Combining Texts

Ideas for 'After Finitude', 'Three Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous' and 'Logic (Encyclopedia I)'

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3 ideas

2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 2. Sufficient Reason
If we insist on Sufficient Reason the world will always be a mystery to us [Meillassoux]
     Full Idea: So long as we continue to believe that there is a reason why things are the way they are rather than some other way, we will construe this world is a mystery, since no such reason will every be vouchsafed to us.
     From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 4)
     A reaction: Giving up sufficient reason sounds like a rather drastic response to this. Put it like this: Will we ever be able to explain absolutely everything? No. So will the world always be a little mysterious to us? Yes, obviously. Is that a problem? No!
2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 3. Non-Contradiction
If truth is just non-contradiction, we must take care that our basic concepts aren't contradictory [Hegel]
     Full Idea: If truth were nothing more than lack of contradiction, one would have to examine first of all, with regard to each concept, whether it does not on its own account, contain an inner contradiction.
     From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §33 Rem)
     A reaction: This is a very nice thought, which modern analytic philosophers, steeped in logic, should think about. It is always presumed that a contradiction is between a proposition and its negation, not some inner feature.
Non-contradiction is unjustified, so it only reveals a fact about thinking, not about reality? [Meillassoux]
     Full Idea: The principle of non-contradiction itself is without reason, and consequently it can only be the norm for what is thinkable by us, rather than for what is possible in the absolute sense.
     From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 2)
     A reaction: This is not Meillassoux's view, but describes the modern heresy of 'correlationism', which ties all assessments of how reality is to our capacity to think about it. Personally I take logical non-contradiction to derive from non-contradiction in nature.