Hegel's Basic Logical Blunders
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Summary Of My Main Objections To Dialectical Materialism
Abbreviations Used At This Site
This material represents an elementary analysis of some of Hegel's more important logical blunders; it has been written for those new to the subject, not experts. This isn't meant to be an academic exercise, so the many complications that logicians are aware of in this area have had to be ignored. Anyone who still finds fault with the oversimplifications below should re-read the first sentence of this paragraph.
I have posted five much more detailed and technical analyses of Hegel's many errors here, here, here, here and here. The disastrous political implications of 'the dialectic' (upside down or 'the right way up') have been exposed here.
Some might be tempted to conclude that the points made below are merely 'semantic', and therefore have no real substance. In response, it is worth reminding ourselves that Hegel's core logical arguments depend precisely on 'semantic' issues such as these. Except, it is my contention that he seriously screwed up. So, if anyone still objects to 'semantic' issues, they should pick a fight with Hegel, not me.
What I am trying to do is repair the damage!
As is the case with all my Essays, nothing here should be read as an attack either on Historical Materialism [HM] -- a scientific theory I fully accept --, or, indeed, on revolutionary socialism. I remain as committed to the self-emancipation of the working class and the dictatorship of the proletariat as I was when I first became a revolutionary just over thirty-five years ago.
The difference between Dialectical Materialism [DM] and HM, as I see it, is explained here.
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Several readers have complained about the number of links I have added to these Essays because they say it makes them very difficult to read. Of course, DM-supporters can hardly lodge that complaint since they believe everything is interconnected, and that must surely apply even to Essays that attempt to debunk that very idea. However, to those who find these links do make these Essays difficult to read I say this: ignore them -- unless you want to access further supporting evidence and argument for a particular point, or a certain topic fires your interest.
Others wonder why I have included links to subjects or issues that are part of common knowledge (such as recent Presidents of the USA, UK Prime Ministers, the names of rivers and mountains, films, or certain words that are in common use). I have done so for the following reason: my Essays are read all over the world and by people from all 'walks of life', so I can't assume that topics which are part of common knowledge in 'the west' are equally well-known across the planet -- or, indeed, by those who haven't had the benefit of the sort of education that is generally available in the 'advanced economies', or any at all. Many of my readers also struggle with English, so any help I can give them I will continue to provide.
Finally on this specific topic, several of the aforementioned links connect to web-pages that regularly change their URLs, or which even vanish from the Internet altogether. While I try to update these links when it becomes apparent that they have changed or have disappeared, I cannot possibly keep on top of this all the time. I would greatly appreciate it, therefore, if readers informed me of any dead links they happen to notice.
In general, links to Haloscan no longer seem to work, so readers needn't tell me about them! Links to RevForum, RevLeft, Socialist Unity and The North Star also appear to have died.
[Latest Update: 06/02/23.]
Anyone using these links must remember that they will be skipping past supporting argument and evidence set out in earlier sections.
(1) Preface
(b) The Identity Theory Of Predication
(c) Hegel Misidentifies Identity
(i) The 'Negative Form' Of Identity
(ii) Identity No Enemy Of Change
(d) Confuses Naming With Describing
(e) Confuses Identity With Identification
(g) Traditional Grammar To Blame
(h) The Pseudo-Problem Of The Relation Between 'Thought' And 'Being'
(i) Propositions Turned Into Lists
(3) An Objection
(5) Does This Essay Refute Itself?
(5) References
As I aim to show, Hegel's Dialectical 'Logic' [DL] was based on the following three basic moves:
(i) An egregious misconstrual of Aristotle's logic;
(ii) An unwise acceptance of a throw-away line Hegel found in one of Spinoza's letters (i.e., that "every determination is also a negation", explained below) -- which is a dogma neither Hegel nor Spinoza even so much as attempted to justify; and:
(iii) A logico-linguistic theory invented in the Middle Ages by Roman Catholic theologians (also explained below).
'The Identity Theory Of Predication'
As a result Hegel thought that certain
indicative sentences contained an in-built contradiction.
If we use Lenin's example, we can
see where this idea came from, and hence where it goes wrong:
J1: John is a man.
[Hegel in
fact used the sentence, "The rose is red".]
First of all, Hegel accepted a theory invented by Medieval Theologians (now called the Identity Theory of Predication), which 'allowed' him to re-interpret propositions like J1 in the following manner:
J2: John is identical with Manhood.
The former "is" of
predication
has now been replaced by an "is" of identity (paraphrased by "is
identical with").
[Predication involves saying something about someone or something. So, J1 can be used to say something about John. "John" is the subject term, and "a man" is the predicate expression. The verb "is" linking them is called the "copula". When this "is" is turned into an "is" of identity, J1 becomes the following monstrosity: "John is identical with a man." That is why J2 is often used in its place, even though it, too, is bizarre.]
