This book traces the development of Dialectical Logic within the history of modern western philosophy, culminating in Marx s materialist dialectics. It brings out the essential contours of Logic through a detailed exposition of the ontological and epistem.

The discussion on the principle of non-contradiction (1946–1957) between Marxist and non-Marxist philosophers was one of the major philosophical discussions in Polish philosophy of this period. In my text, I carefully reconstruct this discussion and outline its relation to Soviet debates on the subject. I show that the change in Schaff’s position happened in the early 1950s under the combined influence of the Lvov–Warsaw School and the changes in the official Soviet position regarding formal logic. I discuss the aftermath (...) following Schaff’s change in attitude towards the analytic tradition for the development of Polish philosophy, as well as the critique of this change by Jarosław Ładosz. In my reconstruction of the latter, I focus on the problem of the historical development of science. I refer to Ilyenkov’s critique of Schaff, opposing synchronic (“positivist”) and diachronic (“dialectical”) concepts of knowledge. As I argue, these opposing concepts of science can be seen as a genuine issue at stake in the Polish discussion as well, especially in the polemic between Schaff and Ładosz. (shrink)

Dialectical logic is the science of the most general laws of development of nature, society, and human thought. These laws are reflected in the form of special concepts called the categories of logic. Therefore d. 1. may also be defined as the science of dialectical categories. Comprising a system of dialectical categories, it investigates their mutual relationship, sequence, and the transitions from one category to another.

In Nos. 105 and 121 of the Kuang-ming Daily "Philosophical Supplement," there were two articles by Ch'ieh Ta-yu: "Some Opinions on the Problem of Determining the Object of Dialectical Logic" and "The Marxist Dialectical Method and Dialectical Logic." The first is quite general, while the second "elucidates the connections and differences" between dialectics and dialectical logic discussed in the first article. Almost all the basic points in both articles are erroneous. Actually, the author (...) waves the banner of antidogmatism and expounds a revisionist point of view. We will now refute his contentions. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and (...) made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

In connection with the discussion on the problem of logic, both within our country and abroad , it has already turned from the general, comparatively abstract, and difficult-to-resolve problem of the "relationship between formal logic and dialectics" to the more concrete problem of the functional scope of formal logic. Some people have even utilized special articles to inquire about a certain law in formal logic: the functional scope of the law of identity or the law of (...) contradiction. The purpose of these philosophers or logicians is to try to define the functional scope of a certain law in formal logic as a starting point, and then to proceed to study the functional scope of formal logic in the entire thinking process of mankind. If the functional scope of formal logic in mankind's entire thinking process is clearly and precisely defined, the solution of this complicated problem of the "relationship between formal logic and dialectics" would certainly not be very difficult. The basic purpose of Comrade Chu-ko Yin-t'ung's article on the problem of "whether or not formal logic's law of contradiction can be contravened in the dialectical thinking process" of men, which appeared in issue No. 82 of the "Philosophy" supplement of Kuang-ming Daily on April 24, is like this. It should be considered as a rather practical method. But I do not quite agree with his basic points of argument and with his analysis of certain examples of dialectics. I intend to present my superficial views here and to study them with Comrade Chu-ko. (shrink)

What does dialectical logic study? What is the object of dialectical logic? This question still today has not been clearly answered. In order to more fully develop the study of dialectical logic, it is necessary to resolve the question of what it is that dialectical logic studies. If the question of the object of dialectical logic studies is not resolved, the task of studying dialectical logic will be groping (...) in the dark, taking twice as long to accomplish half as much. (shrink)

The study of dialectical logic has a history of nearly one hundred years in China. It is significant for understanding both the growth of Chinese logic and the Sinicization of Marxism to review dialectical logic in the context of introducing the study of Marxism in China. Debates about dialectical logic in Chinese academic circles involve not only the problems of logic itself, but more importantly the understanding of Marxist philosophy. In the 1920s (...) and 1930s, some Marxist researchers in China were influenced by the philosophers and logicians of the former Soviet Union, and they came very close to equating dialectical logic with Marxist dialectics. They also identified the formal logic originating from ancient Greece as metaphysics, praising the former and criticizing the latter. In the upsurge of Marxist philosophy in the 1950s and 1960s, Chinese logicians carried out normal and formal academic research on dialectical logic. During the period from the end of 1970s to the end of 1990s, the research and teaching of dialectical logic in China reached its heyday, and logicians performed comprehensive and detailed research on some critical issues, including the basic laws of dialectical logic, which they tried to formalize. Since the beginning of the 21st century, dialectical logic has ceased to prosper and has faded from the core field of the discipline of logic, although some honorable scholars still persist in studying it. (shrink)

bk. 1. Tools for dialectic -- bk. 2. Historical-philosophical background materials -- bk. 3. Groundworks for dialectical logic.

