This paper examines the religious and mythological foundations of some central principles of Western logic, especially the laws of non-contradiction and excluded middle. It traces those logical laws to the very beginning of the Greek creation myth. The foundation of Greek metaphysics and logic was the principle of exclusion, first expressed in Greek myth, then conceptualized in early Greek philosophy, and finally formalized in Aristotelian logic. The paper traces this exclusionary framework thro…
Read moreThis paper examines the religious and mythological foundations of some central principles of Western logic, especially the laws of non-contradiction and excluded middle. It traces those logical laws to the very beginning of the Greek creation myth. The foundation of Greek metaphysics and logic was the principle of exclusion, first expressed in Greek myth, then conceptualized in early Greek philosophy, and finally formalized in Aristotelian logic. The paper traces this exclusionary framework through Anaximander, Parmenides, Aristotle, Hume, Leibniz, Hegel, Carnap, and contemporary non-classical logics. It also asks whether paraconsistent, paracomplete, and many-valued logics genuinely surpass exclusion, or merely relocate exclusion at a higher metalinguistic level. Finally, the paper contrasts this Western framework with Buddhist catuskoti and the metaphysics of no-self, arguing that non-Western traditions may offer alternative forms of rationality that should not be reduced to Western logical categories.
