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2 ideas
| 23917 | Contrary statements can both be reasonable, if they are meant in two different ways [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Contrary things can be reasonably held …because the contrary positions will stand if what is said is true in one way, but not true in another. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1235b17) | |
| A reaction: My strategy here is to clarify the unambiguous underlying propositions which are being expressed. There will then be either agreement, or flat contradiction. |
| 6566 | The problem is to explain the role of contradiction in social life [Wittgenstein] |
| Full Idea: When a contradiction appears, we say: "I didn't mean it like that"; the civil status of a contradiction, or its status in civil life: there is the philosophical problem. | |
| From: Ludwig Wittgenstein (Philosophical Investigations [1952], §125), quoted by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: The point is that logical concepts such as contradiction are conventional, and not all-or-nothing, so we might agree that you didn't really contradict yourself (when perhaps you uttered a witty ironic paradox). I don't see the problem as philosophical. |