Contradiction and antinomy: Two logical phenomena which are relevant for psychotherapy

Authors

  • Thomas Kesselring

Abstract

G. Fischer (1998) advocates that whenever human interaction is characterized by contradictions and/or paradoxes, neu-rotic or psychotic disturbances may arise. This thesis is further elaborated in the article. At the start, the concepts of contradiction and antinomy are differentiated. Contradictions frequently occur in communication, and reciprocal exchanges are aimed at resolving them. Nevertheless, contradictions between a sentence’s content and its form (i.e. so called “dialectical contradictions”) often stay un-noticed and thus risk disturbing human interaction. For instance, whenever you say that “there is no truth” you are involved in a contradiction, since you must claim that your own statement is true -otherwise it would be meaningless. If, on the other hand, this statement is negated, it turns into a coherent statement (^ “there is truth”) which itself is true for non-empirical reasons. In the swamp of our everyday beliefs, this sentence then forms a solid basis on which to build.

The situation is different with antinomies. Ifwe analyze the example “(S) The sentence S is false”, we state that its truth value oscillates. No matter whether we assume that the sentence is true or whether we assume the opposite, in both cases the assumption turns out to be contradictory. Thus, an antinomy is a kind of super contradiction that clearly differs from a dialectical contradiction. This can also be shown by analyzing the negation of an antinomic sentence. This negation doesn’t produce a solid basis, for it becomes a tautology, and a tautology has no clear truth value.

These differences between a contradiction and an antinomy sug-gest that it is more difficult to overcome an antinomic interaction pattern than a contradictory one, since in the first case the struc-ture itself must be broken up and replaced by a new one.

Keywords Contradiction; antinomy; self-reference; truth; false-hood; undecidability; neurosis; psychosis.

Author Biography

Thomas Kesselring

Thomas Kesselring ist ein bekennender Absteiger: Häufige Abstiege weit hinunter auf der Weltkarte, insbesondere in Länder, die in den Weltbankstatistiken ganz unten angeführt sind. (Lehrt dort mit Vorliebe Philosophie und Ethik.) Sowie Abstiege in tiefe Höhlen: Je tiefer, desto besser! Vor Jahrzehnten widmete er sich als Speläologe der He-gelschen Dialektik, einem verwirrenden System dunkler (Gedanken-) Gänge. Die im vorliegenden Text eingeführte Unterscheidung zwischen Widerspruch und Antinomie ist ein Ergebnis dieser Untergrundarbeiten. Dazu: Thomas Kesselring: Entwicklung und Widerspruch. Suhrkamp 1981. Die Produktivität der Antinomie. Suhrkamp 1984. Thomas Kesselring lehrt Ethik, Philosophie, Ökologie und Multikulturalität an der Universität und v.a. an der Pädagogischen Hochschule Bern sowie an der Universidade Pedagogica in Maputo, Mocambique.

Korrespondenz: Thomas Kesselring, Pädagogische Hochschule Bern, Institut Si, Muesmattstrasse 29, 3012 Bern, Schweiz, E-Mail: thomas.kesselring@phbern.ch oder: thomas.kesselring@philo.unibe.ch

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Published

2010-04-01

How to Cite

Kesselring, T. (2010). Contradiction and antinomy: Two logical phenomena which are relevant for psychotherapy. Psychotherapie-Wissenschaft, (2), 108–115. Retrieved from https://psychotherapie-wissenschaft.info/article/view/22

Issue

No. 2 (2010): Psychotherapie Forum 18/2 (veröffentlicht bei Springer Wien New York)

Section

Special Issue

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