Formal Logic and Dialectics

[Dodo]

Can someone give the historical role of these two approaches and how they related to each other and where they agree/disagree. What are their social roles today(well more on formal logic rather than dialectics)? The reason for unclearness of the question is due to my lack of knowledge on formal logic...so please enlighten me.

[tallguy]

I've only just had a quick skim read about dialectics and so whilst am quite happy to be shown otherwise, my first impression is although there seems to be a good deal of overlap, Marxist dialectical materialism sound a little bit like a dogma to me, whereas logic is the merely an abstracted formalisation of the fundamental principle of causality. In logic, you start off with underlying assumptions, which may or may not be correct. However, from those assumptions, logic provides a reliable method of extrapolation. So, logic doesn't prove what you know is valid. But it does prove what you know is reliable.

[cantwealljustgetalong]

Marxists in the Hegelian tradition or Leninists (including Lenin and Trotsky) counterpose these two types of logic as a way of picking apart bourgeois social reality. honestly, I think they go a bit far in their declarations of the uselessness of formal logic. the main insight of Marx's dialectics is that social analysis resists binary categories, since even if an analyst can establish an insightful A/not-A distinction in their heads, something about society has ways of making the categories bleed into each other.

some Marxists and their postmodern heirs take this as meaning that there is an essential mystery to social reality that is impenetrable to human thought simply because the observing subject (the analyst) is a part of the object (their society). a more orthodox historical materialist analysis instead takes this 'mystery' to be a systemic, functional distortion of any potential scientific objectivity by ideological influence and for ideological ends. dialectics, I think, are good for understanding how human thought tends to work when grappling with epistemological vagueness, generated either by the limits of science or by the limits of science when warped by ideology.

when dealing with simple metaphysical matters, formal logic works just fine. the external world exists, or it does not. other subjects exist in the same way you do, or they do not. a god exists or does not. Marxism makes a big show of being hostile to metaphysics in the name of dialectics, but Marx and his early followers had no problem assuming that the external world and its many subjects exist, and argued at length that a god does not.

I do not think the usefulness of formal logic is limited to metaphysics, but it does run into problems when dealing with self-referential systems (see: the Liar Paradox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar_paradox)). often, logic is better at undermining inconsistent sets of premises rather than helping to choose between logically-consistent sets of premises. there is something to be said for prioritizing logically-valid arguments and making sure that they are actually likely sound arguments, and I think any analysis that omits this kind of rationalist theorizing based on some kind of given methodological principle is all the more weak for it.

there is another interpretation of Marx's dialectics that interprets physical reality as being 'dialectical' and unable to be properly interpreted by formal categories: dialectical materialism. this can either be a way to sneak in mysticism about the physical world into Marxism, or a more subtle point about how the world has more of a 'process' character than a fixed thing (or 'substance') character. I am sympathetic to process metaphysics, so I cautiously take the latter path to avoid getting drawn into the mystical. I am skeptical to any claim that amounts to the structure of our thoughts reflecting something fundamental about the structure of reality, which attracts me and repels me from dialectical materialism as far as it concerns a 'formal-logic world' and a 'dialectical-logic' world, respectively.

edit: see this thread for more: http://www.revleft.com/vb/anti-philosophy-and-t186504/index.html
I swear I wrote this before reading that interview. haha

[Dodo]

Hmmm. But what is therole of "formal logic" today? Is this the logic all philosophers of the 20th century used for instance? How does people like Popper, Feyeraband, Kuhn, Quine fit into this?
People who deal with what science, truth, knowledge is?

It seems to me like dialectics, while claiming to be scientific puts a big barrier to acceptance on empirical data as "facts" due to constant change in the nature. The idea being, if we are to make absolute claims, we are limited by our own "epoch", thus scientific method can only be valid if it is dynamic.
Why is it that Marxism is obsessed with the word "scientific" for instance. I know the bit where it tries to make a distinction from utopian socialists but it seems to me like there is a further claim to "scientificness".
So is this where it clashes with formal logic? A=A can not be true because A is always changing and new information can always bring new aspects of it? Same with society. So we can use certain "tools" to understand it but at the same time we can not make absolute claims, we can only understand through historical cumulative process and analysis of existing conditions.

[ChrisK]

Can someone give the historical role of these two approaches and how they related to each other and where they agree/disagree. What are their social roles today(well more on formal logic rather than dialectics)? The reason for unclearness of the question is due to my lack of knowledge on formal logic...so please enlighten me.

