Victor asked:

I didn't understand your answer to Joan: Does Husserl succeed in refuting psychologism?

You say that the saying: 'You can't have your cake and eat it' is equivalent to the logical law of
non-contradiction:

"It is not the case that (P and not-P)"

Surely if I have a cake the opposite is not not-eating it, but not-having the cake. Equally, I can eat or
not-eat a cake. But to say that 'I can't have my cake and eat it' is like comparing apples with oranges?

Or am I missing something, or should I be taking your philosophy course?

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I was careful to say that 'You can't have your cake and eat it' is a consequenceof the law of
non-contradiction. In saying that, I was aware that 'I have my sacher torte' and 'I eat my sacher torte'
do not exhaust the logical possibilities. They are, however, inconsistent statements, and 'inconsistent
statements cannot both be true' follows from the law of non-contradiction.

As you correctly point out, however, the statements in question can both be false. To use the
technical term from Aristotelian logic, they are 'contraries', rather than 'contradictories'.

The fact that you spotted this is evidence that you would make an excellent student on one of the
Pathways programs. May I recommend the The Philosophy of Language?

Geoffrey Klempner