Such also
is the problem of the infinite divisibility of matter, which, as
Kant has shown, can be denied and affirmed successively by
arguments equally plausible and irrefutable.
Antinomy simply expresses a fact, and forces itself imperatively
on the mind; contradiction, properly speaking, is an absurdity.
This distinction between antinomy (contra-lex) and contradiction
(contra-dictio) shows in what sense it can be said that, in a
certain class of ideas and facts, the argument of contradiction
has not the same value as in mathematics.
In mathematics it is a rule that, a proposition being proved
false, its opposite is true, and vice versa. In fact, this is
the principal method of mathematical demonstration. In social
economy, it is not the same: thus we see, for example, that
property being proved by its results to be false, the opposite
formula, communism, is none the truer on this account, but is
deniable at the same time and by the same title as property.
Does it follow, as has been said with such ridiculous emphasis,
that every truth, every idea, results from a contradiction,--
that is, from a something which is affirmed and denied at the
same moment and from the same point of view,--and that it may be
necessary to abandon wholly the old-fashioned logic, which
regards contradiction as the infallible sign of error? This
babble is worthy of sophists who, destitute of faith and honesty,
endeavor to perpetuate scepticism in order to maintain their
impertinent uselessness.
Pages:
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151