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The portrayal of realities
Chapter I Introduction

“Life must be full of depiction of realities.” This idea triggers the researcher to draw the importance of an art that portrays and pictures the facts in our lives. The researcher is so much concern of letting the unrevealed realities, which are not known by some, to permeate throughout universality. Sometimes, we cannot deny the fact that these said facts or realites are not permeated throughout the existence of humanity, which disables the overviewing of entire realities by man. It is very awful to imagine that there are many important events, whether in history or in present times, which are not given chance to be known and concieved by human perception due to the fact that there is a lack of effort in giving importance to the permeation of of unrevealed realities. Apparently, this unfortunate fact is the one that the researcher wants to put into one's mind that people must submit their will in spreading the hidden truths in life; and this way may be possible by the use of one of the arts that can depict the certainties of significant realities and events. The researcher, moreoever, focuses on the art of theater and its meaning, and of how the world of theater comes into existence since everything in the world must be originated or come from something. By knowing the origin of things, it is logically to say that we must also know the history of these things in which it includes their development and process of how they are formed as the present time presents them. That is the reason why that the researcher is also trying to present the formulation and development of theater. In live with this, the researcher shows some of the differences of theater at different periods. Furthermore, as we can see that all things in our lives have significance which somehow necessitates their existence. So to say, this such art has its significance that serves as the contribution in our present life today. These contributions are the ones that the researcher sees as the basic concerns of theater in which they can help the society to value the important things in life. However, in order to see these basic concerns that serve as the contribution of theater in our daily lives, first and foremost, and basically, it must be primitively related to the word of literary outputs before this such art, theater, and its concerns come into existence. In such case, in further readings, we can see the concrete relation between these two worlds for the researcher somehow sees their connections and contributions.

Chapter II Review of Related Literature

The Formulation and Meaning of Such Art

As part of human nature which is to have an expression of feelings, man is able to communicate himself to others. Scholars have theorized that this art of expression is come from the mimetic impulse which is common to mankind (Encyclopedia Americana, 1829). As we have all known, this common faculty is serving a great role in the part of human existence as a part of human survival. But, later on, as the researcher's analysis, due to the gut-level of sensation and knowledge of man, the development of expression arises from its fixated level. Basically, this is the, as the researcher would term it, “rooting-idea”, about the art of theater. This expression of feelings toward others is obviously the primitive grounding point of such art as the researcher tries to analyze the research. Even though the expression of feelings which are essential in order to communicate as a basic form of survival, is turned into a form of sounds which is modified into language, yet, the art of action is still undying. This art of action has been basically used in a ritual form by the native people (Encyclopedia Americana, 1829). That's why, the scholars have also placed considerable emphasis on the ritual basis of theater; according to their theory, “native's performance provides a mimetic parallel to the changes of seasons or the gathering of food” (Encyclopedia Americana, 1829). As a part of traditional beliefs of these native people, their art of expressive actions have been the basis of rendering their help to the higher being and giving gratitude for the gathered food. Later on, this art is gradually turned into its development. In some instances, as in the dance ceremonies which are part of their ritual, primitive ritual is associated with a sacred performing area. That's the reason why the idea about theater concerns primarily with the art of presentation. However, since the primitive ritual is associated with a sacred performing area, the formulation of this art's name, “theater”, occurs. Derived from the Greek word theatron which means “a place for seeing”, the word “theater” is initially described as an architectural structure which is selected or built to a house dramatic offerings. As used to mean as the art of presentation, the term becomes static and stabalized in English late in the 17th century (Encyclopedia Americana, 1829). The meaning of “theater”, thus, “is an edifice in which dramatic performances or spectacles are exhibited for the amusement of spectators; anciently uncovered, except the stage, but in modern times roofed or accordingly it is an any room adapted to the exhibition of any performances before an assembly, as public lectures, scholastic exercises, anatomical demonstrations, surgical operations, etc”.(Window Dictionary, 2010).

The Comprisement of such Art Accordingly, theater becomes art as a whole, of which the building or performing place is only a part of this art. In such case, theater is one of the distinguishing feature of which the nature of expression is the central point of view. Meaning, “theater” is merely the physical expression of the playscript. It is the physical expression wherein the enactment of significant events that are considered as pertinent ones. Some would say the “theater” is the same with “drama”. But actually, there's a little misconception on that idea. Acutally, “drama” is referring to the literary basis of a theatrical presentation. Apparently, drama is contained so much with extensive dialogue and action (Encyclopedia Americana, 1829). This kind of art's content, however, is somehow having quite different from theater which basically refers to be compsed of elements which make peculiarity. Apparently, theater only exists through these elements' occurrence. For theater's occurrence, three elements of it must be brought together. These said elements are the ones that determine the difference of theater from drama. The first basic element of theater is the audience. The performance exists only when an audience is present, for the performers entire purpose is to arouse recognition and wonder in the onlooker. Even if how long the preparation for a performance may take, theater occurs only during the time that the audience is eventually witnessing the portrayal. Thus, the audience is the basic and essential for the occurrence of theater. However, the second elements is the place, since the term of this art is derived from the indispensibility of performing area and the seeing area. The indispensability of theater site makes the setting of wee-organized theater. The place embraces the cicumscribed area in which the performers appear and also the place where the audience sits or stands. Finally, the third element is no other than the performer (Encyclopedia Americana, 1829). Manifestly, theater will not be also possible without the presentors. They are the ones who are portraying and communicating the message of the plays. In addition, as the researcher's inference, this such art must be a “live”performance which has the said 3 basic and essential elements in order itself to be called “theater”. As we try to analyze with the accordance to the formulation of the said art, theater will only be part of existence if it is done in actual depiction because as have clearly said that it needs audience and performing area that somehow manifest the importance of live performance.

