1505.Thought Is

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1. Thought is not about itself, nor about nothing; it is about reality! or about something, 

1. Just as thought is about reality! or about something! so reality, or something! is what thought is about. 

1. The statement, "There is reality/' or "There is something," is necessarily true because the contradictory statement, "There is no reality," or "There is nothing/' is self-contradictory and therefore necessarily false. 

1. But, then! the statement, "There is necessary reality as well as contingent reality," or "There is something necessary as well as something contingent/' is also necessarily true, and for the same reason-because the contradictory statement, "There is no necessary reality but only contingent reality," or "There is nothing necessary but only something contingent," is likewise self-contradictory and therefore necessarily false. (If there is no necessary realityf or if nothing is necessary, then the statement "There is [only contingent] reality," or "There is [only] something [contingent]," could not be necessarily true but only contingently true, and the statement,"There is reality," or "There is something," which is necessarily true, could be-selfcontradictorily-false.) 
   

Summer 1996; rev. 23 March 2001