Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Are There True Contradictions A Critical Discussion of Graham Priest S Beyond The Limits of Thought
Are There True Contradictions A Critical Discussion of Graham Priest S Beyond The Limits of Thought
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
Springer is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal for General
Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie.
http://www.jstor.org
DISCUSSIONS
SUMMARY. The present article critically examines three aspects of Graham Priest's
dialetheic analysis of very important kinds of limitations (the limit of what can be expressed,
described, conceived, known, or the limit of some operation or other). First, it is shown
that Priest's considerations focusing on Hegel's account of the infinite cannot be sustained,
mainly because Priest seems to rely on a too restrictive notion of object. Second, we discuss
Priest's treatment of the paradoxes in Cantorian set-theory. It is shown that Priest does not
address the issue in full generality; rather, he relies on a reading of Cantor which implicitly
attributes a very strong principle concerning quantification over arbitrary domains to Can
tor. Third, the main piece of Priest's work, the so-called "inclosure schema", is investigated.
This schema is supposed to formalize the core of many well-known paradoxes. We claim,
however, that formally the schema is not sound.
Key words: dialetheism, paraconsistent logic, paradox, infinity, quantification, domain prin
ciple, Priest, Hegel, Cantor, Cartwright
1. INTRODUCTION
his new book Beyond the limits of thought (Priest [1995]), discusses the
question of whether there are true contradictions in a less technical but
rather genuine philosophical setting. In this book he is concerned with a
number of very important kinds of limitation. More precisely, he deals with
"the limit of what can be expressed; the limit of what can be described or
conceived; the limit of what can be known; the limit of iteration of some
question do cross these boundaries. Thus, the limits of thought are boundaries which
cannot be crossed, but yet which are crossed. In each of the cases, there is a totality (of
all things expressible, describable, etc.) andan appropriate operation that generates an
object that is both within and without the totality. I will call these situations Closure and
spends the fourth part of his book (pp. 195-245) discussing his main thesis
in the context of (natural) language. Here he treats relevant issues in Frege,
Hegelian in nature, and the right ventricle, which is beating for Cantorian
set-theory and Priest's Inclosure Schema. In the following sections we
shall examine these two ventricles in order to determine the cardiac fitness
of Priest's position.
lowing: "Since there are perfectly sound... arguments to the effect that the
World (that is the infinity generated in each Antinomy) has contradictory
properties, it does have contradictory properties"(p. 114).
This statement has to be understood in the light of Hegel's account of
the infinite. Hegel distinguishes between the finite, the spurious or false
infinite, and the genuine or true infinite (cf. p. 116). "[S]omething is finite
if it is determinate ... , that is, is limited or bounded else"
by something
(p. 116). "Something is infinite (in the false sense) if it is not finite" (p.
117). In a more recent terminology one would say that the false infinite
is the "potential "the true infinite is the corresponding
infinite".
Finally,
completed infinity" (p. 119), or as Priest calls it "the generated infinity"
or "actual infinity". This account of infinity leads to three problems which
are best described in Priest's own words:
(1) [I]f an object is infinite it falls in the category infinite, and this is to set a bound on
it. In this sense, to conceive an object as infinite is a contradiction in terms ... To be
bounded and to be truly conceived are, in a sense, the same thing. For if something is
bounded it can be conceived as that which lies within the boundary; and if something
is conceived it is bounded by the terms of the conception. Hence, an unbounded
object is essentially the same as an inconceivable object. And we are back with the
contradiction at the limit of conceivable, (p. 117, Priest's emphasis)
(2) [A] potential infinite, at any stage of its existence, is, after all, never more than finite.
Hence it is not truly infinite ... The notion of the potential infinite does not deliver
an understanding of the way the infinite behaves; it delivers an understanding of the
ad (1): Put into a very condensed form the general point of (1) seems to
be this: an object is categorized or conceived by setting a bound or at least
a conceptual bound on it, and setting a bound on it amounts to making or
ad (2): We can see nothing wrong with this explanation of the nature of
the potential infinite. Instead, we think that this is a very clear account of
the potential infinite. But, in contrast to Priest, we do not see where this
conception could cause any problems; in particular, we cannot see that this
conception could by itself lead to contradiction.
ad (3): Here, we can simply repeat our objection which we raised against
(1). For here again, Priest has to require that in order to conceive or
l+a+a2+a3+... (-l<a<l)
(potential) infinity. By adding the successive terms it gets closer and closer
to some number but will never reach it. In contrast to that, Priest and Hegel
hold that the limit of this sum, i.e. (1-a)"1, is the true (actual) infinity.
This example which is perfectly in the spirit of Priest's (and Hegel's)
general view on infinity seems to lead to a problem, if we write:
l+a+a2+a3+... =
(i) (l-a)"1 (-Ka<l)
Written in this official form, we can immediately see that we are dealing
with completed sums on both sides of the equality sign. The expression
lim
-
(i oo)
essentially says that we must not stop at some i, but that we have to go on
until oo. Thus we have to consider the sum on the left side as completed.
