LOGIC AND POLITICS (COMMUNIST

THEORY OR MARXISM)
 FORMAL LOGIC AND MATERIALIST DIALECTICS

Formal logic
• Thinking dominated by the laws of identity, of contradiction, and of
the excluded middle. The three fundamental laws of formal logic
have a material content and an objective basis; that they are
explicit formulations of the instinctive logic of common sense; that
they constitute the prevailing rules of thought in the bourgeois
world.
 MATERIALIST DIALECTICS

• Communist regarded materialist dialectics as the most advance

and responsive kind of thought process that suits the recent
changes in their struggle to succeed in social and political
upheavals; that in modern school dialectics occupies the front rank
and the formal logic becomes subordinated to it.
 RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FORMAL LOGIC AND DIALECTICS

• These two systems of logic grew out of and correspond to two

different stages in the development of the science of thought.
Formal logic preceded dialectics in the historical evolution of logic
as it usually does in the intellectual development of individuals.
Then dialectics arose out of the criticism of formal logic, overthrew
and replaced it as its revolutionary opponent, successor and
superior.
 DIALECTECTIANS VIEW OF FORMAL
LOGIC
• Modern dialecticians did not look upon as worthless. They pointed
out that formal logic was not only historically necessary method of
thought but also quite indispensable for correct thinking. Its valid
elements became constituent part of dialectics although their
relations were reversed.
 LIMITATIONS OF FORMAL LOGIC
• 1. Formal Logic Demands a Static Universe
• These laws excludes movement, change, development from
themselves and thereby from the rest of reality. They do not
explicitly deny the existence of real significance of motion. But they
are compelled to do so indirectly by the necessary implication of
their own internal logic.
• Nothing is permanent. Reality is never resting, ever changeable,
always in flux. (Dialectics of Nature)
• 2. Formal Logic Erects Impassable Barriers Between Things

• To all questions it answers with either a flat yes or unqualified no.

Between truth and falsehood, there is no intermediary, no
transitional stages or connecting links.
• The fundamental proposition of Marxism dialectics is that all
boundaries in nature and society are conventional and mobile, and
there is not a single phenomenon which cannot under certain
conditions transformed into the opposite. (Lenin, Collected Works
of Lenin, Vol. 19).
• 3. Formal Logic Excludes Difference from Identity
• It draws the sharpest dividing line between identity and difference.
They are placed in absolute opposition to each other, staring into
each other’s face like common strangers.
• The insuperable barriers erected by formal logic the
interpenetrating traits of reality are continually being washed away
in the process of development.
• 4. The Laws of Formal Logic are Presented as Absolute.

• Exception to them is impossible. They rule the world of thought in

totalitarian fashion, exacting unquestionable obedience from all
things, claiming unlimited authority for their sovereign sway.
• Absolute laws can no longer find any foothold in the ever-changing
physical world.
• 5. Formal Logic Can Presumably Account for Everything- But Itself

• The laws of formal logic, which is supposed to account for

everything has this serious flaw. Formal logic cannot for itself as
compared to Marxism thought process.
• Unlike formal logic, dialectics cannot only account for the existence
of formal logic but can also tell why it supersedes formal logic.