Here is another non-dialectical nail driven into the Hermetic coffin holding the DM-corpse:

[AFL = Aristotelian Formal Logic. MFL = Modern Formal Logic. DL = Dialectical Logic. DM = Dialectical Materialism.]

"Dialecticians often claim that Formal Logic [FL] cannot cope with change. Rarely do such comrades substantiate these allegations with quotations from or citations to a single ancient or modern textbook. That, however, does not stop them pontificating about logic -- a subject few seem to know much about.

Despite this, does the charge that FL cannot cope with change itself hold water? In order to answer this question, consider a valid argument form taken from AFL:

L1: Premiss 1: No A's are B.
L2: Premiss 2: All C's are B.
L3: Therefore: No A's are C.

With respect to this argument schema, the only condition validity requires is the following: if, for a given interpretation, the premisses are true then the conclusion is true. This claim is not affected by the fact that schematic premisses themselves cannot be true or false, since such schema express rules, and the above depiction is hypothetical.

One interpretation of L1 that might illustrate its capacity to reflect change is the following:

Premiss 1: No moving object is stationary.
Premiss 2: All objects with zero velocity are stationary.
Therefore: No moving object is one with zero velocity.

This syllogism is valid, and would remain valid even if all motion ceased. But it also 'copes' with movement, and hence with change, which fact is abundantly clear from what it says.

And we do not have to use what seem to be necessarily true premisses to make the point:

Premiss 1: All human beings are aging.
Premiss 2: All New Yorkers are human beings.
Therefore: All New Yorkers are aging.

Here once again we have change, easily expressed (and in ancient logic). This means that our logically-challenged, dialectical friends have yet to catch up with a subject that is already 2400 years old.

[There is an excellent account of Aristotelian Logic at:

http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall200...ristotle-logic/

And a useful account of MFL (i.e., now called "Classical Logic") at:

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-classical/#3

Comrades should also consult Robin Hirsch's article at:

http://eserver.org/clogic/2004/hirsch.html.

Hirsch’s essay, while deeply flawed itself, represents a major step in the right direction, by a comrade well-versed in MFL.]

Now in the above rather uninspiring valid argument schema the conclusion follows from the premisses no matter what legitimate substitution instances are found for the variable letters.

So, L3 follows no matter what. But the argument pattern this schema expresses is transparent to change: while it can cope with change, it takes no stance on it. Some might regard this as a serious drawback, but this is no more a failing here than it would be for, say, Electronics to take no stance on the evolution of Angiosperms (even though it can be used to help study them). Otherwise, one might just as well complain that FL cannot predict the weather or kill MRSA, and DL cannot saw wood.

To illustrate the absurdity of the idea that just because FL uses certain words or letters it cannot handle change (because it allegedly uses nothing but ‘rigid’ terms), consider this parallel 'argument':

(1) If x = 2 and y = 2x + 1, then y = 5.

(2) Therefore x and y can never change or become other numbers.

No one would be foolish enough to argue this way in mathematics, for that would be to confuse variables with constants. But, if this is so in mathematics, then DM-inspired claims about the alleged limitations of FL seem all the more bizarre -- to say the least.

So much for ancient logic; in modern logic we have this simple argument:

(1) If atoms of Copper undergo beta decay then Nickel atoms, positrons and neutrinos will be formed.

(2) Atoms of Copper do undergo beta decay.

(3) Therefore, Nickel atoms, positrons and neutrinos will be formed.

This schema was in fact known to the ancient Stoics 2000 or more years ago (!), but this stale old news will be a breaking story to most dialecticians. Their reliance on the ‘logic’ they have found in Hegel, which was already out of date as it was being written, failed to inform them of this. So much for the ‘scientific’ credentials of DL.

This argument pattern is called ‘Modus Ponendo Ponens’, or MPP for short.

[I have used a very simple argument schema here; needless complexity would obscure the point being made.]

This simple version of MPP (and one involving reasonably rapid change) is perhaps as good a counterexample as one could wish to find that refutes the claim that FL cannot handle transformations in nature and society.