Therefore Priest's claim that the expression "l+a+a2+ a3+..." denotes a
After having presented Hegel's account of the finite, the false infinite, and
the true infinite, Priest turns to the work of Georg Cantor, the founder of
contemporary set-theory. Here again, Priest attempts to show, that even in
celebrated Cantorian set-theory the conception, conceivability, or expres
sion of the "absolute infinity" leads to contradiction. Following M. Hallett,
Priest (p. 128) distinguishes between two sorts of actual infinity:
The following quote from Cantor shows that this distinction is really Can
torian in spirit. Cantor wrote (p. 128):
The transfinite with its plenitude of formations and forms necessarily indicates an Absolute,
a 'true infinite' whose magnitude is capable of no increase or diminuation, and therefore to
be looked upon quantitatively as an absolute maximum. (Cantor's emphasis)
ON={0,l,2,...,a;,...,a;2,...,C4;3,...,a;2,...}
Following Cantor, for sets (ormore precisely: for every increasing unbound
ed sequence) of ordinal numbers we always have the following limit
operation: every unbounded succession of ordinal numbers generates a
new greater!) ordinal which
(strictly is the limit of the succession.
An application of this limit-operation to ON which is itself such an
unbounded succession, generates a new ordinal ON+. Obviously, ON+
cannot be contained in ON it is strictly greater than all elements
since of
ON. Therefore we have: ON+? But by assumption,
ON. ON is the set of
all ordinals; hence, the ordinal ON+ must be contained in ON. Therefore
we also have: ON+E ON. Thus, we have obtained a contradiction:
ON+<?ON andON+G ON.
It is not difficult to see that arguments of the same form can be applied
to V, the set of all sets, or R, the set of all well-founded sets, in order to get
further contradictions, like V? V and VeV, or R?R and RgR.
For Priest these contradictions are all versions of the "contradiction at
the heart of the Absolute" (p. 132). Consequently, in Priest's interpretation,
these contradictions show that even set-theory does not provide a consistent
formal account of Cantor's view of the Absolute.
Here, it is important to note that Cantor, too, was well aware of these
problems. Confronted with these inconsistencies he introduced two kinds
ARE THERETRUECONTRACDICTIONS? 295
'being together', so that they can be gathered together into 'one thing', I call it a consistent
Despite this agreement, that the conception of the Absolute as "one finished
try to resolve the contradictions of the Absolute and other inconsistent mul
tiplicities by denying not only that the Absolute is a completed entity, but
by denying simultaneously that there is a domain that contains everything
there is, all sets, all well-founded sets, or all ordinals. If we adopt this posi
tion we can certainly escape Priest's argument against Cantor because then
the identification with a pre-fixed, completed domain and the Absolute,
V, R, or ON is not possible. Hence, the contradiction can no longer be
derived.
Here, of course, a careful evaluation of the benefits and costs of this
move is called for and in particular, one would have to present an alternative
ARE THERETRUECONTRACDICTIONS? 297
Unfortunately, the latter is not the case. In order to see this consider the
function S which is defined as a function from the power set of ?), i.e. the
class of all sub-classes of fi, symbolically "P(fi)'\ into fi:
5: P(fi) -> n
-
S(x) of jchas to lie in the range of S namely ft, i.e. for all .xEP(ft): S(x)eQ.
But together with (ii.a) 5(x)?x this implies that we can only choose proper
subsets x of ft, i.e. xCft and jc^ft. For in case we chose ft for jc,we would
obtain J(jc)?ft, and that is not in accordance with the definition of S. Hence,
S would not be a well-defined function. In other words, we cannot choose
ft as x. Obviously, that blocks the derivation of the contradiction.
Confronted with this problem there seem to be two options: One could
hold that the Inclosure Schema does the underlying
capture structure of
the paradoxes. In this case the internal problem of the Inclosure Schema
would reveal that there must be an unsound element in the reasoning of
the paradoxes indicating that we are not dealing with genuine paradoxes.
Or one could maintain that the Inclosure Schema, because of its internal
problem, does not, as it stands, capture the underlying structure of the
5. CONCLUDING REMARKS
The upshot of our discussion is that Priest's treatment of his main thesis
leaves a number of important problems unsolved. Put very cautiously,
we can say that one does not have to believe in the existence of true
contradictions Priest fills in the missing
unless details. But despite these
reservations we want
to emphasize that Priest's work is without a doubt the
best book in print on these very fundamental and important issues. Beyond
a
the limits of thought is clear, systematic, and provocative work. Itmakes
a powerful case for Priest's main thesis, and contains a subtle analysis of
the cluster of all important issues and debates which are related to it.
NOTES
*)We would like to thank Donald W. Bruckner, Dirk Greimann and Lorenz B. Puntel for
3
The interested should consult
reader the excellent article by Richard L. Cartwright [1994].
A very and treatment of these matters can also be found in Patrick
thorough comprehensive
Grim's book, The Incomplete Universe, in which Grim takes up many important issues
related to the domain principle, and alternative accounts of quantification.
REFERENCES
Germany Katharinenstr. 5
49074 Osnabriick
Germany