A former student of the Marxist philosopher Harry Wells sent me a paper
Wells distributed in his course, before McCarthyism caught up to Wells:
Wells, Harry K. "Historical Origins of the Logic of Classification and
the
Logic of Genesis." Oneonta, New York, Dept. of Philosophy, Hartwick
College. October 1961. 53 pp. Based on chapters 6 & 7 of the author's
1950 dissertation "Process and Unreality."
Contents:
Introduction: Stages in the Science of Logic
Chapter 1: Logical and Ontological Principles: Laws of Thought and Laws
of
Being
Chapter 2: Plato and Heraclitus
Chapter 3: Aristotle's Logic of Classification
Chapter 4: Hegel and Aristotle
Chapter 5: Hegel's Logic of Genesis
Conclusion: The Logic of Genesis and the Twentieth Century Crisis in
Thought
This is my capsule review.
(1) First, I'm impressed with the distinction between laws of being
(ontological view) and laws of thought (propositional view), and the
historical relation posited between them. It is interesting to see the
views of Jevons and Cohen and Nagel. My own position on formal logic has
always been propositional, not ontological, but apparently this is at
variance with many other philosophers throughout history. Wells poses
the
question, whether one can maintain ontological and propositional
perspectives at variance with one another (p. 9-10). He seems to think
that this won't work. I don't know.
(2) It's interesting that he identifies the logic of genesis with Marxism
and Existentialism, both philosophies exiled from mainstream western
philosophy. I don't know what else to say about this, though.
(3) The chapter on the ancient Greeks is fascinating, particularly the
war
of Plato against Heraclitus and Plato' dubious ontological
motives. Similarly interesting is Aristotle's logic of classification.
(4) The summary of Hegel's logic of genesis is also of great interest.
(5) I am unhappy with the conclusion, though. First, the posited
connection between logic and the sciences disturbs me. Secondly, the
historical development of both. I can see the hiatus between the
development of logic in Aristotle and the redefinition of the subject in
Hegel's time. However, the connection between the development of logic
and
the development of the sciences is not at all clear to me.
(6) Wells claims that science emerges from classification at the
beginning
of the 19th century. Also that logic, outside of Hegel, never caught
up. But I see two great omissions. First, there is the development of
modern physics from Galileo and Newton on. This is hardly a taxonomic
science. Secondly, the development of physics is congruent with the
development of the calculus, which is hardly a formalism of stasis. This
is all completely missing from Wells' survey.
(7) The next question would be the relation between logic and mathematics
(calculus). Well, we know that calculus could not overcome its logical
contradictions until well into the 19th century, but I'm not aware that
logic itself was basically revised during this period. Mathematicians
had
to tolerate contradictions until they could overcome them. Calculus did
not deal with qualitative change, of course, but it did learn how to
overcome the logical contradictions of motion.
(8) Logic itself began to evolve late in the 19th century, both with new
formalisms--Frege, etc.--and with developments in the foundations of
mathematics. The criticism of formal logic overlooks all of these
developments and is hence way out of date.
(9) All the sciences of course have developed way beyond taxonomy for a
long time. They seem to have gotten along without any major
preoccupations
with logic, although there have been conceptual crises yet to be
resolved. For example, quantum mechanics yielded attempts to apply
three-valued logic to apply to indeterminate states, not to mention the
(dialectical?) principle of complementarity. There might be an
interesting
conceptual crisis to which a new conception of logic might apply, but I'm
not aware that any particular innovation has definitively taken
root. Wells' examples (p. 49-50) are rather lame in comparison to these
problems.
(10) The question of why Hegel is completely overlooked by modern logic
is
well worth asking. G.H. von Wright gives some credit to Hegel even
though
Hegel is not part of his purview. But modern logic involves a number of
developments of conceivable relevance to dialectics, not just in
foundations of mathematics, but in many-valued logics, tense logic,
paraconsistent logic (which admits contradictions), etc. Whether these
can
be considered the old static logics is debatable, but either way they
should be investigated and compared to Hegel's logic and determined
whether
they adequately convey genesis and not merely classification. In logic
there have also been opposing schools of ontological thought from the
atomism of Russell to the holism of Quine.
(11) Some of these developments in formal logic have been deemed to be
applications of dialectical logic (e.g. Graham Priest's paraconsistent
logic). Conversely, others have attempted to formalize Hegel's
logic. Whether or not such efforts encapsulate the essence of
dialectical
thinking or whether formalization is fundamentally beside the main point,
I'm not certain. There are also claims that Hegelian logic is a concrete
logic (logic of content), while others are abstract logics. One would
have
to understand both areas in order to evaluate the alleged shortcomings of
formal logic with respect to something else. There may well be a
substantive issue here, but it is difficult to determine in light of the
amateurishness that plagues Marxist thinkers about logic.
(12) In sum, I think Wells raises important issues, but his conclusions
are
unconvincingly argued. The need for dialectical thinking may or may not
be
related to the need for development of a different logic. The
persistence
of outmoded ways of thinking may or may not be related to the practice of
formal logic. I myself don't really know much about the relation between
the ontological and propositional outlooks in modern logic, but perhaps
there is an issue here where further inspection is indicated. Ontology
itself may be the primary issue. Lack of a dialectical perspective may
also be important, per Wells' dissertation, where he finds Whitehead way
behind Hegel.
_________________
"The goal of Stalinism is to make yourself anonymous."
--- R. Dumain to Jim Murray, 6/28/03
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