Not only that, there are countless other inferences that MPP itself can instantiate, and many inferential forms other than MPP in MFL, all depicting change equally well, when suitably interpreted.

This indicates that DM-theorists' accusations aimed at MFL are even less accurate than the ones they direct at AFL.

Of course, the example above will hardly satisfy dialecticians, since no "new content" has been added in the conclusion. This is relatively easy to fix. Consider the following argument (which has only one premiss):

Premiss 1: All dialecticians are human beings.

Therefore: The refutation of a dialectician is the refutation of a human being.

Here, the conclusion contains more information than the premiss, so new content has emerged – but, with no dialectics anywhere in sight.

And, even better, it depicts change to our dialectical friends, perhaps just to annoy them.

This argument form is used in Mathematics and Science all the time to derive truths not available to those super-glued to the old logic.

Of even greater significance is the fact that over the last hundred years or so theorists have developed several post-classical systems of logic, which include (among others), modal, tense, deontic, imperative, epistemic, multiple-conclusion and second order logic.

Several of these sanction even more sophisticated depictions of change than is allowed by AFL.”

[This has been taken from Essay Four, at my site.]

More details at:

http://www.anti-dialectics.org

Where on earth is there an object with "zero velocity". And isn't it possible that I might move alongside this object and thus this moving object has zero velocity relative to me?

Now the more pressing criticism. What scientific use does this have? New Yorkers are defined with reference to the fact that they are human. Suddenly what you have stated becomes much less profound. All humans are aging already contains the conclusion that all new yorkers are aging as "humanity" is a set which includes by definition all new yorkers, englishmen, scots and irishmen. This is the same "science" that allowed men of the middle ages to talk about agels dancing on pinheads and with amazing powers of logic proceed to discover absolutely nothing.

No dialectician disputes the truth of Aristotlean logic, nor that it is often used as an approximation of circumstances on a daily basis. However, all Aristotlean logic can really be reduced to is that A = A at any one time, for any one object. That I am myself here and now is no surprise to me. That humans are humans and have the characteristics of humans is true, but it is not a feat of scientific discovery nor is it an explanation of interactions between such obvious syllogisms.

That your first syllogism is partially wrong as explained (although, as a dialectician I accept that it is parially true), and that New Yorkers are only humans to the extent that they have not "quantitatively" developed away from the rest of humanity enough to count as a seperate species, although there are of course elements of evolution within the New Yorker which may make them non-human one day. You have made a number of huge generalisations which I myself will accept as good approximations but they are nontheless flawed logic.

Faceless:

It is easy to arrange for any object to have zero velocity, all you do is define a suitable inertial frame. Perhaps you do not know enough applied maths?

And you are doing what most novices do, confusing the truth or falsehood of a premiss with the validity of an argument. Perhaps you do not know any logic, either?

"Now the more pressing criticism. What scientific use does this have?"

Well, I specifically chose boring and trite examples so that you and everyone else would not get flummoxed by technicalities. It would be very easy to alter this, and make it eminently scientific.

You need to recall that I am using ancient logic here to refute the claim that FL cannot cope with change, and only that. One thing at a time. The usefulness of FL is an entirely different matter. However, I tackle that problem in the essay from which this was taken.

So, since AFL (which was the logic Hegel appropriated) is out-of-date it is more difficult to reveal its practicalities. But it is not impossible.

If you want to see how modern logicians do this, check out any book on modal or tense logic -- I list several at my site, in Essay Four.

It is also worth pointing out that the computer you are using employs formal logic; all standard processors use the Propositional Calculus. So, MFL is eminently useful. DL has no known use in science or technology.

And, as I also show in Essays Seven and Eight, DL cannot account for change itself.

As to whether arguments drawn from FL contain their conclusions in their premisses, I gave an example where this was not the case. There are countless more like this.

I suggest that the difficulty you are having over this is down to the fact that, like many other comrades who think Hegel is the last word in logic, you know very little logic. Hegel knew very little too.

