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

An Introduction to the Logic of Marxism by George Novack

Lecture 

VIII. The Categories of Dialectical Logic

laws: 

change of quantity into quality

development through contradictions 

conflict of content and form

interruption of continuity [discontinuity]

change of possibility into inevitability

....each one corresponds to some particular phase or aspect of the material reality of the universe. 

....possible to approach these laws as a whole through consideration of any of them

....we shall approach the laws of dialectics through a consideration of the relations between essence and appearance

....these categories of thought are consciously or unconsciously used all the time by all of us

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[The category of essence]

....The essence of a thing is what necessary ....without which it could not exist is.

....This problem of essence especially puzzles those whose minds have become somewhat sophisticated or adulterated by contact with philosophy as taught in the colleges. They too think of the essence of a thing as something absolutely permanent, fixed and final, as radically different from the appearances of the same thing.

....In reality, the essence of any thing does not and cannot come into existence all at once and remain there in immutable form

....The essence of a thing develops and is realized along with the process of development of the material thing itself. It is an integral and inseparable aspect of the object, sharing all the vicissitudes of its history.

...has ....a material and historical character  ....comes into being under specific conditions, develops into and through various forms, and eventually goes out of existence, together with the perishing of the thing itself.

....its course of development has a dialectical or contradictory character. The essence of a thing never comes into existence by itself and as itself alone. It always manifests itself along with and by means of its own opposite. This opposite is what we designate by the logical term appearance. 

....through a series of relatively accidental appearances that essence unfolds its inner content and acquires more and more reality until it exhibits itself as fully and perfectly as it can under the given material conditions.

....distinguishing between essence and appearance, the relatively permanent core and changing surface of things

....urgent need to see their unity, their interconnections, and their conversion - under certain conditions- into one another. Hegel expressed this in an unforgettable formulation: "In essence everything is relative." Whereas, in appearance, regarded in abstraction from essence, everything is immediate or absolute.

....Essence and appearance are identified with as well as opposed to each other at every stage in the development of a given material movement. But their respective relations can become reversed in the course of development.

    In the initial phase of a thing, the appearance usually tends to subordinate the essence to itself. Along the way, the two diverge to the point of opposition; and then, at the height of a thing's development, its essential nature most transparently shines forth in triumph over its various appearances. Essence and appearance commingle at the peak as they did at the beginning. But in the latter stage essence dominates appearance.

....For no sooner does the essence of a thing manifest itself most directly and coincide as fully as possible with its appearance, than the thing itself, having realized its possibilities, having unfolded its inner content to the utmost, begins to move toward and to pass over into something else. In other words, the essential starts upon a descending path to be transformed again into the less essential and eventually into the nonessential.

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