Reading notes: An Introduction to the Logic of Marxism by George Novack

An Introduction to the Logic of Marxism by George Novack

Lecture VI The Dialectical Method: II

....truth, the cognition of which is the business of philosophy, became in the hands of Hegel no longer an aggregate of finished dogmatic statements, which once discovered, had merely to be learned by heart. Truth lay now in the process of cognition itself, in the long historical development of science, which mounts from lower to ever higher levels of knowledge without ever reaching, by discovering so-called absolute truth, a point at which it can proceed no further and where it would have nothing more to do than to fold its hands and admire the absolute truth to which it had attained.

....the ignorance of the individual does not alter the dialectical character of the process.

....As the proverb has it: Live and let live. Each must have its turn; we admit the one, but we admit the other also.

    "But when we look more closely, we find that the limitations of the finite [as well as of the infinite-G. N.] do not merely come from without; that (in each case and in its own way) its own nature is the cause of its abrogation and that by its own means it passes into its opposite….

....Everything generates within itself that force which leads to its negation, its passing away into some other and higher form of being.

....law of the negation of the negation.

    In this dialectical movement, in this passage out of and into opposition, resides the secret to the movement of all real things. Therefore here also is the mainspring of the dialectical method of logic, which is a correct conceptual translation of the processes of development in reality.

...."Contradiction, above all things, is what moves the world: and it is ridiculous to say that contradiction is unthinkable. The correct point in that statement is that contradiction is not the end of the matter but cancels itself." (Encyclopedia, p. 192.)

....forces of reality keep upsetting and violating the laws of formal logic. Processes in nature are forever contradicting themselves as they develop. 

....both opposition and contradiction are genuinely real and rational. This particular contradiction expresses the inherent nature of things and arises from the contradictory character of reality itself.

....Formal logic had no more use for opposition, let alone contradiction, than the American Indians had for petroleum or the totalitarians have for democracy. They either ignored it or threw it on the junk heap. Hegel retrieved this jewel, cut and polished its facets and thus made a world-historic contribution to logic.

....opposition and contradiction, instead of being meaningless or valueless, were the most important factors in nature, society and thought. 

...."Instead of speaking by the maxim of Excluded Middle (which is the maxim of abstract understanding), we should rather say: Everything is opposite. Neither in heaven nor in earth, neither in the world of mind nor of nature, is there anywhere such an abstract 'either-or' as commonsense thought maintains. All that is, is concrete, with difference and opposition within itself. 

....This law of the unity of opposites, which so perplexes and horrifies addicts of formal logic, can be easily understood, not only when it is applied to actual processes of development and interrelations of events, but also when itis contrasted with the formal law of identity.

    ....This correct proposition is not an affirmation of abstract identity but an identification of opposites. 

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....Instead of eliminating contradiction from reality and logic, Hegel made it the keystone of his conception of reality and his system of logic. Hegel's entire logical structure proceeds from the proposition of the identity, unity and interpenetration of opposites. A thing is not only itself but another. A is not merely equal to A; it is also more profoundly equal to non-A.

....all real development proceeds in a contradictory manner by reason of the conflict of opposing forces within and around all existing things. Nothing is unalterably fixed and absolutely final. Everything passes away in the course of development. Necessity becomes transformed into lack of necessity, or contingency and chance; reality becomes transformed into unreality or appearance; rationality becomes irrationality; yesterday's truth becomes today's half-truth and tomorrow's error, and, finally, utter falsehood.

    Hegel generalized this fundamental feature of reality in his logical law that everything necessarily, naturally and reasonably turns into its opposite during the course of its existence. According to the laws of formal logic, this is impossible, illogical, absurd, because it is self-contradictory. In formal logic contradiction and especially self-contradiction are impossible in reality as well as illegitimate in thought.

....Some people saw-and indeed still see-an insoluble contradiction in this sequence of events. "How can you be for reforming the Comintern at one time and then favor its overthrow at another?" they expostulated. They were formalistic to the point of pedantry and not dialectical in their thinking as well as in their political activity. They do not understand that it is necessary and rational to change policy and strategy with changes in objective reality. They do not comprehend that different and even contradictory policies can and do serve to promote one and the same strategic aim. In logical terms they do not grasp how what is different in appearance can remain identical in essence; or, to put it more generally, that what may seem different can yet be identical. They reason according to the law of identity in formal logic: What is identical must always remain the same both in appearance and essence regardless of circumstances. But dialectics teaches that what is identical not only may but must change.

    This same problem has arisen at each new stage in the development of our movement. Each turn in our political tactics, necessitated by the changing conditions of the radical labor movement, has witnessed a struggle between formalists and dialecticians. In the 1934 merger with the American Workers Party, the Oehlerite sectarians, in reality opposed to the fusion, wanted to lay down formal stipulations and barriers to the Musteite centrists which would have resulted in preventing this fruitful marriage of two different political groups. Unable to reconcile their formalism with the necessities of building a revolutionary party in this country, they drove toward a split.