Greatly simplified, the argument -- which, incidentally, oscillated recklessly between talk about talk and talk about the world, that is, between how language works and what it is about -- went roughly as follows:
Negation supposedly helps us determine what sort of being John is. In order to decide what he is we first have to determine what he isn't, we have to discriminate him from everything he is not -- or we really haven't singled him out. But then we also have to relate him to every other man in so far he shares the same fundamental "essence" with them, as a man. So John is both identical with and different from all men -- 'identity implies difference'. This is how Hegel used Spinoza's throw-away line, mentioned earlier. This process is called "determinate negation"; by these means we can (supposedly) determine what John is by a consideration of what he isn't.
[Forgive the sexist language here! I am trying to explain how male Philosophers were trying to argue!]
The problem is that this throw-away line falls apart on closer examination. I can't enter into that knotty topic in this basic introduction; readers are directed here for more details (also follow the links found there).
[I have called this "Spinoza's Greedy Principle" (SGP), since from it he (or at least Hegel) thought he could decide what was the case concerning everything in the entire universe, based, not on evidence, but on the assumed meaning of a handful of words!]
Since John can't be identical with what a general term ("a man"/"Manhood") supposedly represents -- a Universal --, we must conclude the following:
J3: John is not identical with Manhood.
The argument then continued: however, if John is a man, he must be identical with (or, at least, he must share
in) what other men
are, so we must now conclude:
J4: John is not not identical with Manhood.
Or, more simply:
J5: John is not a non-man.
Hard though this might be to believe, out of this was born the
Negation of the Negation
and the
Unity
and Interpenetration of Opposites -- the entire dialectic concocted from a
re-configuration of the
diminutive present participle of the verb "to be" -- namely, "is"!
[Readers who might prefer to consult Hegel's argument in
all its glory can access it here.
Its logical ramifications are spelt out in detail in a (Marxist) paper
I have reproduced and then criticised,
here, and from a detailed
commentary on it, reproduced
here. Lenin transcribed much of this
material from Hegel into his Philosophical Notebooks, and wrote in the margin: "This is
very important for understanding dialectics." In relation to that, and the philosophical
background to Hegel's argument (which was in fact a response to
David Hume's
criticism of rationalist theories of causation) -- as well as Lenin's appropriation of
this aspect of Hegel's theory -- see here.
(Rationalism is explained
here.)]
Anyway,
Hegel thought this showed that movement was built into our concepts as
thought passed from one pole (one opposite conclusion) to another (i.e., from
conclusions about John to 'negations', and then 'double negations' about him), which
suggested to Hegel that
speculative (i.e., properly 'philosophical') thought, and thus all of reality, had
movement and dialectics built into it.
[He concluded this about 'reality' since he was an Absolute Idealist and believed that such thoughts mirrored, if not constituted, the world. How that works is best left to one side for now!]
This also prompted Hegel into casting doubt on the validity of the
so-called 'Law of Identity'
[LOI] -- a
'Law', incidentally, that can't be found in Aristotle's work
-- despite what many dialecticians would have us believe. It, too, was invented
by Medieval Theologians.
As a result,
Hegel argued that it was important to consider the LOI stated
negatively. The LOI, as it had been passed down to Hegel, went as follows: "A is
equal to A", or "A = A" (where "A", it seems, could
stand for such diverse things as: objects, processes, predicates, concepts, relations,
relational expressions, or, indeed, anything he wanted it to stand for!).
[A supposed instance of this 'Law' (and an example Hegel himself used) is "A planet is a planet". (Shorter Logic, §115.) The radical confusion sloppy logic like this generates -- and upon which Hegel's core arguments actually depend -- is exposed here.]
Hegel then translated the LOI into the following
'negative form': "A cannot at the
same time be A and not-A", which he also claimed was the so-called
Law of Non-contradiction
[LOC].
[Incidentally, to save confusion, I have put this peculiar use of "A" in bold type to
help distinguish it from the normal use of the capital letter "A".]
However, in order to proceed, Hegel not only employed a barrage of impenetrably obscure jargon, he relied on some hopelessly sloppy semantics (as noted above).
[Semantics -- what words or symbols are supposed to designate, refer to, signify, or mean.]
Hegel plainly thought he could ignore the logical and grammatical distinctions that exist in our use of certain terms --, or, at least, between the role they occupy in sentences. More importantly in this regard he thought he could ignore the distinction between naming and describing. This 'enabled' him to bamboozle his readers, using what amounted to a series of verbal tricks; from the ensuing confusion, hey presto, 'the dialectic' emerged like a rabbit from a hat.
