Ian: > Nagarjuna was arguably the first philosopher to systematically explore and
> *break* with the limits of the applicability of the law of non-contradiction
> and the implications for ontology and epistemology.
so he or she embraces double-think?
> Leibniz flirted with, but
> recoiled from breaking with the law when he discussed combinatorics and
> incompossibilities. Hegel, while sticking with Aristotelian logic, admitted
> the existence of true contradictions. Marx sociologized-economized them,
> arguably heralding the use of fallacies of composition type arguments while
> breaking with the methodological individualism ...
I'd agree with Marx. There aren't any true contradictions in logic (though they do exist in illogical thinking). I'd say that logical thinking is defined by the absence of contradiction. (I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, though. Do you have a clear example of a "true contradiction"?) But there are economic/sociological contradictions -- social-structurally-based conflicts -- in the real world that can only be abolished only by changing the social structure. (Class contradictions can only be abolished by getting rid of classes -- though they can be shifted or delayed or covered up.)
The fallacy of composition refers to the micro vs. macro problem: while if one person stands up to get a better view at a football game he or she will get a better view, if everyone at the game stands up to get a better view, the average person doesn't get one and in fact may lose due to the fatigue resulting from standing. There's a coordination problem: people need to figure out how to get everyone to sit down.
On the other hand, more of a Marx-style contradiction would occur if there weren't enough seats in the stadium for all the people, so that there's an inherent conflict over the distribution of seats that can't be solved via "why can't we just get along?" (i.e., figuring out how to coordinate). The only way to solve it is to change the structure. In this case, it would involve either adding seats or getting rid of people.
The above example clearly leaves out a lot of what Marx was talking about. But its purpose is only to explain the difference between Marx and the fallacy of composition viewpoint. Also, coordination is _also_ important to Marx, since after the number of seats is adjusted to correspond to the number of people, the distribution of the seats still needs to be arranged.
Put another way, the fallacy of composition is part of the liberal world-view, which centers on the horizontal conflict between "special interests" and the "public interest." Marx instead focussed on the vertical conflict between those who control the "seats" and those who need access to them in order to survive. The special vs. public conflict and the fallacy of composition show up in Marx as conflicts _within_ classes: the idea of a falling rate of profit, for example, centers on what's good for the capitalist class a whole and what's good for individual capitals. Further, the special vs. public conflict and the fallacy of composition would be central after classes are abolished.
(Thanks to the late James Tobin for his analogy, which he used in his article on the typology of inflations. See his 1981 "Diagnosing Inflation: A Taxonomy." In M. June Flanders and Assaf Razin, eds. _Development in an Inflationary World_ New York Academic Press, 1981.)
JD