"all Aristotelian logic can really be reduced to is that A = A"

This is another myth you DM-fans put about, and with no proof; you probably read it somewhere in a DM-article and just swallowed it. I bet you have never checked it against anything Aristotle himself says.

So, I challenge you to:

1) Find the law of identity in anything Aristotle wrote -- or anything like it.

2) Prove that all of AFL can be reduced to this 'law' -- including Aristotle's modal logic, his practical logic, etc. [I bet you haven't even heard of those!]

3) Find just one (genuine) use of Dialectical Logic in science and/or technology.


Faceless, you need to stop believing everything you read in the outmoded and largely fabricated comments on 'logic' one finds in DM-tracts* (comments that are never supported by quotations from Aristotle's work, or from modern logic textbooks) and start thinking for yourself.

And check out Essays Four and Six at my site where I demolish the demonstrably false things DM-fans say about FL.


[* It is quite remarkable that comrades are usually quite careful with the things they say about politics, economics, history or current affairs (quoting sources and data, etc.); when it comes to FL and dialectics in general, this scrupulous attention to detail goes out of the window. All we see are baseless assertions, fabrications, the construction of straw men, invention, non sequiturs, lack of evidence, anecdotal evidence -- and comrades like Faceless who just do not check what they read in DM-books/articles. Why is that? Who are you DM-fans tying to kid?]

Rosa Licktenstein:

Firstly, I approached this thread, which is something of a cliche by revleft standards even, with respect for you and whatever content of your arguement there may be.

Your response is surly and smacks of bitterness. For what I don't know since I have never spoken to you.

In practice you can only approximate to this. You, if you are as educated as you think you are, should know that that is just an idea and that your chosen object is going to be moving with an uncertainty which you will be insufficiently able to eliminate. Now perhaps you see my point. I am taking logic from a practical point of view, the only sense in which it can have any meaning.

I expanded to make clear the fact that the "validity of the arguement" infact is irrelevant as "newyorkers" are what helps define "humans", and if you are unable to make a single premise along the lines of A = B or A has qualities B, then what is the use of the logic? a "true" premise which does not have within it an element of untruth or uncertainty is but an idealisatio. You then believe that the logic is true. Which it would be if the inherent uncertainty and element of untruth in the premises was eliminated. However, that would presuppose a world in which humans DID NOT EVOLVE or in which something remains ABSOLUTELY STATIC (your first example) relative to some perceived "ideal" frame of reference. You see now why your examples, which contain an idealised "motion" or rather a time dependence, still fail to satisfy an accurate understanding of reality, of evolution.

I have not denied mathematics, or for that matter the "validity" of your arguement. But valid to what end when you can not make premises which are totally true?

you said:

but I said:

The point was not the compexity, but that your trite example contains the conclusion within the first premise.
Take:
Premise 1: All stars emit light
Premise 2: All red giants are stars
Conclusion: All red giants emit light

See, I can make a syllogism as easily as you. The same flaw remains in this example. When profiling, "what is a star?" and making observations, we observe red giants (along with blue dwarfs and MS stars) as being stars. That is to say that red giants form part of the first premise. We can not know the premise without knowing the conclusion. The premise "stars" is but an abstraction which deals with the conclusion "red giants".

Give me a less trite example, and I'm sure it will prove equally useful, as well as vague, since my above example is also quite dubious. e.g. at a certain point a red giant expands and becomes a light emitting "planetary nebula" and not a star at all. One would be hard pushed to write one syllogism which takes into account of the complex death of the red giant into a white dwarf and the expanding shell of the giant into a nebula, involving the accumulation of quantitative changes in breadth and transparancy of the outer shell until the star can be considered to have qualitatively changed (oops, dialectical words). There are also neutron stars which one may ask, "are they really stars?"

you arrogant little piece of shit, why don't you suck my dick. I hadn't read that far down the article until now, and I lament that you had to be such a fuckface. I'm not going to read your "article 4" or "article 7". It's a real shame you think you're actually worth your own webpage. and stop using them fucking abbreviations. If you have "better" examples then write them here, otherwise shut up.

the syllogism is a simple thing. Yet you have not written one which does not contain contradictions and flaws or doesnt contain conclusions which are inferred by the premises. You assume that just because the logic is ok, it doenst matter what contradictions the premises and conclusion contain. You can't say a dog is a dog without my pointing to ambiguous examples. Go for your bestest most complicatedest syllogism that i can't understand or go for a wank for all i care.

your stupidity amazes me. when can "anecdotal evidence" be used to discuss aristotle or dialectics or anything philosophical? wtf? I once heard there were these two interpenetrating opposites!

