Contradictio in adiecto
A contradictio in adiecto (also contradictio in adjecto , contradictio in adjecto , contradictio in adjecto , contradiction in itself or direct contradiction , from Latin contradiction in the addition / addition ) is in the terminology of traditional logic a contradiction within a term, that is a contradiction that consists in the fact that the term contains features that contradict itself. For example, there is a contradictio in adiecto in the term round square . The addition of the adjective round contradicts the meaning of the word square . In a broader sense, the contradicting term is also referred to as a whole as contradictio in adiecto .
The term is also applied to statements . Traditional logic understands statements as always consisting of exactly two components, the logical subject (object about which something is said) and the logical predicate (characteristic that is said about the subject) - for this subject-predicate structure see syllogistics . From this point of view, there is a contradictio in adiecto when the predicate concept contradicts the subject concept, as would be the case, for example, in the statement “squares are round”. The mathematician Kurt Gödel proved in his work “On formally undecidable propositions of the Principia mathematica and related systems” that constructing a “complete system” is a “contradictio in adiecto”. Regardless of any progress, humanity will never reach the goal of being able to know everything, since there will always be formal sentences about which one cannot decide whether they are true or false ( Godel's incompleteness theorem ).
More rarely and beyond that, one speaks of a contradictio in adiecto when two statements attribute contrary characteristics to the same object (for example the two statements “The earth is a sphere” and “The earth is a disk”), occasionally even when two contrary objects are the same Attributes to be attributed.
In modern logic, the term contradictio in adiecto is rarely used. Also, with the modern view that the traditional division of every statement into subject and predicate is artificial and not appropriate to the matter, the traditional definition of “contradiction of the predicate with the subject” loses its foundation. So it becomes a mere conjunction of contradicting terms.
A contradictio in adiecto is therefore a logical error in a formulation. If the contradiction is deliberately formulated, one speaks of the rhetorical stylistic device oxymoron .
Examples
- The term atheistic religion can, depending on what is understood by atheistic and what is meant by a religion , at first glance seem like the almost classic case of a contradictio in adiecto (atheism vs. religion).
- A mortal stone : the attributions mortal or immortal (e.g. Turritopsis dohrnii ) can only be assigned to a living being.
- Coopetition is a term used in cooperative game theory , which the contrasting strategic directions of cooperation and competition (ger .: cooperation , competition contains).
- “'German Spirit': for eighteen years a contradictio in adjecto.” ( Friedrich Nietzsche : Götzen-Dämmerung or How to Philosophize with a Hammer , 1889, Proverbs and Arrows, Aphorism 23). Nietzsche is referring to the establishment of the German Empire in 1871, a direct result of France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War . By today's standards, the military was extremely important in the German Empire.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b For an example of understanding in the sense of traditional logic see "Contradictio in adiecto", in: Eisler, Rudolf : Dictionary of philosophical terms , 1904, online at http://www.textlog.de/8170.html
- ↑ Herbert Graber et al .: Yearbook of research in English and American literature, Volume 8 , p. 23
- ↑ For an example see “Contradictio in adiecto,” in: Kondakow, NI: Dictionary of Logic. Leipzig: 1st edition 1978, page 111f.
- ↑ "the existence of a conceptual contradiction due to the conjunction of two contrary terms" (Kuno Lorenz: "contradictio in adiecto", in: Jürgen Mittelstraß (ed.): Enzyklopädie Philosophie und Wissenschaftstheorie. Volume 1: AG , Stuttgart: Metzler 1st ed. 1995 , Page 416)
- ↑ Jochen A. Bär : The year of words - episode 81 (March 22): Oxymoron . baer-linguistik.de, accessed on July 7, 2017
- ↑ Cf. Confessio 5/2010, p. 1 ( Memento of the original dated August 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
