THE ESSENCE OF FORMAL LOGIC: SIMPLE AND USEFUL RULES THAT ARE NOT OBJECTIVELY TRUE
来源:WOP in Education, Social Sciences and Psycholopy, Volume:107 (March 30-31, 2024), pp.116-123. | 作者:Yong Duan | 发布时间: 2024-06-24 | 2233 次浏览 | 分享到:
Abstract: Logic is the rule of rational thinking. When thinking is expressed in language, logic becomes the rule of language. Logic is not the law of objective things, each discipline studies different laws, while logic is applicable to all disciplines because all disciplines use rational thought and language. Logical judgment is not necessarily the truth. In the subjective world, the simple atomic concepts can never change. In the objective world, concrete things are complicated, so A can be different from A. The rules of formal logic, such as the law of identity, the law of exclusion of middle and the law of non-contradiction, are the rules of the subjective world, and are the methods to deal with the logical structures in the subjective world, rather than the methods to deal with the real things in the objective world. The understanding of any objective thing requires a process from simple to complex. In the beginning stage of cognition, we must simplify and abstract complex objects, and use formal logic when simplifying and abstracting. For example, suppose that the Chaobai River this year is the same river as the Chaobai River in the past ten years, and then use the hydrological data of the past ten years to predict the situation of the river this year. This hypothesis is simple and useful but not objectively true. Making objective things obey the rules of formal logic is entirely artificial. Because only by following these rules can we derive useful conclusions. The purpose of simplification is to make the sentences do not contain contradictions, easy to thinking and calculation. The actual objective things contain contradictions and do not conform to formal logic. So dialectical logic negates the rules of formal logic.
Key words: Logic philosophy; Formal logic; Dialectical logic; Useful; Objectivity

 It is a very important philosophical discovery that Hegel saw the difference between concrete identity and abstract identity. Hegel's mistake is that he forgot that abstract identity is not a metaphysical claim, but the reasoning principle of most theories of natural science. His denial of abstract identity is against all scientific theories, and it cannot be said that all scientific theories are ridiculous. Formal logic is the distortion of the objective world and the colored glasses of human beings, but scientific research cannot do without this colored glasses, so we must accept both formal logic and dialectical logic. It is wrong to blindly negate formal logic or dialectical logic. Many useful things are not real, they are subjective. For example, concepts, probabilities, possibilities are tools, and so is formal logic. Formal logic has value, but the application of formal logic has conditions and scope, out of the scope is wrong.

This narrow and one-sided view as Hegel has ever been rampant and reached its peak. Since the 1920s, there has been a trend in the Soviet Union to negate formal logic with the dialectic "A is A and not A". Middle schools and colleges were ordered to cancel logic classes, and dialectics was regarded as the only scientific logic, and formal logic must be criticized when teaching dialectics. In the 1930s, the Soviet Union's political attack on the Debolin school led to a total rejection of formal logic.

A group of Chinese who were heavily influenced by the Soviet Union also began to criticize logic in the latter years of the 1920s. Although the criticism has been loud, it has not shaken the status of logic in the curriculum of Chinese universities and middle schools. In the Cultural Revolution, logic suffered another heavy blow. Ni Dingfu, deputy director of the Institute of Philosophy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, recalled: "Logic science is one of the hardest hit areas. Logic research institutes and logic teaching and research departments (groups) in universities have been abolished, logic classes in schools have been abolished, and professional teams have been disbanded. "[2]These lessons are worth remembering.

Guan Min said, a group of ducks besieged the "ugly duckling"; The duck is dialectics, and the "ugly duckling" is formal logic, which was besieged by the fans of dialectics. Finally, the "ugly duckling" creates the computer and the Internet through modern mathematical logic, completely overcoming the siege of the dialectics ducks, and formal logic finally becomes the "white swan" in the field of human spirit and culture! The achievements of logical science in the 20th century far exceed the achievements of the previous two thousand years combined.[2]

It is true that formal logic has become a white swan by creating computers and the Internet through mathematical logic, but this does not mean that formal logic has thus triumphed over dialectics.

Conclusions

Logic is the rule of rational thinking. Logic is not the law of objective things. Logical judgment is not necessarily the truth. In the beginning stage of cognition, we must simplify and abstract complex objects, and use formal logic when simplifying and abstracting. Making objective things obey the rules of formal logic is entirely artificial. Because only by following these rules can we derive useful conclusions. The purpose of simplification is to make the sentences do not contain contradictions, easy to thinking and calculation. The actual objective things contain contradictions and do not conform to formal logic. So dialectical logic negates the rules of formal logic.