The Starting Point of Theater

Although there is an apparent evidence that a rudimentary passion play, or a play which is on the process of development, was done and enacted at Abydos in Egypt as early as the 19th century B.C., the first evidence of a fully formed theater is found in Greece (Encyclopedia Americana, 1829). As have all known, there are many natural events which are being divinized by the mind of the human race that somehow creates the realm of gods which is called Greek Mythology. This Greek Mythology touches evidently the terminal point of a fully formed theater. This realm of divinization helps this such called art, “theater”, to make its occurrence even to the extent of revitalizing the natural, and yet, divinized circumstances during ancient time. To be paricular and specific, in Athens on about 534 B.B., the tyrant Pisistratus established an annual contest for tragedy as part of the celebration of “The Great Dionysia” for the god of the wine, Dionysus. Held in the latter part of March and early April, the Great Dionysia commemorates the introduction of the Dionysian cult in Attica. However, this said first evidence of a fully formed theater lasts for five or six days of celebration which consists of a procession of re-enacting the entry of Dionysus in Athens, then, one or two days of dithyrambic contest, a contest of a choric poem, chant or hymn of ancient Greece sung by revelers as the festival in honor of the god Dionysus, and finnaly three days of theatrical performance. In the dithyrambic contest, the 10 tribes of Attica competes each which is represented by a chorus of 50 men or boys. Moreoever, religious and political in character, the Great Dionysia is the most significant civic celebration of the year duriing this time, even to the extent that the municipality conducted the contest and paid for the chorus, which is a groupd of person singing in unison. Furthermore, in this said celebration, it also designates the wealthy citizens as they call them, choragoi, charged with paying for the actors and costumes (Encyclopedia Americana, 1829). This is said celebration, at any rate, clearly manifests the great role of ancient gods in the existence of the art of theater. Apparently, this said celebration opens the door of stage of depiction that is later on refined by the process of generations' contributory suggestions in trying to develop the world of theater. In such case, due to the coercive force of wanting to develop this art of depiction, this such art has been gradually introduced to Rome which has the repercussion that the Roman theater derives its forms and subjects from the Greek theater and later on has been modified and developed. But, the theater has never occupied the central position in Roman life that it does in Greek life. As the Roman adopts the realm of theater, as have said, development of theater occurs. That's the very reason why that the Roman theaters are the modifications of Greek theater (Encyclopedia Americana, 1829).

The Era of Medieval Theater In this period, medieval period, the rise of the religious matters is manifested. By the 10th century, signs of an independent drama has begun to appear. Elsewhere in Europe, brief theatrical scenes (tropes) are introduced in the Christian liturgy. The first of these tropes depicts the visit of the 3 Marys to the tomb of Jesus. In such case, the gradual progression of fully-blown theatrical presentations are made clear in this period. It is now clear that the history of medieval drama is both more complicated and more elusive than early one (Encyclopedia Americana, 1829). Nevertheless, since the theological background of people's religious life is intensified, accordingly, from 10th century up to the 14th century, the dramatization of Biblical materials and the presentation of religious drama expand considerably throughout Europe; and by the 15th century, play-producing is both ambitious and widespread. However, this religious matter's occurrence is certain, because throughout the medieval period, theater remains a joint clerical and civic undertaking open to all and participated in by most of townspeople. Initially, the performers are mostly members of the clergy, but with the growth in the number of productions and involvement and participation of entire communities which comprise of laymen and even professionals (Encyclopedia Americana, 1829). Presentations on this period falls into three main categories which are mostly prevalent during the time of religious life inclination. The first category is the scenes from Old and New Testaments which are usually called mystery plays, though sometimes termed miracle plays. Through these scenes, which are normally only 10 to 20 minutes in length of time and which are usually linked with others in order to form a continuous narrative (Encyclopedia Americana, 1829), the researcher infers that the intensification of religious perception and life of the people in this period gradually comes into fulfillment. That also the reason why we can say that theater is what actually one of the apparent ways why the medieval period is comprised and consisted of people's looking back to God in spite of the factual existence of paganism which before reduces the space of Christianity. However, the second scenes are from the lives of the saints, invariably also called and termed miracle plays (Encyclopedia Americana, 1829). Apparently, the researcher can say that this second category helps the people to realize the so much effort of religious men and women in trying to spread the value of religion. It shows to the public the hardships and martyrdom of the saints who are giving importance to their faith. It even opens the mind of the people about the intensive sufferings of the saints that somehow makes them realize the great value of their religion. Finally, the third and last category are the morality plays (Encyclopedia Americana, 1829). Manifestly, the third one is more on the depiction of moral and ethical events that can be able to thrust some good values and virtues to the people during this time, since they are so much acquianted with natural and divine law. Similarly, in England, these narratives or cycles depict and portray the entire story of man, starting from the Creation of the World, passing through the Annunciation, Nativity, and Passion of Jesus and concluding with the Day of Judgment (Encyclopedia Americana, 1829). However, in terms of staging methods on this period, in England, the most widepread method is to place each play on a separate wheeled platform, or pageant wagon and then pull the wagons through the town, and, then stop at the designated area to perform the piece (Encyclopedia Americana, 1829). So to say, we can say that the theater in England during medieval time is in a form of movable theater. It uses to be in a wagon staging in order to be flexible in the context of different places. These are the places that are more or less secluded and isolated from the heart of the city. Apparently, in view of analyzation, the staging method of England at this period is having an advantage in the sense that there a great possibility of depicting the significant events, which are related to the religious, political, and social life of the people, that somehow inform and let those people who are in the state of ignorance be educated and informed about the pertinency of life, especially religion, since the people during this time are so much concern of religiousity.