So, Hegel's core argument was that the LOI, stated negatively, implied the LOC (why this was important for Hegel will be considered presently):
When the principles of Essence are taken as essential principles of thought they become predicates of a presupposed subject, which, because they are essential, is "everything". The propositions thus arising have been stated as universal Laws of Thought. Thus the first of them, the maxim of Identity, reads: Everything is identical with itself, A = A: and negatively, A cannot at the same time be A and Not-A. This maxim, instead of being a true law of thought, is nothing but the law of abstract understanding. The propositional form itself contradicts it: for a proposition always promises a distinction between subject and predicate; while the present one does not fulfil what its form requires. But the Law is particularly set aside by the following so-called Laws of Thought, which make laws out of its opposite. It is asserted that the maxim of Identity, though it cannot be proved, regulates the procedure of every consciousness, and that experience shows it to be accepted as soon as its terms are apprehended. To this alleged experience of the logic books may be opposed the universal experience that no mind thinks or forms conceptions or speaks in accordance with this law, and that no existence of any kind whatever conforms to it. [Hegel, Shorter Logic §115. Bold added.]
[See what I meant by "impenetrable"! And he was being relatively clear here! (Any who doubt this should perhaps read this extended passage devoted to this topic and then maybe think again!) For anyone who wants a summary of Hegel's 'argument', the following two sources are reasonably clear (that is, 'reasonably clear' to readers who are experts at deciphering obscure jargon): Dulckeit (1989) and Pippin (1978). As noted above, I have critically dissected the first of these sources, here.]
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The 'Negative Form' Of Identity
Hence, from the LOI -- i.e., from A = A -- Hegel thought he could obtain "A cannot at the same time be A and not-A", which, while it is supposed to be the LOI 'stated negatively', is also supposed to be the LOC. This is a key point in the argument, since he believed that a commitment to the LOI was tantamount to denying that change occurred in reality -- an unsupported assumption that has been appropriated equally uncritically and then parroted by Marxist dialecticians and Hegelians ever since. The denial of the LOC, therefore, was central to establishing change as a fundamental feature of existence.
[LOI = Law of Identity; LOC = Law of Non-Contradiction.]
So, Hegel reasoned that if change is universal (an idea he pinched from another mystic, Heraclitus, who in turn concocted this 'universal truth' from his (mistaken) conclusions about the possibilities involved in stepping into a river!), then nothing could possibly be identical with itself, and so everything must contain, or imply, a contradiction: A is at the same time not-A!
Contradiction is the very moving principle of the world: and it is ridiculous to say that contradiction is unthinkable. The only thing correct in that statement is that contradiction is not the end of the matter, but cancels itself. But contradiction, when cancelled, does not leave abstract identity; for that is itself only one side of the contrariety. The proximate result of opposition (when realised as contradiction) is the Ground, which contains identity as well as difference superseded and deposited to elements in the completer notion. [Hegel (1975), p.174; Essence as Ground of Existence, §119.]
[B]ut contradiction is the root of all movement and vitality; it is only in so far as something has a contradiction within it that it moves, has an urge and activity. [Hegel (1999), p.439, §956.]
[The serious problems that these hyper-bold, and unsubstantiated claims create for Hegel are explored here. And, of course, contradictory propositions don't 'cancel' one another, either!]
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In fact, identity is no enemy of change, for if two objects are identical, they will both change equally quickly -- otherwise they can't have been identical.
Moreover, if an object is no longer identical with its former self, it must have changed.
So, identity doesn't prevent change (a peculiar idea in itself!); it simply enables us to decide if and when it has occurred.
Alas, with that observation the entire Hegelian 'dialectic' completely disintegrates.
Be this as it may, Hegel failed to notice that there is no connection whatsoever between the LOI and the LOC. The LOI concerns the conditions under which an object is supposedly identical with itself, or with something else; it isn't about the alleged identity between propositions, nor yet clauses with propositions, or even clauses with clauses.
Nevertheless, this is where the linguistic sleight-of-hand occurs. Hegel's sloppy semantics (mentioned earlier) masked this serious error. Allowing A to slide effortlessly between various denotations (i.e., between different meanings -- one minute it stands for an object, the next a sentence, the next a predicate expression, the next a 'concept', the next a process, the next a relational expression, the next...) 'enabled' Hegel to perform the aforementioned verbal conjuring trick.
Indeed, if a proposition has no identity (i.e., if we now allow A to stand for a proposition, not an object), it wouldn't be a proposition to begin with. That is, if it were unclear what was being proposed -- i.e., put forward for consideration, which is what propositions do or can be used for -- then plainly nothing has yet been proposed, and so nothing can follow from 'it'.
In that case, the alleged 'negative' version of the LOI has nothing whatsoever to do with the connection between a proposition and its contradictory, and that is because under such circumstances (as we saw in the previous paragraph), A ceases to be a proposition!
The LOC, on the other hand, concerns the truth-functional connection** between propositions (or clauses), not objects (since objects can't be true or false). In its simplest form it concerns the conjunction of a proposition with its negation (e.g., "Today is Tuesday and today isn't Tuesday" -- said at high noon on any particular day). It has nothing to do with objects or their supposed identity.
[Readers might like to check out my more technical comments on this topic posted at Wikipedia.]
