Harold Pinter, who died at Christmas, wrote in 1958 and expanded in 2005 something which makes clear that the worry about "yes and no, true and false" etc. at the heart of any Zombie, Post-Modern or scientific discourse (which must recognise the tentative nature of reality) is swept away by the simple recognition that we have different responsibilities at different levels of thinking, of acting in and on the world.
1958: "There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false."
Nobel Prize speech of 2005: "I believe that these assertions still make sense and do still apply to the exploration of reality through art. So as a writer I stand by them but as a citizen I cannot. As a citizen I must ask: What is true? What is false?"
Is there, however not a contradiction here? No. Both statements are simultaneously true (smile).
Here is Pinter's speech for the Nobel Prize.
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