By Schubert Ogden
The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden
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