[**"Truth-functional" is a technical term for the type of link that exists, or might exist, between propositions. In this particular case, if a certain proposition is true its negation is false, and vice versa -- the truth-status of one of them directly affects the truth-status of the other. Unfortunately, the full details of Hegel's moves here are rather complex, so I have left them out. Interested readers can access them here, here, here, and here.]
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Hegel Confuses Naming With Describing
Only by confusing objects (or the names thereof) with propositions (or clauses) -- that is, by confusing objects or their names with what we say about them, confusing talk about talk with talk about things -- only by doing that was Hegel able to conjure the 'dialectic' into existence.
[His other 'arguments' are merely window dressing. They, too, will be demolished in Essay Twelve Parts Five and Six at my site, when they are published.]
We name objects and persons (among other things). Typically, only then can we say things about them, and we do that in sentences. These familiar features of language are quite distinct.
[Later on I'll explain why it is important that they stay that way. (Admittedly, we have other ways of referring to things, but they only complicate the picture, they don't alter it.)]
Furthermore, propositions aren't objects. Nor are they the names of anything, as Hegel appears to have assumed. If they were, they couldn't be used to say anything. Sure, we use various inscriptions (words, phrases, clauses, sentences, utterances) to articulate our thoughts -- that is, we write words on paper, type letters on computer screens, or simply say things --, but when we do any of these, the inscriptions we employ to that end work as symbols (i.e., they signify things for us, and to us, and convey meaning). We achieve this by the way we employ linguistic resources like these in accord with the grammatical complexity our ancestors built into language.
To see this, just look at any object or collection of objects, and, assuming they or their arrangement don't represent a coded message of some sort, ask yourself what it/they say to you. You might be tempted to reply that it/they say this or that, but in order to report what it/they allegedly say, you will be forced to articulate whatever that is in a proposition, or some other form of sentence. You couldn't do this by merely reproducing the original objects, or, indeed, any other objects. Nor could you do so by just naming them.
[This
story taken from Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels exposes the
absurdity of the idea that
it is possible to say things simply by using objects, or their names. More on this
below. "Inscription"
here applies to physical marks on a page/screen/wall/blackboard/white screen/cavewall
that aren't considered random, but are held to be the product of intentionality, part of a natural-, or even a formal-language -- or perhaps
even a work of
art, no matter how 'primitive'.]
This isn't surprising since objects have no social history, intellect or
language, whereas we do, and have.
Naming is like setting out the pieces on a chess board ready for a game. A move in a game is like a proposition (describing or explaining, for example). While both of these activities depend on each other, only someone intent on ruining a game (or who had a hidden agenda) would deliberately confuse the two.
Unfortunately, Engels and Lenin swallowed this spurious Hegelian word magic, hook, line and sinker -- and that is because neither of them were logicians. Despite this, they both had a wildly inflated opinion of Hegel's expertise in this area.
[This isn't to malign these two great revolutionaries; others, who should know better, have similarly allowed themselves to be duped. Exactly why they have all fallen for verbal con-tricks like this (and not just Hegel's sleight-of-hand) is explained in Essay Nine Part Two.]
However, because of their misguided respect for Hegel, Marxists ever since have been saddled with this garbled 'logic' (upside down, or 'the right way up').
Here, for example, is Lenin's use of this idea:
To begin with what is the simplest, most ordinary, common, etc., [sic] with any proposition...: [like] John is a man…. Here we already have dialectics (as Hegel's genius recognized): the individual is the universal…. Consequently, the opposites (the individual is opposed to the universal) are identical: the individual exists only in the connection that leads to the universal. The universal exists only in the individual and through the individual. Every individual is (in one way or another) a universal. Every universal is (a fragment, or an aspect, or the essence of) an individual. Every universal only approximately embraces all the individual objects. Every individual enters incompletely into the universal, etc., etc. Every individual is connected by thousands of transitions with other kinds of individuals (things, phenomena, processes), etc. Here already we have the elements, the germs of the concept of necessity, of objective connection in nature, etc. Here already we have the contingent and the necessary, the phenomenon and the essence; for when we say John is a man…we disregard a number of attributes as contingent; we separate the essence from the appearance, and counterpose the one to the other…. Thus in any proposition we can (and must) disclose as a "nucleus" ("cell") the germs of all the elements of dialectics, and thereby show that dialectics is a property of all human knowledge in general. [Lenin (1961), i.e., Philosophical Notebooks, pp.359-60. Paragraphs merged.]
[Engels's much briefer use of the same idea can be accessed here.]
Both of these comrades plainly felt they could 'derive' fundamental truths about reality, valid for all of space and time -- not from a scientific investigation of the world --, but from juggling with a few words viewed through Hegel's distorting lens!
[Apologies for that mixed metaphor!]
And yet dialecticians still tell us with a straight face that their theory hasn't been imposed on the facts!
