De la distinción entre lógica formal y lógica dialéctica

Abstract

Since it has been long established and demonstrated that 'classical' or 'Aristotelean logic' is part of what is called 'symbolic' or 'modern logic', it is necessary to provide for the annulment of irreal terminological frontiers, as has been done, for example, by Prior and Bochenski, and to speak definitively of a single formal logic. The problem which we are trying to clarify refers to the reasons for the still-existent resistance, on the part of some, to accept such a unifying subsumption.

Leaving aside the reasons of traditional philosophy which in the majority of cases stems from Thomist roots, it is convenient to discuss others no less tenacious which rest upon the Hegelian. Marxist dialectic. The definition of 'dialectical logic' that Lenin puts forth in his Philosophical Notebooks rests upon two suppositions. First: the 'world' or 'reality' can and should be known in its totality, and in addition, in a certain type of totality, -one which is submitted to the dynamism of the temporal. Second: there is a separate and proper discipline which aims at the attainment of that knowledge. To accept both suppositions is to admit the persistence of a metaphysical philosophy which is separate from and superior to the positive sciences. The dialectic is the metaphysics which corresponds to a dynamic vision of reality, if it simultaneously takes into consideration the general description of the aggregate of entities that constitutes the world and the establishment of their changing connections. On the other hand, from the second supposition, it follows to postulate the existence of a single method of knowledge for collecting the proper objects of the dialectic as thus conceived. This conception brings about a methodological conflict that is not yet resolved within the perspectives of Marxism. The state of relations between dialectical and formal logic remains no less obscure. There is no difference of object between both disciplines, but, they can be modally distinguished since formal logic does not take into account certain coefficients of the transformation of the object. According to this interpretation, formal logic operates with fixed categories and consequently its value is subordinate in its relation to dialectical logic.

In admitting such a hierarchy, it is first necessary to accept: 1) the existence of something that corresponds to the mention of 'unfixed categories'; 2) the higher evaluation of the 'unfixed' to the 'fixed categories'; 3) the reduction of formal logic to traditional categories and principles, that is, to a 'predicative logic'. In order that we do not entangle ourselves in a metaphysical discussion concerning 'change', 'development', 'mutability', and other terms, we will only underline the consequences of the third point. In fact, every propagandist of dialectical logic can distinguish his discipline from that which is termed 'formal logic' if beforehand he reduces this to Aristotelean logic. In this way, dialectical logic earns its place as an autonomous discipline when it concedes, on the one hand, a certain status to metaphysics ('objective logic': the description of reality as a whole) and, on the other, to traditional logic ('subjective logic': the description and ordering of the 'formal' knowledge of that reality).

It is possible to point out the weaknesses of such a position in conformity with the Marxist philosophy, and in so doing, to show why the dialectical theses, in respect to 'symbolic logic', have oscillated from a most inflamed rejection to a conditional acceptance of a subordinate position. In Marx, himself, philosophy as an aspiration of total knowledge of the world was held as an 'ideology'; that is, as an inverted image which hides the man-world relations as reflected through social institutions. This ideology, according to the historical evolution, is submitted to the possibility of its elimination once the material conditions make useless the formation of ideological superstructures. The problem of the 'elimination of philosophy' was dealt with by Engels, who insisted that, once it was thrown out from nature and history, there was nothing left for philosophy but the domain of pure thought; the way in which this still survives is in the doctrine of the Jaws of the intellectual process, that is to say, logic and dialectic. These theses of classical Marxism show the advantage of proving the definite reduction of philosophical activity to logic, but they have the inconvenience of separating this activity along with the introduction of the 'dialectic'. Finally, it is an ambiguous position, which classical Marxism had the critical vision to denounce, that allows the construction of a 'dialectical logic' as an equivalent to an ideological superstructure.

The historical picture became more complex with the appearance of what was called 'logistics' or 'mathematical logic', in which Marxism saw the danger, at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th Century, of the possibility of the liquidation of philosophy by other hands and from other positions. Apart from the question whether such a thing would have been possible, such an attitude amounted to recognizing that the metaphysical structure could collapse by other methods. And this, at the same time, meant for the Marxist to renounce the theory of 'ideology'.

At first sight and still awaiting the historical results, the Marxist suppositions that seem more complete are those which depend on the ideological liquidation of philosophy from social change, and the cultural consequences that are derived from it: on the contrary, the means applied by the schools of analysis are found more trustworthy to their purpose of dissolving the meaningless language of metaphysics. But the difference between both positions does not allow one to consider them absolutely exclusive of each other. Nevertheless, official Marxism has believed so, and probably, before the danger of being seen contaminated by the techniques or operating suppositions of logical positivism, it proceeded to raise a protective screen. For that reason, it re-established to an extreme the value of Aristotelean logic, saving it from the natural absolescence which meets every ideology, and maintaining that the laws of this logic are not conventional norms established by men, but the reflection in the human mind of the determinate relationships that exist amid the objects of the natural world. This was all ruled by the metaphysical elevation of the dialectic, that from a simple method of socio-historical investigation there came to be the totalizing system of a superior and comprehensive philosophy of the universe.