Engels' Critique of Formal Logic

[Heimdal]

Hey guys, I'm trying to learn more on logic and I was wondering what you guys would have to say on this critique on formal logic, as well as the comparison between formal and dialectic logic.

Here's an exerpt:

We may notice four main points here.

(a) Engels allows that formal logic is a part of philosophy that survives the overthrow of speculative philosophy.

(b) Hegel had argued that where there is no development or advance in knowledge from premises to conclusion there is no inference at all. On Hegel’s view, that is, a mere tautology would not be a genuine inference. With these views in mind, Engels argues that since formal logic contains inferences it leads to new knowledge.

(c) Like Hegel also, however, he holds that formal logic is somehow incomplete, and points the way to dialectical logic. In particular he complains that in formal logic the various types of judgment are regarded as fixed and as rigidly distinguished from one another, instead of being shown to be continuous and fluid. It would therefore be natural to conclude from this part of Engels’ argument that he supposed formal logic to be (in his sense of the word) “metaphysical,” and therefore false. He certainly considered that formal logic belonged to the domain of the Understanding and of the ability to abstract and to experiment which (he says) is common to men and animals, and that the dialectical procedures of the Reason are peculiar to mankind.

(d) It looks as if Engels would have approved of a sort of logic like that of Bernard Bosanquet or of some contemporary philosophers of “ordinary language” in which, for example, instead of the distinction being between, say, categorical and hypothetical judgments, it is between categorical and hypothetical aspects of them; or instead of there being a separate discussion of deductive and of inductive inference, the two are shown to be very intimately involved with one another; and so on for other well-known logical contrasts.

Source: Online Library of Liberty - 10.: Marxism and Formal Logic - The Illusion of the Epoch: Marxism-Leninism as a Philosophical Creed

If you're interested, you can learn more about it in the link provided. I realize this can also be under the political philosophy section but I'm more curious to hear from a "logical" perspective, rather than political. Anyway, any input would be greatly appreciated.

[johncee]

[quote=Heimdal;18985]Hey guys, I'm trying to learn more on logic and I was wondering what you guys would have to say on this critique on formal logic, as well as the comparison between formal and dialectic logic.

Here's an exerpt:

We may notice four main points here.

(a) Engels allows that formal logic is a part of philosophy that survives the overthrow of speculative philosophy.

(b) Hegel had argued that where there is no development or advance in knowledge from premises to conclusion there is no inference at all. On Hegel’s view, that is, a mere tautology would not be a genuine inference. With these views in mind, Engels argues that since formal logic contains inferences it leads to new knowledge.

(c) Like Hegel also, however, he holds that formal logic is somehow incomplete, and points the way to dialectical logic. In particular he complains that in formal logic the various types of judgment are regarded as fixed and as rigidly distinguished from one another, instead of being shown to be continuous and fluid. It would therefore be natural to conclude from this part of Engels’ argument that he supposed formal logic to be (in his sense of the word) “metaphysical,” and therefore false. He certainly considered that formal logic belonged to the domain of the Understanding and of the ability to abstract and to experiment which (he says) is common to men and animals, and that the dialectical procedures of the Reason are peculiar to mankind.

(d) It looks as if Engels would have approved of a sort of logic like that of Bernard Bosanquet or of some contemporary philosophers of “ordinary language” in which, for example, instead of the distinction being between, say, categorical and hypothetical judgments, it is between categorical and hypothetical aspects of them; or instead of there being a separate discussion of deductive and of inductive inference, the two are shown to be very intimately involved with one another; and so on for other well-known logical contrasts.

Source: Online Library of Liberty - 10.: Marxism and Formal Logic - The Illusion of the Epoch: Marxism-Leninism as a Philosophical Creed


What about the politics of the writer you refer readers too? That is, Harry Burrows Acton (1908 -1974) a rightwing and reactionary British academic in the field of political philosophy. Who wrote books and was known for speaking on the so-called morality of capitalism and attacking Marxism. This morality never extended to the colonial victims nor the colonial plunder carried out by the British Empire. Nor was their any morality conveyed or extended to the British workers and their struggles. Nor did Acton’s morality extend to the 600 million child laborers around the world. Acton too was incensed about Lenin labeling a section of academics and their privileged position in society as agents in the service of capitalism.
In the reference Acton does not quote much of Engels but twists and turns his words at many opportunities. He then sets out his discourse by him asking the question then answering it.
One of the main points about Acton was he did not recognise contradiction. That motion brings in its wake contradiction. Marxism is based on a scientific understanding of the world against Actons speculative philosophy which is abstract invariably leading back to god as an explanation.

Now Engels: True, so long as we consider things as at rest and lifeless, each one by itself, alongside and after each other, we do not run up against any contradictions in them. We find certain qualities which are partly common to, partly different from, and even contradictory to each other, but which in the last-mentioned case are distributed among different objects and therefore contain no contradiction within. Inside the limits of this sphere of observation we can get along on the basis of the usual, metaphysical mode of thought. (formal logic) But the position is quite different as soon as we consider things in their motion, their change, their life, their reciprocal influence on one another. Then we immediately become involved in contradictions. Motion itself is a contradiction: even simple mechanical change of position can only come about through a body being at one and the same moment of time both in one place and in another place, being in one and the same place and also not in it. And the continuous origination and simultaneous solution of this contradiction is precisely what motion is.
If simple mechanical change of position contains a contradiction this is even more true of the higher forms of motion of matter, and especially of organic life and its development. We saw above that life consists precisely and primarily in this — that a being is at each moment itself and yet something else. Life is therefore also a contradiction which is present in things and processes themselves, and which constantly originates and resolves itself; and as soon as the contradiction ceases, life, too, comes to an end, and death steps in. We likewise saw that also in the sphere of thought we could not escape contradictions, and that for example the contradiction between man's inherently unlimited capacity for knowledge and its actual presence only in men who are externally limited and possess limited cognition finds its solution in what is — at least practically, for us — an endless succession of generations, in infinite progress.