>
>
> ravi wrote:
> >
> > >
> > I am not sure what Woj intended, but I choose to read him as saying
> > something like this (which I might say): contradiction is a property
> > (or state) of logical systems. Logical systems are tools of the human
> > mind.
>
> This is so -- but it is still unacceptable as a comment on language. It
> is as silly as though someone were to critique the phrase "silly putty"
> on the grounds that silly was a state of mind. It is a naive concept of
> words as having a mystical one-and-only meaning, which is linguistically
> stupid. All words have many meanings, and you don't fight definitions,
> you just note which sense of the word is relevant to a given context.
>
> Carrol
Which was the point of Ravi using the phrase "logical system". Because in a Fregean logical system definitions are determined and each symbol has one-and-only-one meaning. Contradiction per-se is a "problem" of "logical systems" and not a problem of "natural systems" (scare quotes on logical and natural for obvious reasons .... words have many meanings.) Logical systems are refined properties of human minds, that limit thought to within a non-experiential system of calculus. Within any system of calculus "contradiction" is an important concept and tool.
But where I disagree with Ravi here is thusly. The human mind and logical systems or systems of calculus as well as the world "out there" are all part of "reality". They are different aspects of reality. So if we can find contradictions in logical systems or can use them as tools for the human mind, there is no reason to exclude such "contradictions" from "reality".
This has little to do with Woj's original reply but much to do with Ravi's reinterpretation of that reply.
Jerry
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