A rational interpretation is proposed for two ancient Indian logics: the Jaina saptabhaṅgī, and the Mādhyamika catuṣkoṭi. It is argued that the irrationality currently imputed to these logics relies upon some philosophical preconceptions inherited from Aristotelian metaphysics. This misunderstanding can be corrected in two steps: by recalling their assumptions about truth; by reconstructing their ensuing theory of judgment within a common conceptual framework.

Questions of dialectical logic are currently of great importance in Marxist-Leninist philosophy. However, most of the logicians in our country are working on problems of mathematical logic, which is not a philosophical science. The axiomatic method is basic to mathematical logic, and its basic concept is the notion of functional dependence. Logic, as a philosophical discipline, has always studied and should study the relationship between antecedent and consequent, which is concerned not with functional dependence, not (...) with an external connection, but with an internal logical necessity. To reduce the logical relationship to functional dependence means to abolish the discipline of logic. No philosophical system, no philosophical work, has been, nor could be, constructed on the basis of mathematical logic. (shrink)

Graham Priest has brilliantly analyzed Hegel's dialectics, as far as its logical and abstract ontological (metaphysical) structure goes, and has successfully related it to his own logically sophisticated dialethism. After briefly reminding the reader of his account, the paper turns to the other, not purely logical side of Hegel's dialectics, and points to his strategy of bringing together ontological, anthropological and historical matters together with the logical structure, in a manner quite foreign to analytic tradition. It concludes with the proposal (...) that Hegel's way of directly connecting logical ontological, anthropological and historical matters has played the crucial role in the birth of what later became known as specifically ``continental'' philosophy. The paper concludes by raising the question of the relation between the two, the abstract logico-ontological approach, favored by Priest, and the rich, anthropologically and historically informed one found in all major works of Hegel. (shrink)

This clear, accessible account of Hegelian logic makes a case for its enormous seductiveness, its surprising presence in the collective consciousness, and the dangers associated therewith. Offering comprehensive coverage of Hegel's important works, Bencivenga avoids getting bogged down in short-lived scholarly debates to provide a work of permanent significance and usefulness.

The science of thought, like all the sciences, is a historical science. Following the development of human thought, it must develop from lower to higher stages.

The scope of my considerations here is defined along two lines, which seem to me of essential relevance for a theory of dialectic. On the one hand, the form of negation that – as self-referring antinomical negation – gains a quasi-semantic expulsory force [Sprengkraft] and therewith a forwarding [weiterverweisenden] character; on the other hand, the notion that every logical category is defective insofar as the explicit meaning of a category does not express everything that is already implicitly presupposed for its (...) meaning. Both lines are tightly interwoven. This I would like to demonstrate with the example of the dialectic of Being and Non-Being at the beginning of the Hegelian Logic. I will first make visible the basic structures of dialectical argumentation (sections II and III) – whereby certain revisions will turn out to be necessary in comparison with Hegel’s actual argument. Thereby it proves essential that the whole apparatus of logical categories and principles must be always already available and utilized for the dialectical explication: proving dialectic as a self-explication of logic by logical means: dialectic, as it were, as the self-fulfillment of logic (sections IV–VI). (shrink)

: Studies of Chinese dialectical materialism have long neglected the important philosophical dimension of Hegelian thought and its influence on Chinese Marxism. This essay examines the work of Zhang Shiying of Beijing University, whose studies of Hegel's works on dialectical logic in the 1950s sought to clarify the nature of Hegel's speculative dialectic and its relation to dialectical materialism. Like Lenin before him, Zhang believed that Hegel's works on logic offered a more profound reflection on (...) materialism than had previously been recognized by Marxist critics of German idealism. Zhang's sensitive reading of both Hegel's Science of Logic and the Encyclopedia Logic highlights the problem of the speculative dialectic and negativity. Examined here is Zhang's analysis of the Hegelian dialectic in light of contemporary accounts of the role of Hegelian negativity in poststructuralist thought. (shrink)

