Contradiction (ch2) | |
Two propositions are said to be contradictories if they cannot both be true and if one of them must be true. The conjunction of contradictory propositions is called a contradiction, for example, 'Mary is at least 5' tall and Mary is under 5' tall.' Contradiction depends on truth-values, i.e. what makes the above sentence a contradiction is not its syntactic structure but rather the state of affairs which it posits. Thus contradiction is sometimes referred to as 'meaning exclusion' or 'semantic incompatibility.' (see syntax; semantics; truth-conditions)
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