One may think an understanding as presented in this series is self-defeating in that it embraces contradiction, and therefore can pull magic answers out of a hat whenever a problem arises.  But that is not what embracing contradiction provides.  What it provides is the understanding that our problems are real things all by themselves, at one level requiring no explanation at all.  Embracing contradiction doesn't mean embracing the explosion of truth and implosion of meaning created by overlaying deductive frameworks on paradox.  It simply says that problems are real things too.  They are contradictions.

What this amounts to, and what deserves further elaboration, is that our ordinary conception is already correct.  This understanding places the burden on the theorist to explain why the ordinary conception is right.  It is the theorist, after all, who claims things mean something other than they appear.  It is the theorist's most honest course to resolve these problems as his or her own.  To claim the ordinary conception is wrong is to read a belief into someone not holding that belief—something akin to placing the burden of proof on the accused.

I will desist from elaboration for a while though.  I will only note that having touched on implication—a target topic here for quite some time—it too deserves elaboration.  Simply keeping it in mind is elaboration enough, but for the pure stimulation of the activity, the reward from the development of clear conceptions creates the merit in elaboration.  And seeing the fixed as the implied of our choice, and our choice as implicit in the grasp of things discerned fixed is something open to explanation now.  Understanding discovery, surprise and the insisted upon as explained by implication allows us to resolve what problems we as theorists propose.  Seeing what we ordinarily do with our problems and happy circumstances as nothing other than examples of those things we as theorist provide in explanation will provide confirmation of our understanding.

A page containing these entries in-line and in sequence can be found at http://patheffect.com/.  It contains nothing other than what you may have already read here, except with occasional corrections.  Though I imagine one day having corrected there the myriad typos and other minor inaccuracies this blog seems to have seduced me into making, all the major flaws will stay, even there.  It's a short read, and perhaps I should keep it that way, but I make no promises.

So, thanks for stopping by, and I'll see you around, distinguished ladies and gentlemen.

There's more to be said, but for now, thanks for stopping by, and I'll see you around, distinguished ladies and gentlemen.

Resolving all reality as distinction, we must find meaning and consequence within the one principle of distinction. We observe here that the diversity of a thing being both arbitrary and fixed is in fact the essence of meaning.

In this entry we carry out an experiment in inspecting distinction.

In this entry we return to the view of life as naming. Having indicated some tools in the exploration of other views in this series, we can now employ them in characterizing naming by showing the relation of naming to these other views.

We've proposed embracing conflict--something we wish to consider with care. One doesn't accept unwanted imposition when not forced to. We here consider what care we can take, looking at our engagement in coercion.

In present wings we externalize our internally produced reality to investigate the nature of knowledge, cause-effect and the mind-body problem.

There are varying contexts for resolving diverse verdicts of truth. We do have multiple contexts, and so do seem to be able to change our truths. What is lost in those contexts when we untether their truths?

We consider choice and the distinction between the internal and external world from the views of distinction as naming and as contradiction.

With our heavy reliance on truth, how can we keep as meaningful our statements, yet see truth as merely a phenomenon? We've described assertions with naming, or taking together. Here we look at "not".

We will look here at another view of distinction, one that doesn't grapple with contradiction, by removing the primacy of truth and falsity. The fundamental element of this view is naming.

A brief post to link back to some carnival entries.

How do we make sense of the paradoxes of philosophical logic in the larger picture of philosophy as a whole? We explore here how distinction is related to the reason of philosophical logic and where contradiction relates the two.

Is accepting contradiction as actual possible. It is not obvious. It sounds wrong, by definition. How could so much history pass with so much being missed?

We consider here the thesis that the impossibility of life is what gives life possibility.

Accepting the irrational sounds contradictory, as it must, but most of us, if not all of us, already understand this and operate within irrationality's strange rules of reason, even while we pretend we don't—as also we must.

The alternates to what we think are restrictions on what can exist, are in fact very real and not restricted from existence at all.

Are we, as individuals, alone in the universe? For some, first appearances of life as distinction leave us as the only one accountable for the state of affairs. For some this theory doesn't resolve conflict, it creates it.

Why this, why now, why? Common questions when we are faced with seemingly arbitrary facts. When circumstances seem particular yet not compelled by some organizing principle, we become wary that we don't understand all at play.

Just how strong are we? How free? Can we overcome the limitations on us? We might be tempted to consider all impositions as being of our own making. This would secure for us triumph over all our conflicts, complete freedom.

Is magic real? Being defined as the supernatural, it clearly is not natural, and so no, it is not real. But with contradictions present in so many very real distinctions in our lives, we might expect the magical to be present in a very real sense.

In order to see how all is good we will first see how all that is not good is not so bad after all. When we understand this no conflict is too great and our virtuosity in achieving good things is uncontested.

Strength--we desire it. It enhances our virtuosity. It enables us to achieve other of our desires, or fend off other impositions on us.

Virtuosity. It is the real object of any introspection. We seek grace, comprehension and effect.

Life is a contradiction. And this isn't bad, this is explanatory. Understanding this allows us to overcome the biggest contradiction in each of our lives: conflict.