A Contradiction, Gasp!
Today I was walking near my hotel, pondering my goal in writing. Naturally, I thought along the lines of “what overarching idea am I trying to capture?” I thought about what criticisms one might rightly raise about the consistency of my entries and their relationship to one another. Alighting on the topic of contradiction, I asked myself three questions.
What contradictions can already be found between the few paltry offerings I’ve already put forth?
Why should I care about these contradictions / what exactly is the problem they pose?
More generally, are contradictions unavoidable, and if so, under what circumstances do they simply reflect an ability to entertain two opposing thoughts rather than an inability to form cogent ideas?
As a starting point, let’s consider the notion of ideas that are consistent. In mathematics any two true statements are consistent because they flow from the same set of axioms. And all the axioms in any mathematical system must not contradict each other. As concerns almost anything else that we talk about, however, no one can honestly claim to have derived their ideas on wide-ranging subjects all from the same set of consistent axioms. Especially as concerns values we hold, it’s easily proven that we do not.
Take for example value of equal opportunity and the value of limiting the human population. It seems sensible that one can value both these things simultaneously. But, as concerns welfare, providing financial rewards for having more children encourages more births. Also, not providing additional financial assistance to mothers with more children denies those children the same opportunities afforded to those born into smaller families. These values invariably clash, forcing one to choose a point, somewhat arbitrarily, where one favors one over the other. Maybe this shouldn’t be surprising.
The only way one could expect these ideas to be consistent is if one was derived directly from the other, in the way that any mathematical proof concerning the natural numbers can be derived entirely from the definition of a natural number. This level of rigor is neither possible nor preferable outside of mathematics, especially as concerns such topics as the arts. How can we derive a system of thought from a single definition when none of the things we are trying to talk about can be succinctly and completely defined in a way that will satisfy anyone who considers them worth talking about?
One could perform verbal gymnastics in a vain attempt to produce a contrived method of deriving absolute truths in the philosophical realm, but even then those ‘truths’ could only be expressed in natural languages, which are inherently inconsistent if sufficiently expressive to capture the sorts of ideas we’re talking about. The idea of finding any objective truth as concerns anything human should be considered dead. Several pragmatic questions then arise. If no thoughts can truly be considered to be ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in an absolute sense, on what basis are we to judge these arguments? If truth cannot be found, why do we bother thinking, writing, and arguing?
Surely, this lack of an ideal of perfection to which we can aspire doesn’t sit well with many people. The idea of a right way to live, the right kind of society, or rightness in the arts is comforting. It makes for an easy time ascribing meaning to one’s life. One only needs only to swallow one single lie and suddenly all questions of purpose evaporate. By this method, even the secular can capture the comfort of religion through embracing a similarly irrational dogma. Perhaps this is a better life choice: to make the irrational choice to believe that the human world can be organized rationally rather than the rational choice to accept that it is irrational and unsolvable. Here I make a case for the latter approach.
Returning to the questions posed above, what is the point of writing if all ideas are inherently contradictory and unprovable? I pose the analogy of building a house. There is no ‘right’ house. There are many different guiding principles in architecture which too, like various axioms from which an argument is constructed, will invariably clash in some situation or another. This doesn’t stop people from building houses. Rather than expect to discover profound truth on any matter , I suggest that we reconcile ourselves to the futility of this goal, focusing instead on exploring new and challenging ideas, appreciating their elegance or identifying their problems without considering the possibility of attributing truth.
Taken literally, the idea of a philosophical proof is inherently flawed. Even the most convincing and elegant proofs hardly represent truths. “Cogito, ergo sum.” This is not a proof. We have no definition for thought or existence, nor can we. And if we independently defined truth and existence, we could probably use one to disprove the existence of the other.
Returning to questions posed earlier, “If no thoughts can truly be considered to be ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ in an absolute sense, on what basis are we to judge these arguments? If truth cannot be found, why do we bother thinking, writing, and arguing?”
I have the following response: in the interest of developing, exploring and satisfying curious minds, we can evaluate the validity of arguments not on their truth content, but on the subtlety of their flaws. Descartes proof of his existence is not ‘true.’ But to challenge it, one must break down many assumptions that ground most other human thoughts. How many people would normally argue either that they do not exist or that they do not think? Similarly, arguments concerning the arts that refuse to go down easily warrant our consideration. By this standard, the poorest arguments are those which merely insist that a particular truth exists.