Unfortunately, the sentence Lenin used -- J1 (repeated below) -- is descriptive. We use sentences like this to describe the individuals concerned --, so it can't be treated in the way Hegel imagined it could (that is, as an identity statement). In fact, Aristotle would have approached it differently. In order to explain its structure, he would have said something like the following:
A1: Manhood applies to John.
[J1: John is a man.
J2: John is identical with Manhood.]
In other words, in J1 the predicate expression ("...is a man", or,
traditionally, "man") is used to describe John; it isn't expressing an
identity, unlike J2.
Indeed, it makes no sense to suppose with Hegel that John could be identical with
what a general term supposedly represented
-- any more than it would make sense to suppose that you, dear reader, are identical
with what a
conjunction,
preposition,
or
adverb supposedly
'represent'.
[I have explored this verbal trick more fully here.]
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Identity Not The Same As Identification
To be sure, Hegelians might want to call propositions like J1 "essential", in that such sentences supposedly tell us what kind of being John is; that is, they help identify a particular as an individual of a certain sort, in this case as a human being (if we ignore for the moment the sexism implied here!). Even if that were so -- and there are good reasons for supposing it isn't (on that see Essay Thirteen Part Two, when it is published) --, that still wouldn't affect the counter-argument presented in this Essay. Nor would it affect the point that J1 is still descriptive. It certainly doesn't justify turning J1 into J2. [On that, see here.]
And, of course, identifying something isn't the same as asserting an identity relation.
For example, if squaddie NN is asked whether or not he can identify Osama bin Laden in a line-up, and he replies, "Yes, Sarge! Osama is identical with Osama, Sarge!", he would risk being put on a charge. On the other hand, if he points to one of the suspects and says, "That's him, Sarge!", he wouldn't.
[This was, of course, written before the US executed Osama bin Laden extra-judicially.]
So, identification isn't the same as identity (no pun intended). Hegel simply ran the two together.
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If we return to the original sentence, translated this time into something more like Hegel-speak, we can perhaps see more clearly where the argument goes astray:
J2: John is identical with Manhood.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to explain what the extra "is" here (highlighted in red) now means. But, this extra "is" has to be used in order to make the alleged identity between John and Manhood (or whatever) plain.
[If we used "John Identical Manhood" instead, this would no longer be a proposition, but a list! (More on that presently.)]
In fact, if all such uses of "is" expressed disguised identities (as we are assured they must), J2 would now have to become:
J2a: John is identical with identical with Manhood,
as the red "is" from J2 is replaced with what it is 'dialectically' supposed to mean, i.e., "is identical with" --, in turquoise, in J2a.
After another such 'dialectical' switch J2a would then become:
J2b: John is identical with identical with identical with Manhood,
as the turquoise "is" we had to use in J2a is replaced by "is identical with" to yield J2b. And so on:
J2c: John is identical with identical with identical with identical with Manhood.
These untoward moves can only be halted if we argue that "is" doesn't always express an identity in such propositions. But, dialecticians gave up the right to lodge that particular appeal the moment they accepted The Identity Theory of Predication.
Fortunately, Aristotle's approach short-circuits all this tomfoolery; there is no "is" at all in A1:
A1: Manhood applies to John.
By way of contrast, Hegel's 'analysis' can't avoid a verbal explosion like the above; indeed, it positively invites it.
Anyone who thinks this is just "pedantic" nit-picking need only reflect on the fact that Hegel -- or anyone who agrees with him --, can't explain this 'theory' without using J2:
J2: John is identical with Manhood.
But, as we can now see, Hegel's theory stalls at this point, for this extra "is" can't be one of identity (for the above reasons); and if it isn't, then the theory that tells us that "is" is always one of identity (in such contexts) is defective.
In fact, this Hegelian trick can only be performed in Indo-European languages. By-and-large, other language groups don't possess this particular grammatical feature. The above moves depend solely on the subject-predicate form taking the copula "is" (or its cognates) found almost exclusively in the aforementioned family of languages.
[Again, Hegelians often respond that Hegel's argument only applies to 'essential' judgements, which means that the above criticisms are misguided. I have dealt with that response throughout Essay Three Part One.]
This shows that Hegel's 'logic' isn't just bizarre, it is parochial in the extreme!
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Traditional Grammar Partly To Blame
In order to illustrate these bogus moves in yet more detail, consider J1 again:
J1: John is a man.
Given traditional grammar, J1's general form is in effect this:
G1: S is P.
[Where, "S" = "Subject", "P" =
"Predicate" -- or, if we concentrate on its linguistic form, "P" = "Predicate Expression";
in which case "S" will designate a Proper Name or some other singular
term (on that, see below).]
Now, we already have a facility in language that allows us to express identity
-- and legitimately so. For example, this is an uncontroversial identity statement:
G2: Cicero is Tully.
["Tully" was Cicero's other name.
Cicero was a
reactionary
politician, jurist, orator and author who lived in
Ancient Rome about the same time as
Julius Caesar.