    The proposal to enter the Socialist Party in 1935 encountered opposition from formalists who wanted to maintain the previous form of party organization, regardless of the pressing political needs of the process of building the proletarian party. They thought our party had attained finished organizational structure when it was actually just at the beginning of party building. The exit from the Socialist Party in its turn encountered opposition from other formalists who had begun to accommodate themselves to cohabitation with the centrist milieu, although political necessity dictated that the struggle with centrism be carried through to the end. It may be not unimportant to recall that some of the same individuals who opposed our entry into the Socialist Party were most reluctant to leave it (Martin Ahern). The more things change, the more formalism remains true to itself- and thereby is false to reality.

    All these different actions, which appeared so absolutely contradictory and therefore incomprehensible to the formalists and sectarians, were equally necessary and rational stages in the dialectical process of assembling our forces. Tactical formulas, like all formulas, must adapt themselves to the changing course, the flux of real events.

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....negation is not something barren or self-destroying. It is also its own opposite. It is the most positive and powerful of affirmations. Just as affirmation transforms itself of necessity into negation, so in turn negation exhibits its positive character, as the negation of the negation, that is, an entirely new affirmation which, in its turn, contains the seed of its own negation. This is the dialectic of development, the necessary transformation of processes into other processes.

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....This movement ....from unreality into reality and then back again to unreality, constitutes the essence, the inner movement behind all appearance. Appearance cannot be understood without an understanding of this process. It is this that determines whether any appearance in nature, society or in the mind is rational or non-rational.

    Writes Engels: "The Roman Republic was real, but so was the Roman Empire which superseded it. In 1789 the French monarchy had become so unreal, that is to say, it had been so robbed of all necessity, so non-rational, that it had to be destroyed by the Great [French] Revolution- of which Hegel always speaks with the greatest enthusiasm. In this case the monarchy was the unreal and the revolution was the real. And so, in the course of development, all that was previously real becomes unreal, loses its necessity, its right of existence, its rationality.

    "And in the place of moribund reality comes a new reality capable of living- peacefully if the old has enough intelligence to go to its death without a struggle; forcibly if it resists this necessity. Thus the Hegelian proposition turns into its opposite through Hegelian dialectics itself: All that is real in the sphere of human history becomes irrational in the process of time and is therefore irrational already by its destination, is tainted beforehand with irrationality, and everything which is rational in the minds of men is destined to become real, however much it may contradict the apparent reality of existing conditions. In accordance with all the rules of the Hegelian method of thought, the proposition of the rationality of everything which is real resolves itself into the other proposition: All that exists deserves to perish." (Ludwig Feuerbach and the Outcome of Classical German Philosophy, pp. 10-11.)

   

Capitalism was once a real and necessary social system.

    It had to come into being by virtue of the prevailing social conditions and the growth of man's productive forces. It did come into existence and proceeded to spread throughout the world, overthrowing, subordinating to itself, or supplanting all earlier social relations in its triumphal march. Capitalism therewith proved its necessity, its inevitability in historical practice, by establishing its reality and rationality and exerting its power in society.

    There is a measure of truth in the assertion that so horrifies the philistines, "Might makes right." But the philistine, lacking dialectics, doesn't understand that the contrary of this proposition holds equally true. "Right makes might."

....Something acquires reality because the necessary conditions for its production and reproduction are objectively present and operative. It becomes more or less real in accordance with the changes in the external and internal circumstances of its development. It remains truly real only so long and insofar as it is necessary under the given conditions. Then, as conditions change, it loses its necessity and its reality and dissolves into mere appearance.

....A thing is truly real if it is necessary, if its appearance truly corresponds to its essence, and only so long as it proves itself to be necessary. 

....Materialists ...., locate the roots of necessity in the objective world, in the material conditions and conflicting forces which create, sustain and destroy all things. But, from the purely logical standpoint, both schools of philosophy agree in connecting reality with necessity.

....for Hegel all that is real is not without exception and qualification worthy of existence. "Existence is in part mere appearance, and only in part reality." 

....the omnipotence of the negative side of existence, which is forever emerging from, annihilating and transcending the affirmative aspect of things.

    This "powerful unrest," as Leibnitz called it, this quickening force and destructive action of life- the negatives is everywhere at work

....If everything that comes into existence must pass out of existence, as all of reality pounds constantly into our brains, then every affirmation must inexorably express its negation in logical thought. Such a movement of things and of thought is called a dialectical movement.

     "All things . . . meet their doom; and in saying so, we have a perception that Dialectic is the universal and irresistible power, before which nothing can stay, however secure and stable it may deem itself," writes Hegel. (Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, p. 128.)

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....everything comes into existence and remains there, not by accident, but as the result of determinate conditions and necessary causes. There are threads of lawfulness running through the processes of reality and exhibited in the existence and persistence of its products. There is reason in the real world- and therefore the real world is rationally reflected and translated in our mind.

....The real truth about things is that they not only exist, persist, but they also develop and pass away. This passing away of things, eventuating in death, is expressed in logical terminology by the term "negation."

....unless we introduce the negation of our first affirmation, we shall obtain only a superficial and abstract inspection of reality.

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