The Era of Renaissance Theater Accordingly, no clear date marks the end of medieval theater and the beginning of renaissance theater. From country to country, the flexibility of liturgical drama to secular neoclassical drama occurs at different times (Encyclopedia Americana, 1829). That's why, we can apparently distinguish the difference between the medieval theater and renaissance theater. As we can see, the renaissance theater is no longer so much attached to theological background of humanity. But rather, it focuses more on how the human mind flows within the society. The renaissance theater is more anchored to the human preferences and taste which are mostly a form of secularity, or not so much related to religion. Manifestly, “eventhough renaissance theatre is derived from several medieval theater traditions, such as the mystery plays that form a part of religious festivals in England and other parts of Europe during the middle ages” (www.answers.com, 2010), what is given more importance at this period is that the ones that are being preferred by the taste of the people during this time. Thus, the theater at this period is more concern to the society rather than religiousity in which it is the basis of distinguishing mark of this period from medieval. Moreover, since the Greek theater, as have said, is centered to religion which has been modified by Roman theater until it is passed to England in which there is more development in the said art, thus, the vestige of cycles can be found in England and Greek plays, and not so much in Roman theater, because religious theater has never stood on the central position of Roman life before. On the other hand, since the secularity of theater arises, accordingly, between 15th and 17th centuries, the character of the European drama undergoes a major change. The creativity and artistic attitude of people at this time is somehow become humanistic perspective. The imagination and fresh artistic ideas generate throughout the world of theater until it is subjected to human attraction. The age of enlightenment is gradually making a popular and communal aspect of society in which the religious character is gradually vanished, but not totally. Speaking of English Renaissance theater, the end of of such kind is the time when the rising Puritan movement is hostile toward theater, as they feel that "entertainment" is sinful. Politically, playwrights and actors are clients of the monarchy and aristocracy, and most supported the Royalist cause. The Puritan faction, long powerful in London, gained control of the city early in the English Civil War, and on September 2, 1642 order the closure of the London theatres which consequently stop the world of entertainment. “The theaters remain closed for most of the next eighteen years, and re-opening after the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660. The re-opened theatres perform many of the plays of the previous era, though often in adapted forms; new genres of Restoration comedy and spectacle soon evolve, giving English theatre of the later seventeenth century its distinctive character. It includes the drama of William Shakespeare, Christopher Marlowe and many other world-famous playwrights” (www.answers.com, 2010). In addition, by the time renaissance period starts, two types of audience appear: the general public which consists of artisans, or the persons skilled in theater (Random House Webster's Dictionary, 2001) and burghers, or the members of the middle class (Random House Webster's Dictionary, 2001), to whom the theater is offered that serves as an attraction and diversion or winning the high class people's patron. Furthermore, the second type of audience that appears during this period is the select aristocracy, or a class or group regarded as superior (Random House Webster's Dictionary, 2001), which cultivates the theater for the aristocrat's own glory, learning, and pleasure (Encyclopedia Americana, 1829). “By the closing of the theaters by the Puritans in 1642, English audiences have become overwhelmingly aristocratic, a tendency that continued in the Restoration period” www.answers.com. However, by these factual presentations, we can clearly see the great effect of human preferences in the changed of theater's world. Even one of the great writers in English literature, John Dryden, is somehow also influenced by this mentality of humanistic perspective for this said writer is just used to write not in accordance to his own emotions and feelings but in accordance to the taste of the people (The Norton Anthology of English Lit., 1975).

The Ignored Significance of such Art

Many ordinary things in lifetime existence have their own importance of why such things exist. This importance marks the very necessariness of the existence. The usefulness of importance helps human mind to recognize the indispensability of such things. This importance, furthermore, necessitates the value of something which flows ordinarily in man's life. But, this ordinariness somehow reduces the recognition of such importance that lies in ordinary things. Having reduced in recognizing this importance is continually done, because everything just flows repeatedly and ordinarily. People just even ignore the great value of things around them. They just do things repeatedly with a high degree of gradual diminution of caluing the very importance of what they are doing. What gives them pleasures is the one that entertains their consciousness with a vestige of not seeing the significance of something. Consequently, this may lead the consciousness of people into shallowness of mind. What is given more value is the external aspects which are embedded with significant lessons and messages that must actually be given importance. Apparently, in the context of theater, it seems that this such art is only a part of man's entertainment which somehow dominates the perception of human mind that no longer sees its value. However, the researcher infers that this kind of mentality must be swapped so that there will be a recognition of 3 important concerns of theater. These concerns are being sought by the researcher as basics and primary aspects of theater and serve as the contribution to our daily lives. To begin with, the first 1st significance of theater is all about the depiction of reality, since this art is a portrayal of significant events. This concern helps us to do such kind of act that enables the public to see what are the unseen realities in life. As a great respect to the truth, which is yearned by public outcry, man should be objective to the veracity of realities by permeating to the society what is the real picture of its environment, so that people will be also aware of what is happening with their environmental condition and situation. Thus, this 1st concern implies promotion of significant realities' revelation and depiction. If we try to go deeper in this concern, it leads us to the mentality of spreading the truth, maybe not just by depiction, but also by realizing other means of permeation of unrevealed realities within the society so that people can be able to embrace the veracity of truths in their lives. However, as the researcher tries to ponder more about the subject, he has now this acquistion of 2nd concern of theater which is the idea of giving importance of spreading the reality. Actually, this 2nd concern occurs from the 1st one. By depiction of unrevealed realities, it leads is to the idea that people must realize the great advantage of spreading reality, especially this realities that are not yet viewed by humanity. This advantage is pointing to the promotion of revealing the factual events that have been gradually put to the trash of taking for granted and even to the point of ignorance. As we all know, communicating the truth that can help us to be advantage in our daily living in such a way that it releases us from pains, sufferings, vices, unfairness, injustices, and other forms of human folly, may cut the rope of ignorance that lies in our shrinked human mentality, thus, we are always and all the moments of our lives encouraged to give importance in living what is truth through permeation of it. On the personal analysis of the researcher, the idea of theater, with just the use of our penetrating analysis, can give us an insight of how important the value of spreading the truth so that people may know that the grounding point of life's success is in loving what is truth. By loving what is truth, knowing such unrevealed realities is so much possible which is the 3rd concern of theater. Knowing realities in our lives can actually guide us to the certain way of success. It is a succes that is produced by the guidance of the acquisition of knowledge about the truths in our lives. To be practical, we cannot deny that knowing about things in life is an advantageous one. As we can see, having known such realities can somehow thrust an intuition of what are the things that must going to be done. In such case, knowledge about realities is an enlightenment of one's mind in giving importance to the things that are ought to be done in a very guided way. The researcher really sees that having knowledge about environmental condition is a very instructive. For example is the depiction of family crisis that leads to starvation and homeless. Apparently, through this depiction, it can somehow give us an initiative to do our part as a social being. It is a part of social being to help one another by providing and donating what are the needs of the unfortunate ones. As for the researcher, this theater is somehow serving as a medium of seeing the very situation of humanity. It is a situtation that is worthwhile to be followed up by human efforts in conceiving the human and environmental conditions.