Colloquially, G2 means "'Tully' is Cicero's other name".]
So, G2 quite legitimately means:
G2a: Cicero is identical with Tully.
[However, the extra brown "is" here is now an "is" of predication, not identity! So, the verbal explosion we met earlier isn't implied by G2a.]
Or:
G3: A = B.
[Where "A" is "Cicero" and "B" is "Tully"; using "="
as the identity sign, again.]
G2 and G3 express an unambiguous use of the "is" of identity -- no problem with
that -- whereas, in G2a, the brown "is" is one of predication.
However, it is important to note that a legitimate and unambiguous expression of the identity relation operates between two singular terms (again, on that, see below) -- or, between two named individuals, depending on how identity is finally understood. This is typical of the use of the "is" of identity.
Now, just look at the superficial similarity between the following two linguistic forms -- especially between J1/G1 (predication) and G2 (identity):
J1: John is a man.
G1: S is P.
G1a John is identical with Man.
G1b: John = Man
G1c S = P.
G2: Cicero is Tully.
G2a: Cicero = Tully.
G3: A = B.
Highly influential Ancient and Medieval logicians and grammarians noticed this, too, and combined the two distinct forms into one, reading the "is" of predication as an "is" of identity, sliding effortlessly from J1 to G1c in order to align it with G3. [Why they did this will also be explained presently.]
But, these moves now turn the predicate expression, "P" in G1, into the Proper Name of a Universal (in this case, "Man" or "Manhood"), in parallel with the Proper Name ("Tully") used in G2a, forcing G1c to resemble G3:
G1: S is P.
G1c S = P.
G2a: Cicero = Tully.
G3: A = B.
As noted a few paragraphs back, identities concern the relation between singular terms, or between whatever it is they designate -- for example:
P1: The 43rd President of the United States is George W Bush.
Here, the first singular term (highlighted in blue) is a definite description; the second singular term ("George W Bush") is a Proper Name.
Unfortunately, given this view, the former predicate expression, "P" (in G1), now becomes a Proper Name -- a singular term, since they alone can flank identity signs -- in which case, it ceases to be a predicate expression.
As we have seen, Hegel adopted this medieval analysis, deliberately conflating the "is" of identity with the "is" of predication. This then 'allowed' him to claim that propositions like J1 were in fact identity statements.
Of course, this means that the core of Hegel's 'logic' is based solely on what is in effect a grammatical stipulation -- i.e., it is founded on a dogmatic assertion that these two forms (predicative and identity sentences) are one and the same, which move creates the intractable problems we met above --, but which stipulation Hegel nowhere adequately justified.
Moreover, as we will soon see, this particular stipulation actually destroys the capacity language has for expressing generality.
Why is this important? Predicate expressions enable us to say general things about named individuals or objects (etc.) -- for example, that John is a mechanic, or a hospital porter, or even a man. Turning predicate expressions into Proper Names stops them doing this, preventing them from being used to say anything general -- or, indeed, anything at all, as we will soon discover.
So, given a 'Hegel-make-over', J1 becomes J1a (and/or J1b):
J1: John is a man.
J1a: John = man/Manhood.
J1b: John is identical with man/Manhood.
Hence, on this view, just as "Tully" names Cicero, "man" supposedly names Manhood --, or perhaps even the class, 'category', or 'concept', MAN.
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The Pseudo-Problem Of The Relation Between 'Thought' And 'Being'
As noted above, the 'rationale' underlying these linguistic moves had already been laid down by earlier theorists and mystics, who were, among other things, concerned to explain the alleged union or identity between the human soul and 'God'/'Being'. So, they played around with the Greek verb "to be" (and hence with the "is" of predication) until it was made to say what they wanted it to say.
There is in fact no non-theological reason for adopting the Identity Theory of Predication, which also helps explain why it was concocted by theologians and mystics, and why Hegel, the Mystery-Meister Himself, eagerly appropriated it.
[Of course, none of these moves took place in an ideological or political vacuum; a brief outline of some of the relevant issues can be found here.]
Anyway, logicians and grammarians after Aristotle, and especially those working in the Middle Ages (who also used this theory to help them try to explain the incomprehensible Christian Trinity), began to conflate these two distinct linguistic forms as a matter of course. This fed into, and was fed in return by, an increasingly elaborate and complex metaphysic supposedly centred on the 'ultimate structure of reality' and the relation of 'Thought' to 'Being'/'God' --, which speculative gyrations, it is worth reminding ourselves, were based solely on the following: (i) The above linguistic sleight-of-hand, (ii) Mystical Theology, and (iii) Nothing else!
Certainly not on a scientific investigation of the world.
However, as George Novack pointed out:
A consistent materialism cannot proceed from
principles which are validated by appeal to abstract reason, intuition,
self-evidence or some other subjective or purely theoretical source. Idealisms
may do this. But the materialist philosophy has to be based upon evidence taken
from objective material sources and verified by demonstration in practice....