Studies of Chinese dialectical materialism have long neglected the important philosophical dimension of Hegelian thought and its influence on Chinese Marxism. This essay examines the work of Zhang Shiying of Beijing University, whose studies of Hegel's works on dialectical logic in the 1950s sought to clarify the nature of Hegel's speculative dialectic and its relation to dialectical materialism. Like Lenin before him, Zhang believed that Hegel's works on logic offered a more profound reflection on materialism (...) than had previously been recognized by Marxist critics of German idealism. Zhang's sensitive reading of both Hegel's Science of Logic and the Encyclopedia Logic highlights the problem of the speculative dialectic and negativity. Examined here is Zhang's analysis of the Hegelian dialectic in light of contemporary accounts of the role of Hegelian negativity in poststructuralist thought. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to clarify the critical role of Hegel's early logic, through an assessment of the dialectical process of sublation [Aufhebung] of the determinations of finite thinking at stake within its exposition. I want to show that the dialectical-critical work of logic has a speculative meaning for Hegel, thereby displaying the inward correspondence between critical and speculative aspects of philosophical activity. By pointing out the evidence from fragmentary texts on logic relating (...) to Hegel's teaching activity in 1801–1802, I will first put into question the idea of an introductory role of logic. In so doing I challenge a widespread reading which argues for the presence of a sharp separation between critical logic and speculative metaphysics. I will then focus on the texts on logic in the 1804–1805 Reinschrift, reading them as the worksite wherein the dawning form of a full-fledged dialectical logic is first prepared and elaborated. More generally, if this paves the way for establishing a continuity between Hegel's early and mature logic and his concept of dialectic, it is also paramount for understanding how the activity of systematic philosophy in the mature version of the system essentially constitutes an ongoing work on the forms of the finite. (shrink)

In this compact, well written essay Professor Bencivenga goes to great lengths to make Hegel both intelligible and plausible to a skeptical Anglo-American reader. For the most part he succeeds. First Bencivenga contrasts Aristotelian “analytic” with Hegelian “dialectical” logic. Next he demystifies Hegel’s idiosyncratic use of terms such as “concept”, “sublation,” “absolute”, “truth,” “necessity”, “spirit,” and “eternity”. In what is perhaps his exegetical capstone the author then leads his reader by the hand from a commonplace intuition of “the (...) wholeness of things” to absolute idealism’s conviction that all reality is a coherent and closely knit unity. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with how best to explicate the connection between Kant’s transcendental logic and Hegel’s dialectical logic. After very briefly detailing Robert Pippin’s influential account of the Kant-Hegel relationship, I offer a basic criticism of his transcendentalist interpretation of Hegel. I argue that while this works well against Pippin’s reading, there is still space to regard Hegel as doing transcendental philosophy. What is crucial here is that Hegel’s rejection of transcendental idealism does not obviously rule (...) out the possibility of Hegel being bound to transcendental philosophy itself. I proceed to show how this is possible, by differentiating the project of transcendental argumentation and the project of making transcendental claims. I argue that Hegel endorsed the latter project and not the former project. I go on to claim that one can regard Hegel’s argument for an immanent conception of infinity, and his use of Spinoza’s ‘All Determination is Negation’ principle as legitimate examples of Hegel doing transcendental philosophy in a non-orthodox Kantian manner. To put my point bluntly, Hegel is a transcendental philosopher to the extent that he is committed to identifying transcendental claims – this does not commit him to either transcendental argumentation or working within Kant’s constraints. If this is a more compelling interpretation of the Kant-Hegel relationship than the Pippinian school of thought, then it seems we can cash out the positive relationship between Kant and Hegel in a more nuanced manner. (shrink)

One of the pressing problems currently under discussion by Soviet philosophers is that of the subject matter of dialectical logic. As a consequence of the major disagreements on this question, many fundamental problems of dialectical logic remain unresolved, and teaching of the subject encounters very serious difficulties.

Hegels Denken ist keineswegs von bloß historischem Interesse, sondern erweist sich stets von neuem als gegenwartsrelativ systematisch faszinierend. Dies gilt in besonderem Maße für jenes Werk, das für gründlichstes und systematisch anspruchsvollstes Denken unserer Tradition steht: die "Wissenschaft der Logik". Diese Logik ist keine weltlose, sondern schlechthin überall, wo wir auch leben und hinblicken, ist sie ausgebreitet wirklich und gegenständlich - in organischen Bildungen, Gefühlen, Meinungen, Institutionen, Kunstwerken, religiösen Formen, bis hin zu Konstrukten und Zahlen. Alles Natürliche und Geistige ist (...) eine realphilosophisch zu fassende Wirklichkeitsweise von Logischem. Dieser nachzuspüren wird in den Beiträgen dieses Bandes unternommen. Beiträge von Johannes Berchtold, Leo Dorner, Max Gottschlich, Friedrich Grimmlinger, Leo Hemetsberger, Thomas Sören Hoffmann, Heimo Hofmeister, Michael Höfler, Hans-Dieter Klein, Wilhelm Lütterfelds, Wolfgang Pesendorfer, Urs Richli, Josef Simon, Michael Wladika, Kurt Walter Zeidler. (shrink)