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3 AM Philosophy

Example of a “married bachelor” :)

Example of a “married bachelor”:

Someone from a FB group had asked me to give an example of how even the most sacred things can be challenged, even things we know are true by analytical definition, such as the phrase “All bachelors are unmarried men” which Kant would have referred to as a “analytical proposition” or something where a predicate concept isn’t contained in the subject.

But can we actually have a situation where that does not hold? Even if true by analytical definitions? Well, maybe…that is where paraconsistent logic and dialetheism comes in to play. Paraconsistent logic allows for “inconsistency” of the logical system (consistent logical systems means all the propositions have to be able to be true at the same time with out contradiction) and dialetheism allows for “true contradictions” with out principle of explosion (“𝘦𝘹 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘲𝘶𝘰𝘥𝘭𝘪𝘣𝘦𝘵” or basically that if a condradction exists then anything can be proven.)

This is not my original argument, it is from SEP,  and things like “truth value gluts” (where a sentence and it’s negation are both true) and “truth gaps” (a sentence that is neither true nor false) are difficult to explain, but I will try to relate it the best, and succinctly, that I can:

Supposed you are a single man on a ship in open water…and you are getting married by the captain of the boat. You are near country x whose laws are such that to be married you must remain in open water at all times during the ceremony. You are near country y whose laws says you are allowed to leave open water for a short period of time, so long as you start and finish the ceremony in open water.

During the ceremony the ship accidentally wanders out of open water in to country x, but shortly returns to open water and finishes the ceremony. According now to y you are married, and according to x you are still a bachelor. You are effectively a married bachelor due to a state of dialetheia.

Don’t be afraid to question everything…even the impossible.

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