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[1352] We may seem to repeat commonplaces. But, in fact,
these truths are seldom treated in relation to the problem of
contradiction.
[1353] Cf. Denz.. nos. 1659 ff.
[1354] Ibid.: no. 570.
[1355] Ibid.: nos. 553ff.
[1356] Cf. Olgiati, La filosofia di Descartes, 1937,
preface and pp. 26, 66, 175 f.: 241, 322 f.
[1357] We must add here a remark of Msgr. Noel of Louvain.
In his work, Le realisme immediate, 1938 (chap. 12, "La
valeur reelle de l'intelligence"): he has kindly quoted us often.
We are essentially in accord with his view. But we must note that we
are speaking here, not precisely of the real intrinsic possibility,
say, of a circle, but of the real impossibility of a contradictory
thing, a squared circle, for example. And we say that this
impossibility is real and absolute, and that even by miracle it can
have no exception. This necessity is not hypothetical as when we say:
It is necessary to eat, even though we know that by a miracle a man
could live without eating. The necessity we speak of is objective and
absolute
[1358] Met.: IV, 3.
[1359] Msgr. Noel, in the work just cited (see note 6)
writes (p. 253): "We must not drink too freely the conquering
allurement of certain formulas. True, the essential necessities seen
by the intellect dominate all reality. They transcend all the limits
of experience, since they rule the metaphysical order. But of
themselves they do not in any positive way furnish us any reality."
Msgr. Noel means that the principle of contradiction is not an
existential judgment, and we have never affirmed that it is. He who
here drinks too freely is the absolute realist after the manner of
Parmenides. He was really drunk on being, when he affirmed that the
universal exists just as it is conceived, when he confounded God's
being with being in general. But, without drunkenness, or even
tipsiness, limited realism affirms that he who denies or doubts the
objective and absolute validity of the principle of contradiction will
find every existential judgment invalid, including "I think."
Further, whenever we affirm the objective validity of the principle of
contradiction, we have simultaneously within us a spontaneous and
indistinct judgment of our own existence and of the existence of the
body from which we draw the notion of being. There is a mutual
relation between the subject matter of our knowledge (the sense object
present) and the form under which the principle of contradiction
conceives that matter. So close is this relation that to doubt the
principle is to see vanish every existential judgment, just as matter
cannot exist without form.
[1360] See the illuminating article of Al. Roswadowski,
S. J.: "De fundamento metaphysico nostrae cognitionis universalis
secundum S. Thomam" (Acta secundi Congressus thomistici
internationalis): Rome, 1936, pp. 103-12.
[1361] Cf. Ia, q. 44, a. 1, ad 1.
[1362] In this formula the contradiction is less flagrant than
if we said: Contingency is incompatible with non-contingency. But
the most dangerous contradictions are hidden contradictions (which
abound in Spinoza). To deny the tenth characteristic of a circle is
less evidently contradictory than to deny its definition, but it is
still a contradiction.
[1363] Cf. Ia, q. 88, a. 3; q. 76, a. 5.
[1364] Cf. Ia, q. 44, a. 1, ad I. For the
principle of finality, which we do not treat here see our work, Le
realisme du principe de finalite, 1932.
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