Word Finder - contradictions

definition

The act of contradicting.

example

His contradiction of the proposal was very interesting.

definition

A statement that contradicts itself, i.e., a statement that makes a claim that the same thing is true and that it is false at the same time and in the same senses of the terms.

example

There is a contradiction in Clarence Page's statement that a woman should have the right to choose and decide for herself whether to have an abortion, and at the same time she should not have that right.

definition

A logical inconsistency among two or more elements or propositions.

example

Marx believed that the contradictions of capitalism would lead to socialism.

definition

A proposition that is false for all values of its variables.

Only in minor details do contradictions emerge.

In that case, all who accept a revelation without professing to understand its content would require to be ranked as mystics; the fierce sincerity of Tertullian's credo quia ab-' surdum, Pascal's reconciliation of contradictions in Jesus Christ, and Bayle's half-sneering subordination of reason to faith would all be marks of this standpoint.

In consequence the special sciences and the wisdom of common life entangle themselves easily and frequently in contradictions.

The character of Hadrian exhibits a mass of contradictions, well summed up by Spartianus (14.11).

This conception of him is largely true, as is pointed out above, but it does not harmonize the contradictions of the book, the discrepancies between the piety of some passages and the emotional indifference toward God shown in others.

The law abounds in contradictions and repetitions, and the compositions are calculated in different moneys.

In the course of this process, undertaken for the first time with the rigour of mathematicians, some contradictions have become apparent.

But these contradictions do not depend upon any theory of number, for Russell's contradiction 2 does not involve number in any form.

Thus Russell's contradiction vanishes, and an examination of the other contradictions shows that they vanish also.

He must always be read, whether lovingly or interestedly, for he has all the variable charm, the strange saturninity, the contradictions, austerities and delightful surprises, of Nature herself.

Such is this famous work, full of obscurities, redundancies and contradictions, in which the thread of the argument is sometimes lost in a labyrinth of reasonings and citations, both sacred and profane, but which nevertheless expresses, both in religion and politics, such audacious and novel ideas that it has been possible to trace in it, as it were, a rough sketch of the doctrines developed during the periods of the Reformation and of the French Revolution.

In bringing together the conflicting opinions of the fathers on all the chief points of Christian dogmatics, it may be admitted that Abelard's aim was simply to make these contradictions the starting point of an inquiry which should determine in each case the true position and via media of Christian theology.

Those who care to understand the contradictions of which such a character was capable should study his correspondence with Vettori.

From the hypothesis of an external world a series of contradictions are deduced, such as that the world is both finite and infinite, is movable and immovable, &c.; and finally, Aristotle and various other philosophers are quoted, to show that the external matter they dealt with, as mere potentiality, is just nothing at all.

Kant claimed to solve these contradictions by saying, that in no case is the contradiction real, however really it has been intended by the opposing partisans, or must appear to the mind without critical enlightenment.

The liberal school of thought of which Mohler was a prominent exponent was discouraged in official circles, while Protestants, on the other hand, complain that the author failed to grasp thoroughly the significance of the Reformation as a great movement in the spiritual history of mankind, while needlessly dwelling on the doctrinal shortcomings, inconsistencies and contradictions of its leaders.

It was not only significant that in the Concordia discordantium canonum ecclesiastical laws, whether from authentic or forged sources, were gathered together without regard to the existing civil law; of even greater eventual importance was the fact that Gratian taught that the contradictions of the canon law were to be reconciled by the same method as that used by theology to reconcile the discrepancies of doctrinal tradition.

Far from being able to sit in judgment upon the mysteries of the faith, reason is unable to solve its own contradictions without aid from a higher source.

But, as a body of exposition, it has the real unity which results from a mode of thinking homogeneous throughout and the general absence of such contradictions as would arise from an imperfect digestion of the subject.

But this secondary authority (the Flatey Book narrative), which till lately formed the basis of all general knowledge as to Vinland, abounds in contradictions and difficulties from which Eric the Red Saga is comparatively free.

He endeavoured to explain away certain of the contradictions which are found in Kant's system by saying that much of the language is used in a popular sense for the sake of intelligibility, e.g.

Amongst the legitimate reasons for suspecting the correctness of a text are patent contradictions in a passage or its immediate neighbourhood, proved and inexplicable deviations from the standards for forms, constructions and usages (mere rarity or singularity is not enough), weak and purposeless repetitions of a word (if there is no reason for attributing these to the writer), violations of the laws of metre and rhythm as observed by the author, obvious breaks in the thought (incoherence) or disorderly sequence in the same (double or multiple incoherence).

At last he felt compelled to break off from the church for which he had lived and fought; but the breach could not clear him from the contradictions in which he found himself entangled.

This statement is totally incompatible with Sir Henry Daly's and is only one of many contradictions in the case.

Bradley's supposed contradictions are really mere differences.

So far he reminds one of Herbart, who founded his " realistic " metaphysics on similar misunderstandings; except that, while Herbart concluded that the world consists of a number of simple " reals," each with a simple quality but unknown, Bradley concludes that reality is one absolute experience which harmonizes the supposed contradictions in an unknown manner.

