspect of reality, which does not allow to fully resolve the contradiction between space and time, Hegel at the same time refuses to attempt to build philosophical mathematics that focuses on the consideration of the qualitative certainty of the moments of space and time, declaring that although it is solvable, it is an extremely time-consuming task. This refusal becomes a turning point in the further development of the dialectical doctrine of space and time. (shrink)

The article considers six standard arguments in favour of an unfettered free market: (1) the freedom to consume; (2) the freedom of the seller; (3) the freedom of the producer; (4) freedom from government interference; (5) lower costs; (6) promotion of democracy. It demonstrates that each of these arguments turns out to be incoherent on closer examination. The ground of this incoherence it is shown, is the market doctrine's systematic omission of non-business costs and benefits from its analysis, a (...) methodological blindness which can only be overcome by a wider-lensed comprehension of economic value. (shrink)

The paper discusses the problem of the source of the analogies between philosophical outlook of the Sophists and the skeptical tradition of Pyrrho and his successors. Its main objective is to point out that the similarities in standpoints, arguments and methods between these philosophical phenomena result from the transmission of Plato’s Theaetetus. It is argued that main ideas (phenomenalism, subjectivism, relativity and indeterminacy of things, rejection of being and acceptance of becoming and constant flux, antilogical position consisting in opposing two (...) contradictory statements etc.) which in Theaetetus constituted so called “Secret Doctrine” (attributed by Plato to Protagoras and disciples of Heraclitus), after being criticized by Aristotle in his discussion about the principle of contradiction in Metaphysics (books IV and XI), were acknowledged by Pyrrho and, revived by Aenesidemus, can be found incorporated into the skeptical tradition in the works of Sextus Empiricus. -/- . (shrink)

The article treats the doctrine of transubstantiation or the Eucharistic change as formulated by Thomas Aquinas in his Summa theologiae, Question 75, against its double conceptual (Christian religious vs. Aristotelian philosophical), as well as double linguistic (Latin vs. translated Greek), background. The doctrine is presented and analyzed as a philosophical-theological theory that can be explicated and assessed using the concept of philosophical untranslatable(s), recently discovered and brought to the fore by the proponents of the “translational turn” in continental (...) philosophy. It is argued on the basis of careful study of Aquinas’ text that the notion of transubstantiation should be identified as a conceptual untranslatable. -/- Here the term “untranslatable” means a unique reinterpretation of Aristotelian language of being and change, which results in a conceptual innovation that has some inherent problems as well as creative and promising inventions. The usage of such a concept is justified by the fact that the reconceptualization that Aquinas did to a number of Peripatetic ideas creates a few untranslatable notions, which do not have much meaning outside the peculiarly Thomistic Latin vocabulary. Despite some criticisms they are not necessarily to be regarded as contradictions, but rather as thomistic untranslatables. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that the notion of monetary debt does not displace but merely conceals our deeper, ontological debt to the sources of our being and way of life. I suggest that first Christianity and then modern science attempted to find a means of redemption that could free us from debt, but that both were unable to reconcile the ideas of freedom and indebtedness. I then examine the way in which Friedrich Nietzsche tried to resolve the apparent (...) class='Hi'>contradiction of our debt to the past and our freedom to shape the future by developing a new form of redemption rooted in his doctrine of the eternal recurrence. (shrink)

In his book, The Coherence of Theism, Richard Swinburne seeks to construct a coherent doctrine of God. As a part of this endeavour he examines the idea of omniscience in chapter 10. One of Swinburne's conclusions is that God as an omniscient being must engage in cognitive self- limitation in order to preserve the freedom of both divine and human future actions. In this paper, I want to look at his argument as it is presented in this chapter. I (...) will conclude that Swinburne's position on divine cognitive self- limitation results in an internal contradiction. (shrink)

Andrey Tashchian | : Chez saint Augustin le numerus sert de principe ontologique de la beauté finie en révélant l’ascension métaphysique du sensible vers l’intelligible. De plus, se divisant en sphères objective et subjective, le numerus s’avère être une totalité, « l’idée ». Toutefois, comme une forme de la culture antique, ce concept n’est pas connu comme une contradiction réelle, et ainsi les numeri éternels ne sont pas postulés comme un processus où la subjectivité finie, le moi, deviendrait nécessaire (...) pour la substance infinie. Donc, dans la doctrine de saint Augustin, l’essence de la science de la musique n’a pas la valeur de l’activité humaine consciente de soi. | : In St. Augustine’s doctrine of rhythm numerus manifests the metaphysical ascent from sensuousness to rationality and is the ontological root of finite beauty. Moreover, numerus is differentiated into the objective and subjective spheres, proving to be a totality, the “idea.” Meanwhile, as a formation of antique culture, this concept is not known as a real contradiction, and thereby eternal numeri are not posited as a process in which finite subjectivity, I would be a necessity for the infinite substance. So, in St. Augustine’s doctrine the essence of the science of music has not the value of man’s self-conscious activity. (shrink)

Western philosophy has mainly developed in accordance with the three laws of identity, noncontradiction and excluded middle, also known as “laws of thought”. Since Zen Buddhism often violates these apparently indisputable logical principles, a superficial reading may induce the idea that Zen Buddhism is a completely irrational, illogical doctrine. In this essay, I argue that Zen Buddhism is not absurd or illogical. Conversely, it relies on a different logic, which is perfectly consonant with the Buddhist view of the world.

