On "Can the Law of Contradiction be Contravened?"

Abstract

A special supplement [of Kuang-ming Daily] published an article by Comrade Chu-ko Yin-t'ung entitled Can the Law of Contradiction Be Contravened?; in it he maintains that the law of contradiction, as well as the other laws of formal logic, must be observed in every situation. When thinking dialectically, the laws of formal logic must always be observed. His chief argument is that we have still not found an example in which the law of contradiction has been contravened. In addition to explaining the three generally accepted judgments resulting from dialectical thinking on the definitions, etc., of mechanical motion, he asserts that they actually contain no logical contradictions. There are, however, other arguments; and since, after the article was published, there were some who opposed it and some who agreed with it, I thought I would contribute to the discussion.