You are right I am bitter, and at the failures induced in our movement by this crazy 'theory'. I have been 'debating' this topic on and off now for over 20 years with DM-fans, and you all say the same things, no matter how many times they are refuted.

As to this:


"In practice you can only approximate to this."

Not so; since it's a definition relative to an inertial frame, it can be specified precisely.

You are clearly confusing a measurement with a definition.

"Now perhaps you see my point. I am taking logic from a practical point of view, the only sense in which it can have any meaning."

Well, this just shows you have confused logic with science.

"I expanded to make clear the fact that the "validity of the argument" infact is irrelevant as "newyorkers" are what helps define "humans", and if you are unable to make a single premise along the lines of A = B or A has qualities B, then what is the use of the logic?"

I was unable to make head or tail of this. I think you need to learn some logic before you try to pontificate about it.

The rest of the same paragraph seemed no less confused. What has evolution got to do with what I was saying?

I am surprised you did not mention Tibetan pottery.

More irrelevance:

"I have not denied mathematics, or for that matter the "validity" of your arguement. But valid to what end when you can not make premises which are totally true?"

I am sorry, I did not know you had not sobered up.

The material you posted on stars is highly interesting, but how it shows that AFL is reducible to "A = A" you forgot to say.

Containment, or indeed implication, is not equality, nor is it identity.

Like Hegel, you have confused the "is" of predication with the "is" of identity (this was in fact a medieval mistake).

"you arrogant little piece of shit, why don't you suck my dick."

Ah, now we get to the dialectical abuse.

No change there for you Apostles of change.

Well as far as the request to suck your teeny weeny goes, I would if you had one. Come back to me when you get one.

"and I lament that you had to be such a fuckface"

I note that you still know more abusive words than you do Aristotle. No matter - it proves my point.

"and stop using them fucking abbreviations"

OK. Wilko. And asap.

"the syllogism is a simple thing."

But it clearly beats you, for now we have this LuLu:

"Yet you have not written one which does not contain contradictions..."

Such a big word; well done.

But I bet you do not know what one is -- as is clear from your inventing a few where they do not exist.

Watch out, there's a tooth fairy in your last post. [I can invent too.]

"You can't say a dog is a dog without my pointing to ambiguous examples"

And how do you know this, oh divine one? Please tell, only don't use Moses this time....

"Go for your bestest most complicatedest syllogism that i can't understand or go for a wank for all i care."

I prefer to have a go at wankers like you.

"I once heard there were these two interpenetrating opposites!"

In rehab, were you?

"your stupidity amazes me."

Maybe so, but simple-minded folk like you were always easily impressed.

That is why you like DM, but not MFL, AFL, and know nothing about the LOI, LOC, LEM or HEX.

Brainless: please come back for another drubbing; I enjoyed that....

Firstly, I have been told that to tell you to "suck my dick" is sexist abuse, so instead just have a wank. I would like to point out that i thought you were a man.

Well, a definition which requires "measurements" to even give it any meaning. How for instance can I define my frame as being the rest frame without constantly reestablishing my relative motion to other objects in "my" frame? I will always be making small accelerations, there will always be small forces acting upon me. For a start, I am always accelerating towards the centre of the Earth due to the rotation of the planet. Therefore this frame that you measure everything else relative to is either an idealisation; a figment of your imagination (or your so-called "definition"; or it is merely an approximation. Either way, its weaknesses have to be accepted.

Or that you have confused logic with something which is "real", independent of science. You think your "frame of reference" is real beyond its actual use to people, beyond being able to measure it. Logic is nothing unless you apply it to science, in which formal logic becomes a crass approximation which requires building upon.

