The story goes that Wittgenstein was pacing the floors of his rooms in Cambridge, his face deeply etched in thought. Bertrand Russell, who happened to be visiting him that afternoon, was sitting there watching Wittgenstein pace. Puzzled, Russell finally asked him, “Wittgnstein, are you worried about logic? Or your sins!” and Wittgenstein replied, vehemently, “BOTH!”
Here’s a graphic list that let’s you know when you’re committing one of the sins that relates to not following those rules, not staying in that box. Unfortunately, the graphic is so small it’s hard to read, so here’s a link to a source which is easy to read, and goes even further, tying in rhetoric with logic into one grand category, “rhetological fallacies.”
By including rhetoric, we’re talking about not just (hopefully, as Descartes would have put it, the correct (rule-bound) flow of “clear and distinct”) left brain ideas, but (those godawful, messy) emotions, and these, I read, are controlled by the brain’s amygdala, part of the limbic system.
Thanks to squisheddiorama.com for the original link.
BTW: During my first year as a graduate student in philosophy, I was required to take a course in Boolean Logic. I was a good girl at the time, so of course I followed along. But then, something shifted inside me and I asked the teacher, a very nice man, “But . . . but . . . but what’s wrong with contradiction?” He looked at me, stunned. Seeing his look, I went into shock. What had I just done? How embarrassing! I’m sure my face reddened.
Then, in a voice quivering with intensity, he replied, slowly, his eyes boring into mine, “Because from a contradiction, anything follows. Anything!”
Yep! Exactly. Long live contradictions, those moments when we become aware of two points “opposing each other,” of polarity, duality, and we learn how, not only to consider, but to positively embrace both.
As we make this leap, we shift out of the 3D trap. The mind opens. The spirit soars. We are never the same again.
