Ray Metzker
The first objection to dialetheism is that it is impossible to believe a contradiction. If this is right, then dialetheism is, literally, incredible.
The simply reply to this objection is that it is just plain wrong. Many, in fact most, of us believe contradictions. The person who has consistent beliefs is rare. If someone has never found that their beliefs were inconsistent, this probably means that they just have not thought about them long enough. It may be suggested that when one discovers that one’s beliefs are inconsistent one changes them. Maybe so, but this is irrelevant.
More to the point, it might be suggested that dialetheism requires us tot have not just inconsistent beliefs, but consciously inconsistent beliefs, and that this is impossible: one cannot believe two inconsistent sentences in the same ‘mental’ breath. Again, this is just plain false. The moment one realises one’s beliefs are inconsistent, one does not ipso facto cease to believe the inconsistent things. Rather, there arises a problem, and often a very difficult one, of how to revise one’s beliefs to produce consistency. This, of course, takes time.
Graham Priest // Contradiction, Belief and Rationality // 1986