Laws of Thought.

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Tim Flynn

TOK/Per.2

Laws of Thought

The Law of Contradiction states that no statement can be both true and false; that judgments contradictorily opposed to each other cannot both be true. The afore mentioned resolved can be argued for or against in the contrast and comparison of several disciplines. To that end, I choose to evaluate the fields of English and Mathematics.

On the whole, the ideas and concepts presented within the scope of English studies are subjective to the individual examining it. For example, the interpretation of certain syntactical arrangements within literature can be multifaceted, with one scholar holding his own opinion regarding a word’s or group of words’ meaning(s), and another scholar maintaining a completely different outlook. Though perhaps through the examination of certain contextual evidence in the literature a “best” explanation can be formed, it is still an interpretation therefore takes no designation of being true or false.  In other words there exists no definitive answer as to which understanding is actually valid. In this sphere of thinking regarding English, the rule of contradiction makes little or no sense as one’s opinion on literary devices can be both true to one person and false to another. However, this does not pervade the entire field of study. With the grammatical aspects of English come certain inalienable rules and truths. A sentence is not a sentence if it does not end with punctuation. This is true and cannot be false because any grouping of words that does not end in punctuation, (be it a period, question or exclamatory mark) according to the rules of grammar, is not a sentence; unlike reviewing contextual meaning, this is not open to interpretation and therefore what is true or not true cannot be distorted.

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The fields regarding Mathematics hold more so to the type of irrefutable rule making as exhibited by the grammatical aspects of English. For example, the addition of two positive integers will always yield a positive summation. This is true, will always be true, and can never be false and falls in line with the law of contradiction. However, though most mathematical findings are not open to the interpretation that pervades investigation within the English discipline, the work behind those findings can still violate the law of contradiction.  If I were to say the addition of a positive and negative integer ...

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