[Novack (1965), p.17. Bold emphasis added.]
In which case, 'the dialectic' is plainly based on defective a priori dogmatics of the sort castigated by Novack (Engels and other dialecticians have also said similar things), but not on evidence. Sure, evidence was often sought after the event in order to 'illustrate' the 'laws' that dialecticians uncritically imported into Marxism from Hegel, but the original theses themselves were derived in the way that Novack described, by 'pure thought'. And, as has been shown in Essay Seven Part One, the meagre 'evidence' dialecticians have since scraped-together in support of their 'laws' fails miserably to substantiate them, anyway.
So, in the end, J1/G1 and G2-type sentences were modelled along the lines expressed by G4 and G5 -- i.e., as identity statements:
J1: John is a man.
G1: S is P.
G2: Cicero is Tully.
G4: A = B.
G5: John = Manhood.
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Propositions Turned Into Lists
But, and once more, these moves turn predicate expressions into Proper Names -- i.e., "a man" becomes
the Proper Name of Manhood (or, of the 'Concept MAN'), which, plainly, it isn't.
Naming isn't the same as describing. We name our
children when they are born, or soon after, we don't simply describe
them. If we do subsequently describe them, we use predicate
expressions, not Proper Names. We don't name children
with phrases like "is a man", or "is tall". Not even pop stars do
that to their off-spring! Moreover, we describe the world around
us, we don't
simply name it.
The untoward result of buying onto linguistic and semantic confusion like this was recently outlined for us by Professor E J Lowe:
What is the problem of predication? In a nutshell, it is this. Consider any simple subject-predicate sentence, such as..., "Theaetetus sits". How are we to understand the different roles of the subject and the predicate in this sentence, "Theaetetus" and "sits" respectively? The role of "Theaetetus" seems straightforward enough: it serves to name, and thereby to refer to or stand for, a certain particular human being. But what about "sits"? Many philosophers have been tempted to say that this also refers to or stands for something, namely, a property or universal that Theaetetus possesses or exemplifies: the property of sitting. This is said to be a universal, rather than a particular, because it can be possessed by many different individuals.
But now we have a problem, for this view of the matter seems to turn the sentence "Theaetetus sits" into a mere list of (two) names, each naming something different, one a particular and one a universal: "Theaetetus, sits." But a list of names is not a sentence because it is not the sort of thing that can be said to be true or false, in the way that "Theaetetus sits" clearly can. The temptation now is to say that reference to something else must be involved in addition to Theaetetus and the property of sitting, namely, the relation of possessing that Theaetetus has to that property. But it should be evident that this way of proceeding will simply generate the same problem, for now we have just turned the original sentence into a list of three names, "Theaetetus, possessing, sits."
Indeed, we are now setting out on a vicious infinite regress, which is commonly known as "Bradley's regress", in recognition of its modern discoverer, the British idealist philosopher F. H. Bradley. Bradley used the regress to argue in favour of absolute idealism.... [Lowe (2006).]
So, a collection of names is just that -- a list -- and lists say nothing, just as objects say nothing. For example -- coded messages aside, once more -- the following list fails to say anything:
L1: John, book, car.
L1 can only be made to say something if its constituent words are articulated with other expressions that don't function as names -- perhaps as follows:
L2: John found my book in his car.
L3: John lost your book and sold his car.
L4: John isn't mentioned in that book, but his car is.
L5: John has vanished, so has your book and my car.
L6: John can book you a car tomorrow.
L7: Give John a book to read while I repair his car.
L8: John owns neither a book nor a car.
You just can't see any of the above in L1. [Well, did any of you see one or more of L2-L8 in L1 before you read them?] But, there are countless sentences that none of us have ever seen or heard before which can be put together from just these three nouns -- but only if we use expressions that don't function merely as nouns, to that end.
So, our use of expressions that aren't names, and which don't function like names, allows us to generate an endless number of sentences with different meanings -- meanings that would be unavailable to us if we simply employed lists of names, or collections of objects.
Hence, the list from earlier (i.e., "John Identical Manhood") has to be articulated with a verb if it is to say something:
J2: John is identical with Manhood.
But, that just generates the problems outlined in the first part of this Essay!
Such 'Hegelianised' sentences are turned into lists and can't therefore be used to saying anything at all!
[Again I have explained this in painstaking detail in Essay Three Part One (summarised here).]
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Of course, it could be objected that there are languages in which Proper Names do describe. For example, Native Americans use names such as "Sitting Bull" ("Tatanka Yotanka"), "Crazy Horse", "Rain In The Face" or "Mary Brave Bird", which describe what the individual concerned either did or was reminiscent of.
Even so, no Native American would argue as follows:
N1: Sitting Bull has just stood up.
N2: Therefore Sitting Bull is no longer Sitting Bull, he is Standing Bull.
But, they would argue as follows:
N3: That animal over there is a sitting bull.