They do not relate to each other at all. The only relation is that Hegel used a bastardized version of Aristotlian logic to support his dialectics, unsuccessfully.

Logic's social role is mostly in the realm of computer science, since computers are based on modern formal logic.

For your edification:

Carnegie Mellon's Free Logic Course (http://oli.cmu.edu/courses/free-open/logic-proofs-course-details/)

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy on Classical (Modern) Formal Logic (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-classical/)

And if you are further interested, I can recommend some books for you.

[ChrisK]

I've only just had a quick skim read about dialectics and so whilst am quite happy to be shown otherwise, my first impression is although there seems to be a good deal of overlap, Marxist dialectical materialism sound a little bit like a dogma to me, whereas logic is the merely an abstracted formalisation of the fundamental principle of causality. In logic, you start off with underlying assumptions, which may or may not be correct. However, from those assumptions, logic provides a reliable method of extrapolation. So, logic doesn't prove what you know is valid. But it does prove what you know is reliable.

That is not what logic does. Logic is not abstracted from causality. Logic is the study of valid inference from propositions.

[Comrade #138672]

That is not what logic does. Logic is not abstracted from causality. Logic is the study of valid inference from propositions.Propositions of what exactly? In the end, it all comes down to cause-and-effect. Logic aims to capture this in the most abstract way. Propositions can be true or false only in the context of causality. Otherwise these propositions are entirely meaningless.

[ChrisK]

Marxists in the Hegelian tradition or Leninists (including Lenin and Trotsky) counterpose these two types of logic as a way of picking apart bourgeois social reality. honestly, I think they go a bit far in their declarations of the uselessness of formal logic. the main insight of Marx's dialectics is that social analysis resists binary categories, since even if an analyst can establish an insightful A/not-A distinction in their heads, something about society has ways of making the categories bleed into each other.

A bit far? Formal logic is why you have a computer.


when dealing with simple metaphysical matters, formal logic works just fine. the external world exists, or it does not. other subjects exist in the same way you do, or they do not. a god exists or does not. Marxism makes a big show of being hostile to metaphysics in the name of dialectics, but Marx and his early followers had no problem assuming that the external world and its many subjects exist, and argued at length that a god does not.

Logic is not useful for understanding metaphysics given that metaphysics is comprised of non-senses. Wittgenstein's work in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus demonstrates that it is the study of formal logic that allows us to come to this conclusion.


I do not think the usefulness of formal logic is limited to metaphysics, but it does run into problems when dealing with self-referential systems (see: the Liar Paradox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liar_paradox)). often, logic is better at undermining inconsistent sets of premises rather than helping to choose between logically-consistent sets of premises. there is something to be said for prioritizing logically-valid arguments and making sure that they are actually likely sound arguments, and I think any analysis that omits this kind of rationalist theorizing based on some kind of given methodological principle is all the more weak for it.

The liar paradox is dissolved by realizing that it is a non-sense and cannot be either true or false.

[ChrisK]

Propositions of what exactly? In the end, it all comes down to cause-and-effect. Logic aims to capture this in the most abstract way. Propositions can be true or false only in the context of causality. Otherwise these propositions are entirely meaningless.

For propositions think statements (even though they are not the same, the difference is minor). Propositions are the kinds of things that can be asserted in the indicative mood.

P1: Obama likes Marx.
P2: My hand is big.
P3: The table is solid.
P4: If you love Star Trek, then you are awesome.
P5: The proletariat is the revolutionary class.
P6: I am tired.
P7: The cat is on the mat.
P8: I would like one or two packets of sugar.
P9: I want a book and a movie.
P10: I failed my test.

Hmmm, what causality?

[Comrade #138672]

You mention the computer as a pillar of formal logic. What is a computer but the highly intelligent application of our understanding of causality? The computer exploits cause-and-effect on a micro-level, which enables it to do what it needs to do: compute. Without causality, a computer cannot function. It is precisely in the causality that the logic of the computer becomes meaningful.

[ChrisK]

You mention the computer as a pillar of formal logic. What is a computer but the highly intelligent application of our understanding of causality? The computer exploits cause-and-effect on a micro-level, which enables it to do what it needs to do: compute. Without causality, a computer cannot function. It is precisely in the causality that the logic of the computer becomes meaningful.

Nice job ignoring all the propositions that I listed.

As for a computer, you mistake the point of the example. The example expresses that formal logic is not useless and is, if anything, significantly more useful than dialectical materialism.