First: GREG: "Hegel's Science of Logic is not the least mathematical, though the mistake is often made because it is associated with formal logic (which is completely and mechanically mathmatical) which it bears no relation. But I don't think this is what you are saying."
IAN:"I know it isn't which is precisely why Hegel should have called it something else."
EEK! Big misunderstanding here, not an uncommon one but a biggy none-the-less. Yes you can accept formal Logic as the definition of Logic, and this is mathmatical, but it is also faulted and based on fairly primitive assumptions (much like Artificial Intellegience in the computer world). You can do a few good tricks with Formal Logic, but it fails to at a very basic level of showing what Reason is when it is being logical (that is when it is being correct). Formal Logic is just a number of rules which goes under the name of Logic.
Hegel's Science of Logic had quite a different purpose then outlining rules which if followed lead to "logical" formulations. His approach was thought turned in-on-itself - that is thought comprehending thinking not as a physical thing, but as thoughts. In reality he was demonstrating the interrelationships between the most general and abstract concepts, ie which depended on what (the necessary assumptions behind each major aspect). His book demonstrates this dependency by drawing one after another of these concepts from within the primary concept of becoming (as against being and nothingness - his first chapter shows how neither of these concepts are sufficient but that "becoming" limits and defines both).
It is thick and demanding stuff, and Hegel is by no means the clearest writer (though I think a lot of his worst features are a product of translation). After dipping in an out of the Science of Logic for nearly ten years I still have not finished it (mind you each return has been a rewarding experience even though I start at the begining and work forward each time). I wish I was more knowledgable especially as you give some of Hegel's tangled paragraphs to unravel below, so please bare in mind my student status in this all I will attempt to do is give a short summation of the paragraphs.
However, I must defend Hegel - he is not really more difficult then the subject matter demands, it is simply difficult stuff he is taking on.
"241
[a] Something, therefore, is immediate, self-related determinate being, and has a limit, in the first place, relatively to an other; the limit is the non-being of the other, not of the something itself: in the limit, something limits its other. But the other is itself a something in general, therefore the limit which something has relatively to the other is also the limit of the other as a something, its limit whereby it keeps the first something as its other apart from it, or is a non-being of that something; it is thus not only non-being of the other, but-non-being, equally of the one and of the other something, consequently of the something as such."
Unfortunately my only copies of the Science of Logic are on the other side of the continent, so I will have to deal with this just as it appears (hence it will be a distorted summary)>
A thing looks distinct (doesn't matter what it is) "A", it appears distinct relative to some other thing (this can be a group of all other things or just somethings which are similar) "B". This is "A is not B" distinction, "B" representing all that is not "A" - ie its non-being (hence its limit or determination). Here's a contradiction - the thing that determines (limits) what "A" is is not something belonging to "A" at all, but belongs to "B", but just as "B" limits what "A" is, "A" also limits what "B" is. The distinct part of what is limited in "B" are those parts which are the opposite to "A" (ie what it is not).
If memory serves me correctly this is all part of Hegel's demonstration that the concepts of Being and Nothingness are not sufficient in themsleves for Logic to develop. As one limits and defines the other, specifically pointing to another "something" in which this reliant opposition resides. The thing it has also got, the thing which is part and parcel of its being - is its non-being. Ie it is not just a contradiction of formal logical kind (a paradox) but a moving contradiction buried within the concept of Being (or for that matter Nothingness - or "A " and "B" or "something" as against "other").
What he is showing is rather than a static relationship between things, there is a moving relationship (again we are not talking about things themselves, but the concept of a something). A simple assertion of a something being, hides within it the concept of it not-being - again if memory serves this all ends up showing that lying below these concepts is another which Hegel terms "Becoming". Things don't just exist within the mind (like a digital database), they "become", they are not static categories but associated creations.
Hegel packs a lot into a paragraph, what is remarkable is that the paracgraphs in each chapter spiral back to the one question Hegel is posing, eloborating a concept but always maintaining its relationship with the whole enterprise.
"244
[b] Now in so far as something in its limit both is and is not, and these moments are an immediate, qualitative difference, the negative determinate being and the determinate being of the something fall outside each other. Something has its determinate being outside (or, as it is also put, on the inside) of its limit; similarly, the other, too, because it is a something, is outside it. Limit is the middle between the two of them in which they cease. They have their determinate being beyond each other and beyond their limit; the limit as the non-being of each is the other of both."
Now Hegel twists the notion of distinction and looks at definition itself (leaving aside the things and examining the defining moment). Between a comparison there is the limit itself (the point at where the comparison is made) but at this point which is beyond both something peculiar happens to "A" and "B" - they both dissolve.