The Relation of Theater in English Literary World

As we can observe, the world of theater is much and has big owe to the world of literature. Many depictions are being done due to the fact of the existence of literary world. As the researcher tries to connect these two significant worlds: theater and literature, he infers that they are somehow intertwined in the sense that the world of theater may not mostly be possible without the help of literature. This is apparently manifested in the time of depiction, especially in medieval period. As we can see that most plays during this period is derived from the Biblical texts and recorded life of the saints which are being portrayed by the members of the clergy and number of productions and involvement and participation of the entire communities which comprise of laymen and professionals. In such case, it manifestly and concretely shows the connection of these two worlds. Furthermore, in the context of English field, even in one of the literary works of William Shakespeare, which is entitled “Romeo and Juliet”, has been able to be given a chance to be enacted in the world of theater. Accordingly, even though there is no exact year in which William Shakespeare wrote Romeo and Juliet (www.answers.com), but the fact that before it is firstly a literary output that later on comes its existence in the world of theater which is turned to be popularized due to the fact that this said work is said to be one of the great works of Shakespeare. However, even in the said play, “Romeo and Juliet”, However, as researcher anylyzes it, most of the plays are come from the formation of good and worthwhile literary outputs which give life to the world of theater. In fact, this is manifesly shown in the work of Shakespeare and other English playwrights, writers, and poets. “Shakespeare uses a variety of poetic forms. He begins with a 14-line prologue in the form of a Shakespearean sonnet. Most of Romeo and Juliet is, however, written in blank verse, and much of it in strict iambic pentameter, with less rhythmic variation than in most of Shakespeare's later plays” (www.answers.com). Moreover, with this fact, we can somehow see the great relation of literature in theater in such a way that literature is given importance in order to produce a one of a kind play for William Shakespeare helps the world of theater to be in a classic one by applying his great talent in literary field. However, to prove more such relation of literature in theater, another example is John Dryden who is very well-known in his time as a writer, poet and playwright. One of his literary works, Song from Marriage ala Mode, is so much done with comedy and tragic love story. His being a great writer makes him to produce also plays that somehow encarve his name in the history of English literature. Accordingly, “The years following Dryden's appointment as laureate brought his greatest heroic plays” (www.answers.com). At any rate, the given examples above are just manifestations of the great relation of literature in theater. It is already an evidence that literature helps to give a sort of picture of a certain play. In such case, we can say that literature helps to give the theater a space of depiction in order to enact the certain written story. Finally, in such case, it clearly and concretely shows the very great role of literature in making possible English theater's existence. In very significant way, the literature helps the world of theater to reach its level of excellence.

Chapter III Summary

Since man is a being that lives with his co-beings, it is necessary for him to communicate and relate with others in which in serves as his means to continue his existence as a part of his human survival; and order to relate with others, communication is indispensable. That's why, people before use to communicate in terms of actions and gestures as a sign of communication. So to say, communication through actions is come from the mimetic impulse of man. Meaning, it is already part of his human nature. Later on, due to the development of communication, sounds that turn to language occur. But the body language is still undying for native people use to express their great gratitude and asking help to Someone who is higher than them. This expression is through ritual; thus, this ritual, most probably, serves as the basis of theater's occurrence because this ritual needs a performing area wherein the performance is being depicted and enacted. That's why the term “theater” is derived from the Greek word theatron which means “a place for seeing”, the word “theater” is initially described as an architectural structure which is selected or built to a house dramatic offerings. This term, moreoever, is being stabalized and static as generations pass by. Moreoever, the art of theater is manifestly done in the periods of Medieval and Renaissance. But these periods have different kind of depictions. In terms of medieval theater, it is more on religiousity that religion is being centered in the life people during this period. Thus, the intensification of faith is very apparent at this time for most of the plays are come Biblical texts and lives of saints. While the renaissance theater is more on human preference and taste that somehow there is a diminution of religious portrayals. The renaissance theater is only used during this time as an entertainment for high classes of people. However, in all these development and diffences of theater in different periods, the ignored significance of theater is still existing. These significance serves as the contribution of theater in our daily lives. First, there must be a depiction of realites which means that man can be able to see the unseen and significanct realities in life. Second is the giving importance of spreading the reality which implies of not ignoring the important events life that can help us to see the truth. Finally, in spreading the reality, knowing such reality is the consequence in which it implies that we can now be able to see the truths in our lives. Finally, the existence of theater is certainly due to the literary outputs that are being re-enacted. That's why the world of depiction is so much related to English literary world due to the fact that the latter contributes to the possibility of the latter. It somehow shows that theater exists mostly by the help of writings of English writer. In such case, especially in the time of William Shakespeare, the classic theater arises. That's why the influence of English literature is so much significant to the modification and so much development of art of theater.

