Acceptance of Contradiction Necessary to Mature Philosophy?

[TheQuestion]

My opinion: yes. Contradiction is inherent in any system of beliefs when confronted with actual situations where the beliefs come into play. I’ll elaborate as I argue.

[Dan1 (Dan~)]

An eco-system has predators and prey.

Ofcourse there are contradictions within wide and diverse systems.

I’m glad that you’re smart enough to realize that some questions have more then one answer. No need to argue about what’s already true.

[Obw]

If I understand you correctly, you are asking about whether or not we must accept as inevitable contradictions yet hold as true certain philosophical positions despite them. To this I would say no - disagree.

However to the more general point that accepting contradiction is necessary to enable the mature discourse of philosophy - yes, but when faced by contradiction one must either accept that one is being contradictory or change ones beliefs.

[SilentSoliloquy]

Contradiction is absolutely necessary for any premise because there will always be another.

[nameta9]

Contradictions are bounded and constrained by the laws of physics. We can always force and assign 3=4, A is also not A, and any wild ideas as much as possible and assign them as true. We can everything. The problems emerge only when applied to reality-physics. Then again if we can paint any picture and draw any sequence of symbols and assign any or all meanings, then physics allows us any and all contradictions on a Metaphysical-Artistic level. So are metaphysical contradictions just “fake” contradictions or are they real even though the physics generating them cannot be contradictory ? Or is the deepest fundament of reality-physics PURE CONTRADICTIONS ?

[someoneisatthedoor]

I can’t be bothered to write a response so I’ll let someone else do it.

Nietzsche, On the Prejudices of Philosophers,

2. “HOW COULD anything originate out of its opposite? For
   example, truth out of error? or the Will to Truth out of the will
   to deception? or the generous deed out of selfishness? or the
   pure sun-bright vision of the wise man out of covetousness? Such
   genesis is impossible; whoever dreams of it is a fool, nay, worse
   than a fool; things of the highest value must have a different
   origin, an origin of THEIR own–in this transitory, seductive,
   illusory, paltry world, in this turmoil of delusion and cupidity,
   they cannot have their source. But rather in the lap of Being, in
   the intransitory, in the concealed God, in the 'Thing-in-itself–
   THERE must be their source, and nowhere else!”–This mode of
   reasoning discloses the typical prejudice by which metaphysicians
   of all times can be recognized, this mode of valuation is at the
   back of all their logical procedure; through this “belief” of
   theirs, they exert themselves for their “knowledge,” for
   something that is in the end solemnly christened “the Truth.” The
   fundamental belief of metaphysicians is THE BELIEF IN ANTITHESES
   OF VALUES. It never occurred even to the wariest of them to doubt
   here on the very threshold (where doubt, however, was most
   necessary); though they had made a solemn vow, “DE OMNIBUS
   DUBITANDUM.” For it may be doubted, firstly, whether antitheses
   exist at all; and secondly, whether the popular valuations and
   antitheses of value upon which metaphysicians have set their
   seal, are not perhaps merely superficial estimates, merely
   provisional perspectives, besides being probably made from some
   corner, perhaps from below–“frog perspectives,” as it were, to
   borrow an expression current among painters. In spite of all the
   value which may belong to the true, the positive, and the
   unselfish, it might be possible that a higher and more
   fundamental value for life generally should be assigned to
   pretence, to the will to delusion, to selfishness, and cupidity.
   It might even be possible that WHAT constitutes the value of
   those good and respected things, consists precisely in their
   being insidiously related, knotted, and crocheted to these evil
   and apparently opposed things–perhaps even in being essentially
   identical with them. Perhaps! But who wishes to concern himself
   with such dangerous “Perhapses”! For that investigation one must
   await the advent of a new order of philosophers, such as will
   have other tastes and inclinations, the reverse of those hitherto
   prevalent–philosophers of the dangerous “Perhaps” in every sense
   of the term. And to speak in all seriousness, I see such new
   philosophers beginning to appear.

Of First and Last Things

The chemistry of concepts and sensations.— Almost all the problems of philosophy once again pose the same form of question as they did two thousand years ago: how can something originate in its opposite, for example rationality in irrationality, the sentient in the dead, logic in unlogic, disinterested contemplation in covetous desire, living for others in egoism, truth in error? Metaphysical philosophy has hitherto surmounted this difficulty by denying that the one originates in the other and assuming for the more highly valued thing a miraculous source in the very kernel and being of the “thing in itself.” Historical philosophy, on the other hand, which can no longer be separated from natural science, the youngest of all philosophical methods, has discovered in individual cases (and this will probably be the result in every case) that there are no opposites, except in the customary exaggeration of popular metaphysical interpretations, and that a mistake in reasoning lies at the bottom of this antithesis: according to this explanation there exists, strictly speaking, neither an unegoistic action nor completely disinterested contemplation; both are only sublimations, in which the basic element seems almost to have dispersed and reveals itself only under the most painstaking observation. All we require, and what can be given us only now the individual sciences have attained their present level, is a chemistry of the moral, religious and aesthetic conceptions and sensations, likewise of all the agitations we experience within ourselves in cultural and social intercourse, and indeed even when we are alone: what if this chemistry would end up by revealing that in this domain too the most glorious colors are derived from base, indeed from despised materials? Will there be many who desire to pursue such researches? Mankind likes to put questions of origins and beginnings out of its mind: must one not be almost inhuman to detect in oneself a contrary inclination?

Language as putative science.— The significance of language for the evolution of culture lies in this, that mankind set up in language a separate world beside the other world, a place it took to be so firmly set that, standing upon it, it could lift the rest of the world off its hinges and make itself master of it. To the extent that man has for long ages believed in the concepts and names of things as in aeternae veritates he has appropriated to himself that pride by which he raised himself above the animal: he really thought that in language he possessed knowledge of the world. The sculptor of language was not so modest as to believe that he was only giving things designations, he conceived rather that with words he was expressing supreme knowledge of things; language is, in fact, the first stage of the occupation with science. Here, too, it is the belief that the truth has been found out of which the mightiest sources of energy have flowed. Very much subsequently—only now—it dawns on men that in their belief in language they have propagated a tremendous error. Happily, it is too late for the evolution of reason, which depends on this belief, to be again put back.— Logic too depends on presuppositions with which nothing in the real world corresponds, for example on the presupposition that there are identical things, that the same thing is identical at different points of time: but this science came into existence through the opposite belief (that such conditions do obtain in the real world). It is the same with mathematics, which would certainly not have come into existence if one had known from the beginning that there was in nature no exactly straight line, no real circle, no absolute magnitude.

Everything always has its opposite within itself - Heraclitus