How to Read Both: The Logic of True Contradictions in Chaucer's World

This essay argues that medieval culture is characterized by a commitment to mutually exclusive truths, despite upholding the fundamental principle of Aristotelian logic that there can be no true contradictions. The possibility of true contradiction, known to modern philosophy as dialetheism, is explored in Troilus and Criseyde, Pearl, and Piers Plowman; in contrast, Chaucer's Pardoner is discussed as an example of lived contradiction that manifests as incoherence. The law of non-contradiction is still regarded as fundamental in philosophy, despite some celebrated challenges: Hegel's famous insistence on the contradictory nature of all things is here used to illuminate the logical difficulties created by the ineffable nature of the Trinity. Medieval theologians such as Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Robert Holcot, and others, were faced with a particularly acute epistemological crisis as they struggled to formulate theories that could reconcile the universality of logic (without which all rational inquiry was threatened) with the unique contradictions of triune divinity. Finally, the inevitable existence of moral dialetheias, in life and in fiction, is explored in the emergence of the romance, first in the illusory moral dilemmas of Chrétien's romances, and then in the real moral crisis suffered by Thomas of Britain's Tristan. It is argued in conclusion that fiction is the prime tool for the examination of true contradiction, being in itself a lie of profound moral necessity.