Conclusion

As researcher's point of inference, the world of art has its very origin why it comes into existence. This art, then, follows a certain path of process in order to be developed and reaches its terminal point of classical formation. So to say, there must be time frame and demand in order to give refinement to the specific art. This will only be possible by the help of other factors that somehow contribute for the development of such art. However, this art, theater, which has already reaches its most probably final stage of development, can now be able to contribute to the betterment of human society and awareness to the significant facts of the environment. This leads human race to view the necessary events that mold the present generation into its world and state of possessing good qualities in an eminent degree. But, this doesn't mean that as generation reaches its development, it does no longeer need the realities which are still unrevealed. Actually, the generation is tracing the path of spiraling ascent through the help of significant facts in life. But, if the society ceases to look back into the history and and no longer ackonwledges the pertinency of unrevealed truths, then, it stops to go forward in order to seek and reach the terminal point of life's meaning.

Bibliography

___________________ (1975). The Norton Anthology of English Literature Third Edition. W.W. Norton & Company: New York.

___________________ (1829). Encyclopedia Americana Volume 26. Grolier Incorporated: U.S.A.

___________________ (1976). Webster's Third New International Dictionary. G.&C. Co.: Springfield, 	         Massachusetts, U.S.A.

__________________ (2001). Random House Webster's Dictionary. 280 Park Avenue, New York: The 	Ballantine Publishing Group, Random House Inc..

http://www.answers.com/theater (2010).

Window Dictionary (2010).

Bienvenido Santos
Chapter I Introduction Studying Philippine Literature, it helps one to realize that, there are many Filipino writers have been able to erect the pride of Filipinos in terms of literary writings. With this, it is right to say, then, that as a Filipino, one must give an high estimation of respect to the Filipino writers who are able to show to the world the Filipino's capability in literature. As their great contribution, it is a duty, then, to the Filipino to have just even a little sort of acknowledgment about these prolific Filipino writers which serves as a sign of respect for their effort on carving the title of Filipino in literary field. However, one of these great Filipino writers named Bienvenido N. Santos who gives an instructive literary works in tearing the wraparound personal perception of Filipinos. His great influence helps our society today to give importance to what is really happening around us by means of opening to the public the real situation of our society today. He gives an idea that Filipinos must be become sensitive to what is truth even how or what consequences it may take. His works manifest his love for the truth that somehow opens the eyes of the Filipinos that they must also anchor their freedom of willingness to express the realities in life.

In order to give hope for the Filipino who are yearning to know the unknown realities in life, Bienvenido N. Santos must be immitated in giving importance to the events and lives of the people around by allowing to permeate into the mind of the people the exactness of realities' quality through literary works. By this, his pertinence in Philippine Literature is apparently detected which is to helping the practice of telling what is true from what is falsehood and to promote a veracious literature that somehow helps our society to percieve and overview the realities in life. Santos' works, however, help people to realize the significance of being a proletariat writer who uses to divulge the quality of truth and even of truth itself to the society, especially today.

Chapter II Related Literature About Bienvenido

Bienvenido or shorltly called “Ben” N. Santos was born in Tondo, Manila, with no exact information on the year 1911 and died on 1996. His family roots are originally from Lubao, Pampanga. He raised in Tondo where he finished his elementary and high school years. He finished his college in the University of Philippines in 1932 with teacher's degree http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?s=Bienvenido+N.+Santos&gwp=13. During his life as a student, however, at the age of nineteen, he had first published his story, “The Horseshoe” which appeared in the Graphic in 1930. At this rate, it was the starting career of his life as a prolific writer that resulted into more than hundred of stories and poems. Some of his stories found their way of publication in English which able him to win in several short-story contests and third prize in the Palanca Memorial Literary Awards for 1951. He also won other prizes in short-story contest given by other publications (Pathways to Philippine Literature in English). After he graduated in Universtity of Philippines, Santos taught in Albay. He stayed there, teaching, until the time when he went to specialize his English in University of Illinois after winning as first place in a government examination that served as a government's pension. From that University, he finished an M.A. in English. Moreover, in America, he took graduate courses in Harvard and Columbia wherein it was the time when he was in contact with some critics and practitioners of short-story. Being caught by the war in the United States, the World War II, he spent his short time in America in lecturing around the country to familiarize the Americans with Philippine. One of his lectures has an incident that serves as the basis of his famous story, “Scent of Apples” that makes him win an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation in 1980 http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?s=Bienvenido+N.+Santos&gwp=13. On the other hand, during his stay in America, he also able to realize that his story materials were just around him. This realization was how the Filipinos lived lives in foreign land. When he went back to Philippines, Santos jotted down Filipinos' way of life in America in a book on 1955.