In Germany, since the victory of Kant over Wolff, realism has always been in difficulties, which we can appreciate when we reflect that the Germans by preference apply the term " realism " to the paradoxes of Herbart (1776-1841), who, in order to avoid supposed contradictions, supposed that bodies are not substances, but show (Schein), while " reals" are simple substances, each with a simple quality, and all preserving themselves against disturbance by one another, whether physically or psychologically, but not known to be either material or spiritual because we do not know the simple quality in which the nature of the real consists.

He holds that space, time, matter, motion, force, are all full of the insoluble contradictions supposed by Spencer; and that all our beliefs, in Nature and in God, stand on the same footing of approximations.

The absence of the author's final revision may partly account for many repetitions, and for some contradictions, for mistakes in passages borrowed from Greek authors, and for the insertion of marginal additions at wrong places in the text.

Without positively asserting much more than he can prove, he gives prominence to all the circumstances which support his case; he glides lightly over those which are unfavourable to it; his own witnesses are applauded and encouraged; the statements which seem to throw discredit on them are controverted; the contradictions into which they fall are explained away; a clear and connected abstract of their evidence is given.

Pascal explains all the contradictions and difficulties of human life and thought by the doctrine of the Fall, and relies on faith and revelation alone to justify each other.

His narrative contains frequent repetitions and contradictions, is without colouring, and monotonous; and his simple diction, which stands intermediate between pure Attic and the colloquial Greek of his time, enables us to detect in the narrative the undigested fragments of the materials which he employed.

The day, said The Times, " was crowded with rumours, alarms, contradictions, fears, hopes, resolves, uncertainties."

But what were the distinctions and sophisms of the theologians for, if they could not remove such contradictions, and convict their opponents of heresy?

Moreover, as they proceeded from a large number of independent authors, who wrote expressing their own opinions, they contained many discrepancies and contradictions, the dicta of one writer being controverted by another, while yet both writers might enjoy the same formal authority.

It was therefore clearly necessary with regard to both the older and the newer law to take some steps to collect into one or more bodies or masses so much of the law as was to be regarded as binding, reducing it within a reasonable compass, and purging away the contradictions or inconsistencies which it contained.

The commissioners, ten in number, were directed to go through all the constitutions of which copies existed, to select such as were of practical value, to cut these down by retrenching all unnecessary matter, and gather them, arranged in order of date, into one volume, getting rid of any contradictions by omitting one or other of the conflicting passages.

He made extracts from the existing law, preserving the old words, and merely cutting out repetitions, removing contradictions, retrenching superfluities, so as immensely to reduce the bulk of the whole.

The strange contradictions of his character make Alexander one of the most interesting as he is one of the most important figures in the history of the 19th century.

It was in the pressing to its extreme consequences of the conception of uncompromising identity which is to be found in Leibnitz, that the contradictions took their rise which Herbart aimed at solving, by the method of relations and his doctrine of the ultimate plurality of " reals," The logic of relations between conceptual units, themselves unaltered by the relation, seems a kind of reflection of his metaphysical method.

In any piece of presumed knowledge its partial or abstract character involves the presence of loose edges which force the conviction of inadequacy and the development of contradictions.

Contradictions must be annulled by complementation, with resultant increasing coherence in ascending stages.

At each successive stage in our progress fresh contradictions break out, but the ideal of a station at which the thought-process and its other, if not one, are at one, is permissible as a limiting conception.

The philosophy of the former concludes to an Absolute by the annulment of contradictions, though the ladder of Hegel is conspicuous by its absence.

In examining such points we are apt to forget that the contradictions by which a story is shown to be untrue are quite different from those by which a confessedly untrue story would be shown to be the work of different authors.

The new dogmas promulgated by the Holy See from time to time have been the outcome of the slow growth of ages, built up from precedent to precedent, and only defined at last when the accumulated weight of evidence in their favour, or the necessity for precise definition to meet the contradictions of heretics, seemed to demand a decision.

The Paradoxes (Characters of a believing Christian in paradoxes, and seeming contradictions), which was often and justly suspected, has been conclusively proved by Grosart to be the work of another author.

The custom of dividing receipts and expenditures into ordinary and extraordinary, of treating the receipts from loans as revenue, of adding six months to the fiscal year for closing up accounts, and of dividing receipts and expenditures into separate gold and currency accounts, leads to much confusion and complication in the returns, and is the cause of unavoidable discrepancies and contradictions.

Under the influence of Cerdo, Marcion carried out his ethical dualism in the sphere of cosmology; but the fact that his system is not free from contradictions is the best proof that all along religious knowledge, and not philosophical, had the chief values in his eyes.

Shortly it may be said that he was essentially a mass of contradictions - brilliant, passionate to the point of mania, but utterly weak and unstable, capable of developing into a saint or a monster, but quite incapable of becoming an ordinary human being.