2 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
View submission: Logic has no foundation - except in metaphysics. Hegel explains why.
"In fact it was a very empirical exercise. And since the reason logic works so well is that it comports to some kind of framework that applies to the way events connect to one another in the world"
Hegel does acknowledge this, especially with respect to Aristotle: "The interest in [Aristotelian logic] lies with becoming acquainted with the procedures of finite thinking, and the science is correct when it corresponds to its presupposed object." (Encyclopedia Logic §20z). For the purpose of simplicity, I'll treat Hegel's usage of 'Finite' here to mean empirical.
Hegel's critique of Aristotelian logic isn't per se that it is wrong; within the realm of empirical reality, it cannot be wrong because "it corresponds to its presupposed object." The fact that logic arose out of empirical observations isn't Hegel's problem; it's rather that this logic is only applicable to said empirical reality (which Hegel also claims to be 'presupposed').
To discuss things like Being, God, Truth etc. Hegel thinks this kind of logic fails because for Hegel these things are demonstrably *infinite* (to explain the full extent of what hegel means with this would require an essay of its own, here it's suffice for it to mean something similar to Plato's forms). In claiming this, Hegel also makes the claim that *we can know* these things, but just through a different form of understanding than that of formal logic, namely through *dialectical logic*.
This kind of logic begins with "*Being, pure being,* without any further determination" (Science of Logic, pp 59). The reason for this beginning is that pure Being on its own is the lowest kind of thought we can produce, and because of this Hegel equates it with nothing, making the Logic literally begin with *nothing*; that is, the biggest possible abstraction from the world we inhabit. For Hegel it is because he thinks his logic starts with nothing and thereby doesn't appeal to material reality that it is better than aristotelian logic – his logic is, as he claims, *presuppositionless.* The other thing his Logic also necessarily does with this kind of beginning is *coincide with ontology*, thereby giving logic *metaphysical* rather than *empirical* foundations.
Comment by ragnaroksunset at 01/02/2025 at 14:54 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
this logic is only applicable to said empirical reality
Serious question, was Hegel sufficiently familiar with mathematics, calculus, etc. for this not to be considered an oversight?
The rest is, while welcome conversation, just affirming my view that Hegel was moving axiomatic goalposts.