The Relevance of Ben Santos Many writers are in good quality of how they beautifully express ordinary things which appear as very extraordinary literature that motivates the readers to read further. Some writers are good in fantasy stories, love stories and other kinds of stories that somehow relfect their life and personality and even their taste in literary thing. However, what is the basis of being a good writer by the way? Is it the way how they go to the emotion of the readers? Or isn't it how they form a story? Or how many awards they receive from writing stories? Well then, some writers may be like this. But Santos, as a Filipino writer, is different. His personal way of writing somehow manifests that he is very differently compared with other writers. His being a proletariat writer gives an emphasis on winning several awards from his stories. However, Santos' literary works are worthy of awards. It's not because he goes to the emotion of the reader, or how he forms a short story. But, it is because of his being a way of medium that enable the readers to see that life in foreign lands is like an anguish. Now, with this, one can be able to give space in mind that Santos is a kind of writer that must be immitated. The portrayal of life's struggle in his works opens the eyes of Filipinos in particular without giving wrong impression or “indictment against an indifferent society” nor “at man's inhumanity to man” as Fr. Miguel Bernad's words. Hence, he is a writer who shows no bias against and from his characters in his stories and at the same time gives enlightenment to what are the unseen realities in life at the foreign land, or even just in barrios. He serves as an eye-opener to the society which is somehow blinded by their personal perception of phenomenal realities which they equate as the whole reality. Through his work, one can apparently see the pertinency of his existence in literary corner in Philippine literature. His way of writing that reveals the real situation of Filipinos' way of life on alien land, draws the common and general inference to the fellow countrymen the precise and concrete feelings of a certain agent who is standing on a strange land where the experience of hardships, loneliness, and grief are endured. However, if people try to broaden this idea, it helps them to realize the implication of truth-exposing, that is to embrace the imperceptible reality that shouts for publicity awareness. It is very awful to say that lies are more prevalent than what is truth. Isn't it? Manifestly, Beinvenido Santos is one of the examples who imparts the realities of the unseen truth, which must supposedly be embraced by present society, to the public's eyes. Santos helps the mind to clean up the unclear stagnant water by pouring clear water of fidelity in order to have clear water's surface. His existence in Philippine literature can possibly give a chain quality of a proletariat writer which verified fact demands. He is giving the future Filipino writers a sudden enlightenment that there must be a veracity in every literary output since the majority has this habit of wanting to know what is truth and factual realities in life. Apparently, his being a proletariat writer can imbue to the mind of the future writers, hopefully, that what the present society needs today, which is almost swallowed with unrevealed phenomenas, is a writer who is going to open the door of reality which is not very exposed to the public perception; and visibly, his quality as a writer may be followed by the future writers in which this shows his pertinency in present time.

The Naked Truth in Santos' Works

Realities in life are sometimes not exposed to the world of man's perception. Apparently, people need a kind of medium that serves as the bridge that enables the fact to across the water of ignorance and thoughtlessness. In order to give life to the longingness for truth, one must be able to put the realities to something that the eyes of majority may be able to overview and see the nakedness of truth. However, many instances that Ben Santos jotted down the painful, whether physically or emotionally, experiences about the life of Filipino in abroad. Particularly, emotional suffering is the main and basic and even serves as the number one unwholesome experience of Filipino in America. Just like in his work entitled, “The Day the Dancers Came”. It talks about the longingness of a certain Filipino named Felimon “Fil” Acayan, a U.S. citizen, for his fellow countrymen. He stayed in America for about 10 years in a small apartment together with his friend named Antonio “Tony” Bataller, a retired Pullman Porter. At any rate, his work “The Day the Dancers Came” is a story of living-life of Filipino with a certain seeking for attention as to be recognized by the people from his land of childhood years. It is a story of wanting to be with the fellow countrymen, who are the presentors of native customs and folkways of Filipino's own land, by an old Filipino, who is apart from his native land and now, a U.S. citizen. Now, in the view point of the researcher, what makes Filipino lonely in abroad is that there is no commonality in many things in living together with the other nationality. First, the most difficult situation that serves as a mean of difficult life in abroad is no the same culture which Fil Acayan experienced in foreign land. For the researcher's point of view, he thinks that living a life together with the people who have different folkways is thrusting a kind of loneliness and longingness for own culture which somehow moves Fil to experience emotional suffering. Apparently, living on a land which has different customs is almost the same with living in the wilderness which has a feeling of being isolated. Isolated in the sense that there is a feeling of having a big gap that separates Fil from his own country and fellow countrymen; and at the same time, there is a feeling of being different (i.e. customs, culture and folkways) from other foreign people. What a tough life, if that what will it be like. On the other hand, as for researcher's own opinion, he thinks that how wonderful to live a life together with thy own countrymen who have the same way of living with yours. A life that is full thy own native things. Second, the other difficulty of life in abroad is that there is a feeling of seeking family attention, which is most commonly practiced here in the Philippines. Now, living in foreign land is something different for there's no longer family members who can be with. Moreoever, this implies the separation of loved ones in which it may take a kind of depression that enters to one's emotional realm. Obviously, having separated from loved ones is not an easy thing to do by the one who is acquainted with strong family ties. So much to the Filipino culture, family bonding is well-exercised which is apparently difficult to languish from one's life, for family orientation is already a part of Philippine culture. At any rate, This said work of Santos, “The Day the Dancers Came”, also speaks about the physical painful experience of Filipino in America. A painful experience in which no family members and relatives can help to treat the malevolent experience. The pain suffering of Filipinos seems to be the great battle in the arena of strange land. As he stated in his work: “Fil remembered those times, at night, when Tony kept him awake with his longdrawn outsighs of pain... ...afterwards, as if unable to hold the pain any longer, Tony screamed, deadening his 	cries with a pillow against his mouth... ...he curled up in the bedsheets like a big infant suddenly hushed in its crying.” To live on strange land takes sacrifices on facing physical illnesses. For the researcher's inference, physical suffering, which is very rare to experience in other places, is an inevitable experience of Filipinos due to the sporadic climate and atmosphere and most probably to the environment. The worst is that there is no one who can even help the alone Filipino in abroad. The researcher does not only looking for Tony's situation, but he also generalizes the situation that there are many Filipinos in America who are struggling so much with some diseases without no one who can help them. The researcher is quite sure that there are some Filipinos who experience this life with no one they can lean on in times of pain suffering which is a very hard thing in which it is a situation which is not used to experience by the most Filipinos. How awful to think that our fellow countrymen are crying for comfort and shouting for help at the times of being alone that nobody tries to help them. They are like a big infant who curled up in the bedsheets and suddenly hushed in its crying. They are deadening their cries with a pillow against their mouth. It is a picture of helplessness. Isn't it? However, there are also some experiences that jotted down by Ben and is not really speaking about the pain of Filipino only in abroad, but also in Philippines hersef. In his work entitled “Early Harvest”, he stated here the cruel experiences of some Filipinos who were tortured by the Japanese. His work pictures out the cruelty and badness of Japanese to the Filipinos during the old days. He points out the anguish of the Filipino in the hand of the Japanese regime in which the fellow country men of the author must recognize; and these anguish and unwholesome experiences of the Filipino are screaming for justice. He is making the Filipino in this present time to let them know how evil the Japanese before. As he stated in his said work: “'Mother', said my brother in a voice that was full of kindness, 'these are not men, 	they are beasts in men's clothes. They not only kill, they torture, ripping off one by one 	the fingers of their victims. They stab them in the back with bamboo sticks, or tickle 	them to death with wire or beat their bodies until nothing is left but pulp. They have 	taken some of the women in the capital and those who would deny them, they hung 	upside down and burned with gasoline.” Reading the book “You Lovely People of Ben, particularly his short story, “Early Harvest”, the researcher has picture out how cruel the Japanese before by doing demonic act against the Filipinos in which he can say that Filipinos are enduring the inhuman disrespect of Japanese. The situation of Filipinos before under the evil hand of Japanese is apparently in abyss of chaos. Personally, the researcher realizes the grieving of his countrymen who are seeking for respect of their human dignity. Just to think the cruel experiences of Filipinos before, one cannot seemingly imagine their situation for they are treated not as human but almost as animal. I cannot bear even just to imagine the tormented Filipinos of how they live their lives under the Japanese regime. It seems that they are no longer human in the eyes of the Japanese people; and it seems that the word “evil” is not enough to describe the Japanese before. As what in the work of Santos said, “These are not men, they are beasts in men's clothes.” As for reasercher's perception, “beast” is still not enough as an adjective for these evil tormentors. However, now, we can see here the very and exact situation of Filipinos before. The picture of Filipino life during early years is very degrading to the part of Filipinos in which it manifests the discourtesy of Japan. In this particular book, it draws the feeling of how to be treated as an animal which in the part of Filipino people, it is very a kind of reducement of one's vital dignity. It is likely to say that we, Filipinos, have no human right. In the eyes of these Japanese, Filipinos are only an objects which they can play and use with anytime they want. Apparently, it is absolutely degrading our mark as Filipino or even just our dignity as a person. Furthermore, these tormentors want to emphasize that we have no right to go against them. In their eyes, Filipinos are only slaves who gather harvested crops for Japanese own sake. At once instance that Bievenido stated in his work, “Early Harvest”: “The Japanese soldiers came in trucks and took away the harvest. It lay there 	already gathered and piled in the stacks all over the fields. They piled the harvested 	grain in their truck and drove away...” This work of Santos opens our eyes today in order to see the situation of Filipino before under the hand of Japanese regime. The resercher can say that Filipino must not forget to browse the historic life of Filipino. The feeling of degradation is a very vital thing that we, Filipinos, must not just let it pass. Santos wants us to know and act upon and reflect upon these unethical experience of our countrymen from the hand of these “beasts in men's clothes”. Generally, these two works of Santos, “The Day the Dancers Came” and “Early Harvest” which are found in his book You Lovely People, show to the present people the reality that seems to be neglected and forgotten as generations passes by. He presents these quality of events in order to remind and open the ignorance of Filipinos into the view of realities. His works, finally, give an importance to the nakedness of truth that seems to be veiled with forgetfulness and unawareness. The Importance of Santos' Literary Outputs

