A Wonder

I mentioned in the previous post that philosophy begins with experience. This claim is often misunderstood. For instance, some people draw the mistaken conclusion that since we have not experienced all beings, we cannot possibly know that nothing can both be and not be in the same sense at the same time. But one of the wonders of the created human mind is that the experience of even a single thing is sufficient for the mind to grasp not just that this thing cannot both be and not be, but that nothing can both be and not be – that the principle of contradiction is necessarily true of all things whatsoever. It is implicit in the form or pattern of being itself. Astonishing: For this shows that the mind is so fit to engage reality that it grasps not only the sensible qualities of the things that it experiences, but also their forms.