Hartshorne's program seems to presuppose also that the «backbone» of metaphysics is neutral to the «flesh» (content) of reality, so that when we say coherence or consistency, these words mean, or should mean, the same for different philosophers.2 It is true that some metaphilosophical principles are almost universally accepted (
e.g. noncontradiction), but others are strictly connected with given systems.
If the fundamental requirement of
noncontradiction also defines mathematical systems, then one would expect to find mathematical constructions serving as models of the empirical world, as they do in every quantified science.
It means that
noncontradiction is not the only criterion of logical possibility.
More narrowly, real possibility is limited by the law of
noncontradiction and by laws of nature.
Broadly speaking, logical possibility is restricted only by the law of
noncontradiction.
It's why things make sense — the reason cause follows effect — the law of
noncontradiction — the creative mind that accounts for why there is something rather than nothing.
So I would hope that in the postmodern wilderness Lewis would keep on making his arguments, in the confidence that people can be brought to recognize that the rules of reason such as the law of
noncontradiction are not the iron cage of outmoded rationalism but reason's royal road to discovering what is true.
Victor Turner considered Christian faith the most obviously reasonable worldview available, while his wife believed that the most important realities were beyond logic and even the law of
noncontradiction, which she considered a Western cultural imposition: «The fact of [religious differences across cultures] is to be celebrated, not deplored, and because religion is beyond logical articulation their differences present no problems on the score of logic.»
Scientific reason, if accurate, was valid, but it was not the only valid kind of reasoning:
noncontradiction, validity, truth, value, meaning, purpose, and obligation were necessary presuppositions of the scientific method but not themselves scientific phenomena.
It conforms, for example, albeit unconsciously, to the principle of
noncontradiction, whereas contradictions disturb the mythical mentality but little.
(Of course, if someone denies a first principle, this does not necessarily end discussion: As Aristotle showed when he defended the very first principle of all reasoning, the principle of
noncontradiction, one can dialectically defend such principles - one way being to show that, in some cases, to deny a first principle is self - inconsistent.)
In clear, idiomatic prose, deployed for both scholars and lay readers in fourteen dense but short and readable chapters, Jaki uses Aristotle's fundamental doctrine of
noncontradiction to give a classic but also contemporary defense of the inescapably metaphysical character of will, mind, cognition, reason, and especially of language itself.
This produces a situation characterized by unity of being (that is, unity of reality and truth); unity of the creator with his creation (but this is through the mediation of humanity);
noncontradiction and fullness: «and when they had everything, they desired nothing.»
This is merely to suggest a reason for the coerciveness of the principle of
noncontradiction.
It further suggests that man is bound by existential necessities stemming from his spatiotemporal embodiment, and that fulfillment of his freedom and rationality depends upon conforming the processes of thought to the elemental demands of necessity through loyalty to the rule of
noncontradiction.
Clearly, the principle of
noncontradiction is required for all orderly thought.
He succinctly stated this truth, known as «the law of
noncontradiction.»
(In a world in which we believe we are all composed of a smithereens of protean, Pelagian subselves, this had better be true — at least if you like
your noncontradiction served nonviolently.)
All one needs is the basic logic of the law of
noncontradiction.
Sir Karl's The Open Society and Its Enemies has become by now a classic argument for rationalism, as eloquent a defense of scientific tolerance as most believers in the law of
noncontradiction are likely to want.
We have to rely on intuition, they contend, where our discursive justifications come to an end, for instance in the fundamental laws of logic, such as the principle of
noncontradiction, or basic rules of inference.