Viewing the relevance of Santos' works helps one to see the importance of his literary output. Browsing them can be able to open one's eyes to see the real world outside and inside the country. Manifestly, this what makes his works very important to us, Filipinos. His works are like the door that opens the unperceptive world which is more likely to say that this world can never be possibly exposed which has the repercussion of being unprevalent to the society. Recognizing the content of literary outputs of Santos, outweighing of emotions are surely going to thrust to one's consciousness. This is due the touching real life experiences of the Filipinos. The proletarian heart of Ben Santos ables to write down its abundance of conscience which quivers with truth as N.V.M. Gonzalez says. Now, the proletariat literature of Santos helps to erect its very importance to Filipino people in the sense that his works are like a T.V. that projects the events with a voice that keeps shouting for help, justice, comfort, and longingness. As N.V.M. Gonzalez said, “It is very like watching a tender twig on which a sunbird has alighted.” What it means here is that Santos writes things as they are, with veracity of even small details in which one is very like watching the events in actual. Due to his works' revelation of truthful occurrence, however, the longingness for the publicity of real things around is commencing. With this, it gives some good effects to the people who keep seeking the truth. One of the good effects is that his works unlock the cell that prisons the perceptive people's point which serves as ignorance. His works, then, release the people from their cells of ignorance which somehow keep blinding them from the reality. This effect, moreover, is a great advantage for the majority because they deserve to know what are the factual events in life; and having this advantage is a great implication of a gradual diminution of hidden realities that are wrapped with vagueness of people's own perception. Having this latter effect, it's also accompanied with the second good effect of Santos' works; and that is the great realization of Filipinos within their selves. This realization somehow broaden their idea that there are many unexposed realities inside and outside the country that fellow countrymen are experiencing. It's a good thing to say that people must be aware of the happenings of the co-Filipinos outside and inside the country, particularly those unexposed events. Finally, through the second effect's occurrence, the third good effect emerges. The other good effect of Santos' works, moreover, is their contribution to the Philippine society. That is to build an instructive and constructive content that helps the society to embrace the unknown actual existence of things in life. Apparently, this may help to strenghten the hope, especially, of struggling Filipinos from whatever unwholesome experiences; because through proletariat works, the Filipinos can be possibly helped from the darkness of malevolent experiences. Because of jotting down the things as they are, which means that the struggles of individuals are being set down, there are great possibilities that these life's struggles can be treated due to the helping hands of others which motive is to help.