In this paper I show that the existence of an infinite temporal regress does not undermine the soundness of Craigs version of the Kalam Cosmological Argument. To this end I shall focus on a particular complication that Craig raises against one of his arguments in support of a finite temporal regress. I will show that this complication can be made innocuous by extending the notion of A-theoretic time, which is presupposed by Craigs argument, to include a notion of temporal becoming (...) that is compatible with the existence of an infinite regress of temporal events. All this shows that God could have created an infinite temporal regress a finite time in the past without this entailing a contradiction. (shrink)

This article focuses on the applications of philosophical logic in the discipline of philosophy of religion of both ‘Eastern’ and ‘Western’ traditions, in which the problem of apparent ontological contradictions can be found. A number of philosophers have proposed using the work of those non-classical logicians who countenance the violation of the law of non-contradiction (LNC) to address this problem. I discuss (1) whether classical or non-classical account of logic is universal in applying to all true theories, and (2) (...) whether there might be extra-logical considerations which affect what is the correct account of logic for the doctrines in question. With regard to Jc Beall’s application of non-classical (FDE) logic to the doctrine of the Incarnation, I argue using the evidence from the writings of church fathers that the meaning of negation found in the core claims of the doctrine of the Incarnation should not be interpreted in accordance with Beall’s FDE account, and that this extra-logical consideration refutes Beall’s project. Moreover, the FDE’s acceptance of the possibility of statements that are both true and false is contrary to what is allowed by the definition of negation in classical logic; therefore (contrary to Beall), Beall is in fact using a different definition of negation compared with the definition used by the classical account. I develop this point in interaction with contemporary philosophy of religion literature and explain its implications and significance for this discipline. (shrink)

The author provides another metaphysical argument to bolster his thesis of the logical harmony of determinism and volition. He shows how the typical mainstream and Objectivist doctrine of “libertarian” free will commits the same logical error as the Sophist attacks on the Law of Non-Contradiction—namely, an out-of-context interpretation of, respectively, the Law of Causality and the Law of Identity as being unconditional absolutes, which they are not and cannot be.

In the XVII-XVIII centuries. socio-political contradictions in the Russian empire led to the separation from orthodoxy of a number of communities, commonly known as "spiritual Christians," or the old Russian sectarianism. Declaring the doctrine of Orthodoxy authoritarian, they advocated the profession of faith "in the spirit and in the truth," for a spiritual interpretation of Scripture. All spiritual Christians are characterized by: the rejection of the Orthodox Church and the whole institute of the church hierarchy, the basic Orthodox dogmas, (...) sacraments, the cult of the saints, icons, as well as the belief in the incarnation of the Holy Spirit in living people, the "spiritual" baptism which is the teaching of the word of God, human self-communication with God. They declared the whole world spiritual, condemned luxury, preached severe asceticism. (shrink)

In this paper I show that proofs by contradiction were a serious problem in seventeenth century mathematics and philosophy. Their status was put into question and positive mathematical developments emerged from such reflections. I analyse how mathematics, logic, and epistemology are intertwined in the issue at hand. The mathematical part describes Cavalieri's and Guldin's mathematical programmes of providing a development of parts of geometry free of proofs by contradiction. The logical part shows how the traditional Aristotelean doctrine (...) that perfect demonstrations are causal demonstrations influenced the reflection on proofs by contradiction. The main protagonist of this part is Wallis. Finally, I analyse some epistemological developments arising from the Cartesian tradition. In particular, I look at Arnauld's programme of providing an epistemologically motivated reformulation of Geometry free of proofs by contradiction. The conclusion explains in which sense these epistemological reflections can be compared with those informing contemporary intuitionism. (shrink)

There is a widespread view that Buddhist philosophy embodies logical contradictions such that there would be 'true' contradictions, This article explains that this is not the case and that Buddhist philosophy, more generally the Perennial philosophy, denies all contradictions for the sake of a doctrine of Unity.

Reason and Doctrinepresents a simple, straightforward outline of Christian dogmas that not only contradict the scientific world view, they have no foundation in scripture. The author considers a wide range of ancient texts in Greek, Hebrew, and Latin, and their contemporary translations, and discusses the texts that have come to be known as Paul's letters, where he finds distinct errors from the references to Genesis to the accepted story of Jesus as a blood sacrifice. While fully documented and founded on (...) a scholarly investigation, the book is written for general readers. (shrink)