Conjunction and Contradiction

The Law of Non-Contradiction (hereafter: LNC) says that no contradiction can be true. But what is a contradiction? And what does it take for a contradiction to be true? As Patrick Grim [5] has pointed out, a quick look at the literature will reveal a large menagerie of different interpretations of the basic terms and, consequently, of LNC. Grim actually identifies as many as 240 different options (on a conservative count), and I don’t think there is any need to dwell further into the conceptual combinatorics that hides behind this familiar piece of logical nomenclature. I do, however, want to focus on one of the main ambiguities enumerated by Grim, one that seems to me to lie at the heart of the matter. And I want to offer an argument to the effect that on one way of resolving the ambiguity LNC is non-negotiable, but on another way of resolving the ambiguity it is perfectly plausible to suppose that LNC may, in some rather special and perhaps undesirable circumstances, fail to hold.