N4: It has just stood up, so it's now a standing bull.
[I have deliberately kept these sentences trite so that the logical point being made isn't obscured by needless complexity.]
This shows that the logical use of names is distinct from that of descriptions. Any contingent traditional, psychological, or idiosyncratic associations a name has are logically irrelevant to its use as a name, no matter how important such quirks of language are to a given culture.
Hence, the name "Sitting Bull" is a logical unit and cannot be split up like a description can. [Examples of the latter are given here.] That is partly because, as Aristotle noted (De Interpretatione, Section 3), names are tenseless, but predicate expressions aren't. So, we still call Julius Caesar, "Julius Caesar", even though he is dead, and even though there was a time when he had no name at all -- i.e., at the moment of his birth.
The above examples bring this out since change (intimated by the use of suitably tensed verbs like "stood" or "sitting") is expressed by our use of tensed predicate expressions, not names. That is why, whatever Sitting Bull did, he is still Sitting Bull. There is no past, present or future tense of names like "Sitting Bull", "Mary Brave Bird", "Julius Caesar", or "Karl Marx".
[These and other complications are discussed at length in Geach (1968), pp.22-80. (This in fact links to the 3rd (1980) edition, so the page numbers are different: pp.49-104. See also here.]
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So, for Hegel,
"a man" became the Proper Name of Manhood, which was then dignified by
being called an "abstraction",
or even worse, an "essence" -- both of which were conjured into existence
by this linguistic dodge, and nothing more.
In this way, then, dialectics (in the post-Hegelian sense of this word, upside
down or the 'right way up') arose out of egregiously defective logic
compounded by
a series of crass errors which were further aggravated by an inept misconstrual of what is in effect minor
aspect of a sub-branch of Indo-European
grammar!
Hard to believe? Well, Marx himself indicated that this was indeed so:
The philosophers have only to dissolve their language into the ordinary language, from which it is abstracted, in order to recognise it, as the distorted language of the actual world, and to realise that neither thoughts nor language in themselves form a realm of their own, that they are only manifestations of actual life. [Marx and Engels: The German Ideology, p.118. Bold emphases added.]
So, Traditional Philosophy and 'dialectics' (again, in the post-Hegelian sense of that word) are based on just such "distorted language".
Indeed, the analysis outlined in this Essay (and elsewhere at this site) underlines why Marx was right.
[Although, it isn't being suggested that he would have agreed with this assessment! On the other hand, if he were consistent, he should have!]
Now, even if the above analysis is incorrect in some way, neither Aristotle, nor Hegel (nor anyone else, for that matter) has been able to explain how or why contingent features of a minor aspect of Indo-European grammar could possibly have such profound implications built into them --, that is, how they could contain or reveal fundamental truths about the deep structure of reality, and how it changes, valid for all of space and time.
Did the rest of us miss a meeting!?
In fact,
I call this approach to 'knowledge': Linguistic Idealism.
So, the above considerations reveal how and why Hegel screwed up -- and why the 'dialectic' (upside down, or 'the right way up') enjoys absolutely no rational support.
High time we ditched this confused, defective and failed 'theory'.
Historical Materialism doesn't need it, and can well do without it.
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Does This Essay Refute Itself?
Finally, some might try to argue that to refute Hegel is ipso facto (and ironically) to confirm the dialectic. Hence, in trying to refute Hegel, this Essay refutes itself!
However, the above considerations don't amount to, nor were they intended to be, a refutation of Hegel. In order to refute his work, one would have to show it is false. On the contrary, what I have done here is show that his work is far too confused for anyone to be able to say whether or not it is false.
His 'theory' doesn't make it that far.
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Desmond, W. (1989) (ed.), Hegel And His Critics. Philosophy In The Aftermath Of Hegel (State University of New York Press).
Dulckeit, K. (1989), 'Hegel's Revenge On Russell: The "Is" Of Identity Versus The "Is" Of Predication', in Desmond (1989), pp.111-31.
Geach, P. (1968), Reference And Generality (Cornell University Press, 2nd ed.). [This links to the 3rd (1980) edition.]
Hegel, G. (1975), Logic, translated by William Wallace (Oxford University Press, 3rd ed.).
--------, (1999), Science Of Logic, translated by A. V. Miller (Humanity Books).
Lenin, V. (1961), Philosophical Notebooks -- Collected Works Volume 38 (Progress Publishers).
Lowe, E. (2006), 'Take A Seat And The Consider This Simple Sentence', Times Higher Education Supplement, 07/04/06.
Novack, G. (1965), The Origins Of Materialism (Pathfinder Press).
Pippin, R. (1978), 'Hegel's Metaphysics And The Problem Of Contradiction', Journal of the History of Philosophy 16, pp.301-12; reprinted in Stewart (1996), pp.239-52.
Stewart, J. (1996) (ed.), The Hegel Myths And Legends (Northwestern University Press).
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