论矛盾律的意义

On the Significance of the Law of Contradiction

矛盾律是思维规律,是关于认识及其表达的规律,而不是关于世界中事物情况的规律。它刻画出来的矛盾是认识中的情况,是表达认识的语言中的情况,而不是世界中事物的情况。它明确说明在认识和语言中不允许出现矛盾。最初人们谈论与矛盾律相关的认识,认为它是一切证明的出发点,不应该要求对它进行证明。今天它成为一条逻辑定理,似乎失去了早先的重要地位。关于矛盾律的认识表明,人们在认识世界的过程中区分了关于事物的认识和关于认识的认识,从而获得矛盾律这样的认识,获得了逻辑所提供的认识。我们关于世界的认识是通过语言表达的。无论是谈论世界中事物情况,还是谈论关于它们的认识的情况,包括谈论辩证法和逻辑,都是要遵守矛盾律的。

The law of contradiction is a law of thinking,a law about recognition and its expression,and it is not a law about the things in the world and what they are going on.The contradiction mentioned by the law of contradiction only refers to the one in our recognition as well as in our language expressing our recognition,and it does not mean what happens among the things in the world.This law shows clearly that contradiction is not allowed to appear in our recognition and its expression.In the early period philosophers took the law of contradiction as the starting point of all demonstrations,insisting that it is not necessary to prove it,while nowadays it is only a theorem in a logical system,seeming to have lost its importance in the past.Discussing the law of contradiction,this paper makes a great distinction between our knowledge about the things in the world on the one hand and our knowledge about our knowledge itself on the other.It is true that we can talk about the things in the world and about our knowledge of them as well.The contradiction in the world is different from that in our recognition and its expression.But the law of contradiction should be followed both in dialectics and logic,whether we talk about the things in the world or about our knowledge of them.