Contradiction Club: Dialetheism and the Social World

Authors

  • Emma Bolton
  • Matthew J. Cull University of Sheffield

Keywords:

dialetheism, social ontology, nonclassical logic, metaphysics, institutions

Abstract

Putative examples of true contradictions in the social world have been given by dialetheists such as Graham Priest, Richard Routley, and Val Plumwood. However, we feel that it has not been decisively argued that these examples are in fact true contradictions rather than merely apparent. In this paper we adopt a new strategy to show that there are some true contradictions in the social world, and hence that dialetheism is correct. The strategy involves showing that a group of sincere dialetheists can, given an appropriately formed institution, bootstrap contradictions into existence. We discuss objections and consider the implications of this finding for debates over logic.

References

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Published

2022-03-01

How to Cite

Bolton, Emma, and Matthew J. Cull. 2022. “Contradiction Club: Dialetheism and the Social World”. Journal of Social Ontology 5 (2). Vienna, Austria:169-80. https://journalofsocialontology.org/index.php/jso/article/view/6766.

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