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

An Introduction to the Logic of Marxism by George Novack

Lecture

III. Once Again on the Limitations of Formal Logic

We can single out five basic errors, or elements of fiction, inherent in the laws of formal logic.

1. Formal Logic Demands a Static Universe

A is never non-A. 

....exclude movement, change, development from themselves and thereby from the rest of reality. They do not explicitly deny the real existence or the rational significance of motion. But they are compelled to do so indirectly by the necessary implication of their own internal logic.

....Why does this formalism shy away from and turn its back upon so central a feature of reality as motion? Because motion has such a self-contradictory character. 

....successive stages in the process of development negate one another, with the result that the unified process is a series of contradictions. 

....Whenever reactionary authorities are threatened by subversive forces, they seek to suppress, imprison, or exile them from their regime. The formalists treat contradiction that way. 

....The so-called law of contradiction in formal logic does not, as it claims, express the true nature of contradiction. It is an edict excommunicating it from logic 

....In the world represented by formal logic everything stands in absolute opposition to everything else. A is A; B is B; C is C. Logically they have nothing in common. 

....rigid relations, of fixed things, of eternal repetition and repose.

....when things begin to move, not only in relation to each other but in relation to themselves, not only externally but also internally. They begin to lose their identity and tend to transform themselves into something else. 

....Nothing is permanent. Reality is never resting, ever changeable, always in flux. This unquestionable universal process forms the material foundation of the theory which, in Engels' words, teaches that ". . . the whole of nature, from the smallest element to the greatest, from grains of sand to suns, from protista [unicellular organisms] to men, has its existence in eternal coming into being and passing away, in ceaseless flux, in unresting motion and change. . . . " (Dialectics of Nature, p.13.)

2. Formal Logic Erects Impassable Barriers between Things

....If we take the laws of formal logic at face value, we have to assume that any and every single thing, or every single state of any thing, is absolutely independent of any or every other thing or state. A world is presupposed in which everything exists in perfect solitude, apart from every other thing.

....Whatever his theory, every sane person proceeds in practice upon the basis that nothing exists by itself. 

....any one thing is always passing over into and transforming itself into some other thing. To do this, it must necessarily break down and efface the boundaries which formerly separated it from that other thing. So far as we know, there are no immovable and insurmountable partitions between things.

"The fundamental proposition of Marxian dialectics is that all boundaries in nature and society are conventional and mobile, that there is not a single phenomenon which cannot under certain conditions be transformed into its opposite," remarked Lenin. (Collected Works, vol. 19, p. 203.)

On the broad historical scale, Trotsky noted: "Consciousness grew out of the unconscious, psychology out of physiology, the organic world out of the inorganic, the solar system out of nebulae." (In Defense of Marxism, p. 51.)

....This relative, mobile, fluid character of boundaries is ignored and denied by the laws of formal logic. These laws assert that everything has definite limits- but they overlook the far more important fact that these limits themselves have limits.

3. Formal Logic Excludes Difference from Identity

....formalists consider it a logical contradiction, a monstrosity, to say as the dialecticians do that identity is (or becomes) difference and difference identity. 

....two interpenetrating traits of reality are continually being washed away in the process of development. What is different becomes identical. 

...., real material identity does not exclude difference from itself but contains it as an essential part of itself. Real difference likewise does not exclude identity but includes it as an essential element within itself. These two features of reality can be separated from each other by making distinctions in thought. But that does not mean, as formal logic implies, that they can be disjoined in reality.

4. The Laws of Formal Logic Are Presented as Absolute

A always equals A - and woe unto those who do not acknowledge this dogma or dare assert otherwise.

....God is the only being that can completely meet the standards of formal logic. God is supposedly absolute, boundless, perfect, independent of everything except himself. But God, too, has a slight imperfection. Outside of the imaginations of devoutly religious people, he doesn't exist.

....nothing in the universe corresponds to such specifications. Everything real originates and presents itself to us under specific historical and material conditions, in indissoluble connection with other things, and at all times in definite and measurable proportions. Human society, for example, came into existence at a definite, materially determined turning point in the evolution of man from the higher animals; it is inseparable from the rest of organic and inorganic nature; it has developed by degrees and has far from attained its full quantitative and qualitative growth. Each stage of this social development has its own laws growing out of and corresponding to its special characteristics.

....everything comes into existence under definite material and historical limitations, develops, diversifies itself, alters, and then disappears

 

5. Formal Logic Can Presumably Account for Everything- But Itself

....According to the theory of Marxism, everything comes into being as the result of material causes, develops through successive phases, and finally perishes.

    What about formal logic and its laws? Where, when, why did they originate; how have they developed; are they eternal? The formal logicians imply, where they do not dare assert outright, that their logic did not have earthly roots but is the product of divine revelation; that its laws are invariant laws of reason; that their logic is the only possible system of logic, and therefore eternal.

....formal logic goes hand in hand with religion and dogmatism. Eternal laws of logic stand in the same position as eternal principles of morality, of which Trotsky remarked: "Heaven remains the only fortified position for military operations against dialectic materialism." (Their Morals and Ours, p. 16.)

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....Dialectics came into existence as the result of a colossal social revolution pervading all departments of life. In politics the representatives of the aroused masses, unconsciously guided by a dialectical understanding of events, knocked at the doors of the unlimited monarchies and thundered: Times have changed; we demand equality. In the spirit of formalism, the defenders of absolutism replied: You are wrong, you are subversive; things do not change or cannot change that much. The king is always and everywhere king; A equals A; sovereignty cannot equal the people, who are non-A. Such formal reasoning did not halt the march of progress, the triumph of the popular bourgeois-democratic revolutions, the dethronement and destruction of the monarchies. Revolutionary dialectics, and not formal logic, prevailed in political practice.