From: "Tobin Nellhaus" <nellhaus-AT-gwi.net>
Subject: Re: BHA: Re: RTS pages 91-105
Date: Mon, 21 Apr 1997 18:37:57 -0400


Howard wrote:

> Not so fast Tobin.  Logic refers to principles of correct
> reasoning, but we need reasoning adequate to the way things are. 
> We do not say "Oh I should have mentioned that I meant only
> Euclidian logic" when the challenge is made that Euclidian logic is
> inadequate to the way, since Einstein, we understand things to be. 
> You asked whether the principles of identity and non-contradiction
> applied to "all possible forms of logic."  But now you're arguing
> that you did not mean to include among "all possible forms" those
> logics which enable us to make correct statements about beings in
> the process of becoming?  

Mea culpa, mea culpa!  "All possible forms of logic" was not a great choice
of words (although I do think the original context gave reasonable clues as
to what I had in mind).  Still, the contradiction between two statements
(say, "this gas is argon" and "this gas is helium") is not the same kind of
contradiction as between capital and labor.  In the former case, one can
logically assume either that one (or both) of the statements is false, or the
reference is imprecise (say, the word "is" should really be "includes").  In
the latter case, neither capital nor labor can be "true" or "false": they
exist (or not, as the case may someday be).  So the question I'm asking about
the "law of non-contradiction" concerns norms of permissible relationships
between statements, not relationships between real entities.  Anyway, "beings
in the process of becoming" don't follow logic, they follow natural
necessities (causal powers).  ;-g

---
Tobin Nellhaus
nellhaus-AT-gwi.net
"Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce


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