A Critical Review of Contraposition Argument

جستارهایی در فلسفه و کلام

Article 5, Volume 45, Issue 2, February 2014   

Document Type: علمی پژوهشی

DOI: 10.22067/philosophy.v45i2.10179

Author

Majīd Ḍiyā’ī Quhnaviya^*

Abstract

The contraposition (musāmita) argument is among the arguments for proving the finitude of dimensions that has received attention in discussing physics and has yielded some philosophical consequences. Contraposition argument is based on the two concepts of motion and contraposition, and by proving the impossibility of the motion of circle in case of the infinitude of dimensions, it deals with the impossibility of presuming the existence of infinite dimension. By examining the key concepts of this argument, separating “mind” from “the exterior”, and specifying the scope and quality of each one of these dimensions, it is clarified that this argument cannot prove its claim in mind due to the particular manner of imagining motion, and fails to do so in the exterior due to the impossibility of restricting the condition of experiment and the contingent obstacles.

Keywords

finitude of dimensions; contraposition argument; hypothetical motion; transcendental philosophy; peripatetic philosophy