3. Dialectical Logic (Marxist Logic)

According to Hegel, Idea manifests itself as nature in the clothing of matter; therefore, objective reality is Idea. Marx, however, asserted that objective reality is matter, and that ideas are merely the reflections of the material world on human consciousness. Yet Marx accepted, without change, Hegel’s dialectic of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, and asserted that it is in fact the form of material development. Accordingly, in opposition to Hegel’s “idealistic dialectic,” Marx’s dialectic is called a “materialist dialectic.”

Based on such a materialist dialectic, Marxist logic was established. The materialist dialectic is the same as the idealistic dialectic in that both have the three-stage process of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis; therefore, Marxist logic is also called a dialectical logic. Its original characteristic is its opposition to formal logic, especially to the law of identity and the law of contradiction; ⁸ that is because, according to dialectical logic, in order for things to develop, A should be A and at the same time it should be not-A; and because the laws of thought should be the reflection of the material development of things. From the position of a materialist conception of history, Marxists assume that the forms and laws of thinking advocated by formal logic belong to the superstructure and have a class nature, so they should be rejected and a new dialectical logic created, in opposition to formal logic. ⁹

However, if formal logic was to be rejected, then one would inevitably run into difficulty: without formal logic, it is impossible to conduct coherent and correct thinking. Linguistics also faced a similar difficulty. Based on the assertion that language belongs to the superstructure, and has a class character, it was argued that a new Soviet language should be created in place of the old Russian language. ¹⁰

However, this was almost impossible. Therefore, in 1950, Stalin published a paper entitled “Marxism and the Problems of Linguistics,” asserting that language does not belong to the superstructure nor does it have a class nature. With this thesis as the starting point, a series of discussions took place in the Soviet Union from 1950 to 1951 on the subject of how to evaluate formal logic. From those discussions, the conclusion was reached that the forms and laws of formal logic do not belong to the superstructure and do not have class nature. Concerning the relation between formal logic and dialectic logic, it was decided that, “while formal logic deals with the elementary laws and forms of thinking, dialectical logic is a higher logic concerning the laws of development of objective reality and of thinking, which is the reflection of objective reality.” ¹¹

Yet, logic based on a materialist dialectic, namely, dialectical logic, makes only basic assertions, such as criticizing the laws of identity and the law of contradiction. As a matter of fact, it has not been systematized as of yet. ¹²