A simple example is comparing red to green apples ("A" and "B") their general appleness is not at issue but the colour is (most apples are red but some are green), colour defines their contradiction, colour is nieither red nor green, nor is it the qualitative difference that belongs to either - the concept exists regardless of any apple and they share this as something not of themselves.
Now this is just a truism (ie holds in any logical comparison) but Hegel is doing more than this, specifically he is working towards the particular notion which holds together two critical important philosophical abstracts. He is not just there being clever, rather he id delving into a single concept from which he will pull out the relationships of many others (quality and quanatity, identity, opposition, negation and all the rest).
Moreover, he will pull out these concepts using exactly the same method and get the appropriate answers each time - but he does not ask the reader to take any of this on trust - he shows what he is doing and how he is doing it - that is where the thing gets really mind blowing - it is not just proofs in the normal philosophical sense - he is demonstrating what proof is (ie the Logic on which all reason rests).
Ian all this that I have said is probably clumsy and off-beam. My purpose was not to unravel Hegel's tortorous prose and demonstrate that he is not that hard to understand, but rather to show that my inedpt summation does no justice to what he is actually doing which is really something quite extraordinary and amazingly thorough. Thought thinking about thought, is not creating some articifical Logic (a comparatively easy task) or giving a philosophy of thought - he is actually showing its inner associations and relationships and not letting any escape in grand jesture - everything is minutely turned over, and the over and over - he makes Kant look like a schoolboy - once you get a grip of what he is actually achieving the effect is awesome (hence my frequent brain burn-outs and returns for another dose).
Hegel in his preface is very specific, his purpose was to understand (philosophically) what we do when we reason, in a sense he is showing us what reason is.
To further complicate matters the books themselves (the shorter Logic and the two Volume Larger Logic) were intended more or less as lecture notes where Hegel in life no-doubt made them more approachable.
What I really would like is to study these seriously with others (I have not yet had the chance), but having hit them time and again I can only take my hat off to Lenin when he sat down with them in 1914 and made his wonderful Philosophical Notebooks (which first inspired me to go to the source).
Now if all of this seems too much bother for too little profit - then I suggest Tony Smith's book on Marx's Capital and Hegel's Logic (I don't have the actual title) is a good shake-up for he shows, and I don't know of anyone else who has so done, that Marx shapes Capital according to Hegel's logic. It is has some importance even based on this alone. Furthermore if the dialectics that Marx referred so often to lie anywhere in a fully elaborated fashion they lie within Hegel's Science of Logic. Cage what you will from Marx on this score, or Engels well meant note book The Dialectics of Nature, but nothing compares to the original.
The problem we face is not something Marx could have anticipated, that Hegel who dominated serious philosophy during most of Marx's lifetime was pushed aside just as Marx became the best known and most widely read revolutionary (towards the end of his life) I suspect that Engels attempt to repopularise Hegel via his Dialetics of Nature (which never reached publishable form) was a direct response to this move way from Hegel in philosophical development - Lenin certianly until 1914 only understood a very basic and caged version of dialectics, but look what happened to him after reading it (his most important works all flowed from this period and have Hegel's fingermarks all over them - Imperialism, State and Revolution, the April Thesis etc).
The single reason why Hegel has got such a bad press, probably has little to do with his associations with Marx and revolution, at the heart of it is that he made such gigantic strides that much of the rest of philosophy looks very primitive, niave and wrong headed. Marx's critique of Hegel did stand him right way up and certainly much of his philosophical works which lead to the Logic and some which flowed afterwards Marx did not hestitate to demolish - but the Logic itself was left untouched as the centerpiece, in fact it was the means by which Marx criticised Hegel's other works (the spiral returning back onto itself but at a higher level).
As this is a overlong response I will let it stand as it is without addressing your other points many of which have merit, though obviously there is much grounds for disagreement.
Greg Schofield Perth Australia g_schofield at dingoblue.net.au _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________
Use LesTecML Mailer (http://www.lestec.com.au/) * Powerful filters. * Create you own headers. * Have email types launch scripts. * Use emails to automat your work. * Add comments on recieve. * Use scripts to extract and check emails. * Use MAID to create taylor-made solutions. * LesTecML Mailer is fully controlled by REXX. * A REXX interpreter is freely available. _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________
--- Message Received --- From: "Ian Murray" <seamus2001 at attbi.com> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2001 09:41:09 -0800 Subject: Re: Marxism and "Science" (Was: Comic Book Marxism)