Let me make it easier and speak down to you for a bit instead;
we do not know what is human before we have had a direct experience of humans. When we have had an experience of humans we then abstract the qualities of "humanity". New Yorkers are a concrete element of humanity which must be assessed before we can define what the boundaries of "human" is.

You have created syllogisms where the boundaries of your objects are blurred and which contain abstractions which you have confused with real things. As I have also pointed out, in the case of the new yorker who ages, he is already an element within "all humans age" which supposes that you have already taken a profile of all humanity./

It is reducible to A=A because a red giant only equals a red giant at one instant. Otherwise there are numerous differences in this evolving concept. At a certain point I was showing that these small differences are what lead to a qualitative leap and the emergence of the white dwarf/planetary nebula. This was a positive example of quantity transforming into quality shown against the insufficiency of formal logic which desires to make the star either a red giant or a planetary nebula.

Even if you manage to show how amazing formal logic is, this example shows that regardless of this, dialectics has some applications.

Check that against what you have written in the other thread. Here you have no intention of winning me round. You went into this arguement with the intention of defeating me, you couldnt care a less if I become a convert to your new "marxism" (interestingly you have not made a positive contribution to my understanding of society or the sciences, nor have you pointed out what mistakes this dialectics caused marx, engels, lenin and luxemburg to make. The question arises, if I overlook the fact that your arguement has no substance, "so what?") If you intended to win me over, you would have approached the discussion more respectfully. In the other thread you are happy to stoop down to those less inteligent workers and vulgarise your "ideas".

You have yet to create one so far.

Hey! No fair! you promised in your second post that you could

Your examples are boring, trite and asstoundingly obvious since the statement "all humans age" assumes a knowledge of all humans, including new yorkers. The same can be said for stationary objects which is just another word for having no velocity. The first example is even more mundane because the premise is just another statement for the conclusion. One is not even a set which contains the other (eg humans and new yorker). They are the same set!

If it is difficult to reveal the practicalities then again I have to ask, why bother?

Brainless:

"Well, a definition which requires "measurements" to even give it any meaning."

You really are a lost cause.

In order to define an inertial frame we need make no measurements.

"How for instance can I define my frame as being the rest frame without constantly reestablishing my relative motion to other objects in "my" frame?"

You are again confusing a definition with measurement.

There is nothing I can do to help you if you cannot grasp this point.

Try taking up busking, instead. Or maybe not; I think you might confuse that with trout fishing.

More gobbledygook:

"Let me make it easier and speak down to you for a bit instead;
we do not know what is human before we have had a direct experience of humans. When we have had an experience of humans we then abstract the qualities of "humanity". New Yorkers are a concrete element of humanity which must be assessed before we can define what the boundaries of "human" is."

I defy you to do any abstracting.

I'd explain why I say this, but I have just re-written two long essays on this topic(totalling over 60,000 words), which your tender eyes will not look upon, so I will leave you in outer darkness.

"You have created syllogisms where the boundaries of your objects are blurred and which contain abstractions which you have confused with real things."

I do not deal in abstractions. I do not believe in them. You do, but then I expect you believe in the tooth fairy, too.

"It is reducible to A=A because a red giant only equals a red giant at one instant."

Eh?

What has this got to do with Aristotelian Formal Logic (sorry AFL)?

"Otherwise there are numerous differences in this evolving concept."

What evolving concept?

Are you still inebriated?

"At a certain point I was showing that these small differences are what lead to a qualitative leap and the emergence of the white dwarf/planetary nebula."

What leap? Is it an athlete?

Anyway, I thought we were dealing with 'evolving concepts', not nebulae?

As I suspected, you are an Idealist -- like other DM-fans, you confuse 'mental constructs' with objects in the real world.

"Here you have no intention of winning me round."

Well, I did say on page one of my site that I have no interest in debating with clowns -- so make of this what you will.

You pontificate about logic, a subject you clearly know nothing about (just like the majority of DM fans) -- that is why I will not take you seriously.

