Formal logic and dialectics

Indian philosophy Logic, is the science of the operations of the understanding which are subservient to the estimation of evidence: both the process itself of advancing from known truths to unknown, and all other intellectual operations in so far as auxiliary to this. It includes, therefore, the operation of Naming; .. Definition and Classification. [System of Logic, J S Mill] Formal logic, which was logic prior to Hegel, saw its field of study as restricted to the laws by means of which the truth of one proposition followed from that of another. Logic is concerned only with truth, that is, with thinking which corresponds to or reflects the world outside of thought, outside of individual consciousness, and further, the criterion of truth for logic is the extent to which it provides an adequate guide to practice. Just as thought reflects the material world and can contain nothing that does not already exist in the material world, or at least the conditions for its formation, human practice is practice of material human beings in the material world, and there can be nothing in human practice which fundamentally contradicts Nature. Thus, in elaborating the most general laws governing the development of the social practice, Hegel necessarily uncovered laws which are not unique or special to the human condition, but are objective, material laws of Nature. So, in looking not just at what thought thought of itself, but at what it did, Hegel not only and not so much discovered a far richer means of understanding individual scientific consciousness, but more importantly, the laws governing the development of collective spiritual, cultural or social activity and of the material world in general. Hegel did not disprove or eradicate formal logic at all, he merely defined its immanent limits and uncovered its inner contradictions, its origin and its own limits, beyond which it necessarily passed over into something else, its life and its death; he negated it; he sublated it: formal logical is both overcome and maintained with dialectical logic. Formal logic is at its most powerful, not at all when it is treated as something of little use to be violated at will, but on the contrary, when it is utilised with the maximum consistency and thoroughness, but with consciousness of its immanent limits and an understanding of when and how it supersedes itself. Nothing is more valueless than uncritical playing with logical contradiction and inconsistency justified by thoughtless and shallow reference to dialectics.

The law of identity

Thus, (continuing our theme of approaching Hegel's Logic from the point of view of a theory of cognition) perception begins when we recognise something, when we perceive something as persistent , when we can say "A = A". The whole of formal logic rests on this identity of a thing with itself, with recognition of the continuity of something. The whole of formal logic falls to pieces when "A not = A".

The law of excluded middle

The Law of Excluded Middle states that if a proposition A is not true then its denial "not-A" is true. Even within the narrow limits of formal logic this "law" is unreliable, and common sense will confirm the view that this line of reasoning is unreliable. The Dutch logician Bruuwer reconstructed mathematical logic by eliminating the law of Excluded Middle from the rule book, and showed that mathematics is little the worse for the loss.

The law of non contradiction

The Law of Non-Contradiction states that both a proposition, A, and its denial, not-A, cannot be true within the domain of a single "theory", within the domain of validity of the law of identity, "A = A". This law is indeed fundamental to formal logic. It is well known that the consistent application of the basic set of formal logical principles leads to "antinomies", or flat contradictions. This discovery contributed to Hegel's revolution in logic, but also led to further development within formal logic. Nowadays, the conditions which give rise to such contradictions are well known, and formal logic is able to proceed while reliably avoiding such "bad" contradictions by the introduction of a number of proscriptions on the categories.

The law of sufficient ground

In so far as the Law of Sufficient Ground may be said to exist in formal logic, it is the socalled law of decidability, that any proposition which is valid within a given theory, may be proved or disproved. In 1931, Kurt Gdel disproved this thesis in his famous Gdel's Theorem. This discovery brought about a huge crisis in the world of mathematics and logic, but it can hardly be said that it reduced formal logic to a nullity. Nevertheless, Hegel's comment in regard to the method of proceeding from unproven axioms is very apt and is what essentially distinguishes dialectical logic from formal logic:

Formal Logic asks these sciences not to accept their subject-matter as it is immediately given; and yet herself lays down a law of thought without deducing it - in other words, without exhibiting its mediation. [Shorter Logic 121n] Further, the absolute status of this law is rejected in quantum mechanics, although Einstein held to his dying day that this theory could not be regarded as complete, and that therefore further grounds for the behaviour of quantummechanical systems were awaiting discovery.

DIALECTICAL LOGIC
Contrary to formal logic, the law of dialectical logic is that everything is mediated therefore everything is itself and at the same time not itself. "A is non-A." A is negated. For Hegel, identity is the unity of different terms, and difference is the difference of united terms, namely, negation of negation. To claim for two different things are the same at one and the same moment is contradiction. The law of dialectical logic is contradiction. This, however, is not destructive; on the contrary, the opposites constitute a whole. The whole is not only different from its contradictory moments, but also more than them. It is another, third thing in which opposites are in a systematic relation with each other. If only A is for B and B is for A there is systematicity in their unity. Secondly, again contrary to linear character of formal logic, dialectical logic is circular. Something is explained by Other, and Other is explained by Something. Thirdly, every concept is mediated by other concepts. Therefore, every proposition by itself lacks truth; truth is whole. Truth, dialectically, cannot be isolated within propositions.

References:
The meaning of Hegels logic http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/help/mean05.htm Pre logic, logic, dialectical logic by Mustafa Cemal Class notes at Symbiosis School of Economics