Chinese idiom · 成语
自相矛盾
Meaning
To contradict oneself; to be logically inconsistent.
Character by character
Origin and story
FableIn the Nan Yi (難一) chapter of Han Feizi (韓非子), a seller from Chu advertises both shields and spears. He boasts that nothing can pierce his shield, then claims that his spear can pierce anything. A listener asks what would happen if he used that spear against that shield. The seller has no answer: the two absolute claims cannot both hold true.
No actual test of the weapons is described. The contradiction lies in the claims themselves. A parallel version appears in the Nan Shi (難勢) chapter. The image later became a way to describe incompatible statements or actions, including cases where a person’s own explanation undermines itself.
Sources and further reading
In everyday life
你说整个下午都在家，又说三点在公司开会，这不是自相矛盾吗？
You say you were home all afternoon, but also that you were at a meeting in the office at three. Isn’t that contradictory?
Point to claims that cannot both be true under the same circumstances; a change of mind alone is not necessarily a contradiction.