Stop acting like the pope in this area, and I might be less horrible to you.

I do not want to 'win you over'; the class struggle with get rid of you lot on its own. As the working class gets larger, the less impact you dialectical muddle-heads have on it. You are all wallowing about in tiny sects, with no impact, ones that are getting smaller as your inflated opinion of yourselves gets bigger (now there we do have interpenetrating opposites!); you will be down to zero soon, all without my help.

I blame all this partly on the mystical, divisive, anti-democratic theory you lot have imported into the workers' movement.

Fine by me if you stick to it. In fact, please do.

It will leave the field free for us genuine materialists to try to repair Marxism's reputation among workers.

"nor have you pointed out what mistakes this dialectics caused marx, engels, lenin and luxemburg to make."

More fabrication. You are good at this. Have you thought of getting a job writing WMD dossiers for Tony Bliar? You are a natural.

And, I have pointed this out (I rule Marx out here -- he made few mistakes), but I hope you do not read what I have to say on this at my site since I do not want your very sensitive eyes to get hurt.

"If it is difficult to reveal the practicalities then again I have to ask, why bother?"

Ah, but I have, at my site -- but since you find my ideas too intimidating (or perhaps too difficult), you have declared it out of bounds, so you will never know, will you?

Just like the traditionalists in Galileo's day, you refuse even to look own the telescope.

Only this time, I do not want you to.

Your present state of ignorance is the best punishment I can think of to inflict on you.

And, even better, in this area you appear to be a self-made 'man'.

Rosa, I hope you don't mind if I play the "devil's advocate" for a second, but what about "nonlinear change"?

You know, nonlinear in the sense that under such conditions this variable will range between a and b, but if the conditions become this then the variable ranges from x to y, etc. Not nonlinear in the sense of curves.

I am particularly curious because dialecticians frequently assert "chaos theory = dialectics"...but the logicists assert just as much "math = logic"; deductively, since chaos theory extends math (it is a subject of math), and since math is "reducible" to logic, wouldn't logic incorporates extends farther than dialectics?

Which puzzles me even further that a dialectician wouldn't accept logic

But I digress, "classical" logic (to me) seems to be synonymous with "linear" logic (this bias I have picked up from programmers). How can one reconcile nonlinear change from the linear aspect?

On the one hand I suppose the argument could be presented that there hasn't been any proof as to why nonlinear change is important...on the other hand isn't that why there are booleans (again, a prejudice I picked up from programming, a sort of object that returns true (1) or false (0) or is null (ie. nothing))?

Just a thought on my mind...

>>> "Dialecticians often claim that Formal Logic [FL] cannot cope with change"

But why are these two things even being compared? Dialectics isn't a kind of logic at all. A system of logic is a method to distinguish between a true proposition and a false proposition. Dialectics can't do that. Dialectics is problem-solving heuristic, alongside such other well-known problem-solving heuristics as "Try drawing a diagram", "Try working the problem backwards", "Try brainstorming." Dialectics is a heuristic that often highlights aspects by contrasting properties with their opposites.

More pontification for thee:

That is quite possibly the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Mathematics abstracts a quantity from some object, to describe anything in words is to use abstraction. You can't do without abstraction. But that is entirely different to recognising what is abstract and that it has a place below the concrete subject from which you have made that abstraction. Terms such as "human" are abstractions taken from the concrete reality of living humanity. "New Yorker" abstracts the quality of actually living in New York from the complete person. "Frame of reference" is an even greater abstraction since it is a purely mathematical concept, involving all the abstractions of number and dimension from the concrete world.

That's over and out for the pope today

Exactly. And this seems to be the exact way in which Marx used dialectics in practice. Dialectics might have given him hints as to how to set out on the right track. It was a sort of "scaffolding" that gave Marx ideas for pursuing certain lines of thought with his reasoning (such as focusing on contradictions, etc.). But the final product (historical materialism) still needed formal logic, ordinary reasoning, and empirical evidence to explain and "prove" itself, insofar as historical materialism could be "proven." At that point dialectics could contribute nothing.

I think it is reasonable to say that some problems happen to fit the "dialectical framework." That means one might try thinking of the problems in those terms and see if one "gets lucky." However, many problems don't fit the dialectical framework, and trying to approach those problems from that angle will get you nowhere. Then, if thinking in terms of contradictions doesn't jumpstart any insights, one might draw a diagram, or try thinking the problem backwards, or draw an "idea web," or draw a venn diagram highlighting the similarities and differences, or use some other heuristic, like mikelepore noted.

That means dialectics cannot be consistently used to arrive at conclusions, and in no circumstances can it prove conclusions. Ordinary reasoning must be used for that.

Brainless:

"That is quite possibly the stupidest thing I have ever heard."

That is probably because you have never listened to yourself.

Mathematics does not use abstractions.

I'd explain why, but you seem to be happy in your state of ignorance.

"That's over and out for the pope today."

Head back in the sand for you, then, is it?

Comrade Red, I am not sure what question you were asking me in particular.

I also do not know what a 'linear' logic is, as opposed to a 'non-linear' logic, so unlike the various 'popes' at this site (not you obviously!) who comment on stuff of which they are ignorant, I will not comment.

However, I am not a logicist; more a natural deductivist.

You also need to note that the only point I was making in the original post (something Brainless finds a little too challenging) was that the hackneyed criticism DM-fans make of FL (that it cannot cope with change, etc.) is false.

And I gave examplers where it does this. In addition I kept them simple so that comrades could see the point.

The separate issue of how FL copes with change I did not comment on (but I do in the essays at my site -- and I will be adding to what I say over the coming months).

Of course, the point is that it is scientists who study change in material reality (logicians merely formalise sound arguments), and they can, and do, use various forms of modern logic to do this -- and they have done this for centuries. That is why they were interested in, and helped devolop, logic.

But I am not going to give Brainless the details -- he is happy enough to be ignorant on this issue.

And so he should remain.

Mikelepore, the only reason I was doing this above is because dialecticians constantly make this claim. So I have now refuted it. But, you watch; that won't stop them saying it.

They do this almost invariably from a position of total ignorance (of logic, both ancient and modern) -- exhibit A for the prosceution being Brainless.

However:

"A system of logic is a method to distinguish between a true proposition and a false proposition."

If you do not mind me saying so, this is not correct. Logic is the systematic study of valid argument, and as such it is only indirectly realted to truth.

Follow the links I gave above to find out more.

And I think that dialectics has only one confirmed practical application: confusing comrades.

Hence my aim to eradicate it from Marxism.

As I explain at my site, I do not think I can do this; this crazy doctrine/method has sunk too deep into the minds of comrades.


In which case the unsuccesful career of Marxim will continue.

Dialectics -- disproved in practice.

Comrade Z, I agree, but you can say this till the cadres come home; dilecticians have word blindnee in this area.

You're right -- I think now that I should have said: A system of logic is a method to distinguish whether the truth of a proposition does or does not follow from the premises.

What I had in mind was the inability of dialectics to render practical advice. For example, some people cite dialectics as a reason why they think socialism can be established through the incremental reform of capitalism, while others cite dialectics as the reason why they think the incremental reform of capitalism cannot lead to socialism. If the "method" is so nebulous that people come to different conclusions, then, whatever it is, it's not a system of logic. I think it's just a problem-solving heuristic, useful to generate numerous ideas, but incapable of checking the validity of them.

Mike;

Fair enough; I think we see eye-to-eye on this.

There you go, pure logic that incorporates and is entirely adaptable to change. You can apply the same principle to any degree of change and any number of variables. If you wish, you can even build an if-then/do/until loop that incorporates quantative change into a qualitive change.

Dialectics is entirely unnecessary to incorporate variables. Variables themselves are objects of change.

When dialectics creates observable results, then perhaps I'll start using it. Until then, I'll stick with logic. It provides useful results that are tangible in the real world.

Thank you for that Encephalon, but you might like to translate your example into more ordianry terms so that non-experts can appreciate your point.

Sorry...computer trouble...

*erased because of involuntary post*