Chapter III Summary

Philippine society is put to the state of being conscious to the realities in life through to the existence of a certain significant author named Bienvenido N. Santos who is born in Tondo, Manila, with no exact information on the year 1911 and died on the year 1996. His undertaking college in America takes his opportunity to acquire the proletariat character by putting into writings the experiences of Filipino. However, his existence in Philippine literature makes a space in minds of the future writers that what are the unveiled realities in our environment must be exposed to the society. There must be an ardent effort to communicate the truth in life in order to see by the majority the naked truth in lifetime existence since the public outcry for truth is intensely manifested. A fervent effort of exposing the realities in life is the main idea that one can draw from Santos' personality. Santos helps the people to see the life of Filipinos outside the country. The experience of grief, longingness, pains, and hardships are recorded on his writings in which the people can view the real way of life at alien land. His way of writing helps the society to see the unseen objective existence in life that somehow tears the patch of ignorance that unables the public eyes to see the truth within the environment. His works serve as the eye-opener to the present society that is bombarded with unknown truth. Apparently, this is what the society needs today, a writer who is going to express the factual events in life.

Conclusion

After having the research about his works and finishing to jot down the significance of Santos' works and of he himself, the reseacher concludes that Santos is very significant in this present time due to his prolific mind and proletarian heart that convey the importance of truth. His passion in giving life to the seemingly dead realities which are about to be forgotten and neglected by perceptual generation, is the main constituent that carves his pertinency in Philippine literature; and the researcher sought this as the main reason to talk about Santos. Thus, his existence is giving the society an idea to let the truth spread throughout to the nation as the main duty of everyone. It implies that people must not let ignorance be prevalent in the society but let the indispensability of truth be given a great focus into our lives, for what this life needs is truth itself. Objectively, the prevalence of truth-exposing may help to strengthen individuals' ground of life's foundation, which is hope. The researcher, therefore, concludes that Bienvenido N. Santos is very significant in the Philippine literature. Bibliography

Hufana A.G. (1997). Philippine Writings *Short Stories*Essays*Poetry* with German Contribution on 		Manila: Regal Printing Company.

Roseburg A.G. (1966). Pathways to Philippine Literature in English. Quezon City, Philippines: Alemar-		Phoenix Publishing House.

__________________ (2001). Random House Webster's Dictionary. 280 Park Avenue, New York: The 				Ballantine Publishing Group, Random House Inc..

Santos, Bienvenido N. (1976). You Lovely People.

http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?s=Bienvenido+N.+Santos&gwp=13 (2009).

Logic and Dialectics

Robin Hirsch

Introduction

1. A vigorous debate concerning the relationship between Hegelian and Marxist thought has been taken up again [Mos93, Rees98, Ros98, SS98, Rosenthal99, Smith99] with a reevaluation of the dialectic method in Marxism. The central issue in this debate is the importance of a dialectic method of enquiry and presentation for Marxism in general and for Marxist political economy in particular. At one extreme, dialectics is presented as a general logic of development (see [Smith93, Rees98]). [SmithOllman 98] argue that "the form of all Marx's arguments is dialectical. Hence, so long as Marxism helps us understand the world we will need to study dialectics in order to improve our understanding of Marxism". Against that Rosenthal offers the most sceptical assessment, arguing that the dialectic method is quite mystical and, worse, "dynamic historicism is not a `method', but merely a methodological fantasy" [Ros98, page 33] .1

2. Although the discussion focussed on the dialectic method of enquiry and presentation and its application in political economy, it necessarily raised the issue of dialectic logic, as an alternative to, or extension of, formal logic. Generally, in the cited works, 'Hegelian logic' is used to describe Hegel's conceptual framework for his analysis. In this article, I reject the notion that this is a logic at all and investigate more thoroughly the relationship between dialectics and formal logic. Thus I support Rosenthal's project of freeing Marxism from some of the more mystical aspects of Hegelian thinking, without committing the errors of the analytic Marxists who threw out the tenets of Marxism as well as those of Hegelianism.

Dialectics and Logic

3. Dialectics and formal logic are sometimes posed as two contrasting forms of reasoning. In this contrast, formal logic is appropriate for reasoning about static properties of separate objects involving no interaction. To deal with change and interaction it is necessary to use the dialectic approach. In some accounts, these two subjects are seen as complementary. Accordingly, formal logic is not wrong; it is just too restricted in its domain of application. Dialectic logic generalises formal reasoning and goes beyond it. To use an analogy, this is like the relationship between the theory of relativity andNewtonian mechanics. Newtonian mechanics can be explained by relativity theory and is fairly accurate, provided you deal only with speeds much slower than the speed of light. And so formal logic is not wrong, provided you restrict yourself to properties which are static and lifeless. Once you start reasoning about change and interaction you must move from formal to dialectic logic (see, for example, [Smith99, page 232]). Arthur wrote that "Dialectic[s] grasps phenomena in their interconnectedness, something beyond the capacity of analytical reason and linear logic"[Arthur98]. Trotsky used the metaphor of elementary and higher mathematics to explain the relationship between formal logic and dialectic logic.

4. There are other expositions of the theory of dialectics which present it in opposition to formal logic. For example, Novack writes

The ruling ideas of the ruling class in logical science today are the ideas of formal logic lowered to the level of common sense. All the opponents and critics of dialectics stand upon the ground of formal logic, whether or not they are fully aware of their position or will honestly admit it." [Nov73, page 28]

The problem with these views is firstly that it is not clear in what sense dialectics is a logic. Also, when formal logic is counter-posed to dialectics, formal logic is usually taken to be the syllogism of Aristotle, even though the subject has advanced considerably since classical times. A further difficulty in considering the relationship between formal and dialectic reasoning is that in the latter view there are contradictions existing in reality, whereas in the former view this is completely impossible.

5. Because of these problems, there is a danger that the dialectic approach will seem unscientific and its strengths will be overlooked. In this article I defend dialectical materialism as a great advance over previous philosophies and the correct framework for a scientific method of understanding the world, but I reject the notion that dialectics is a logic. I investigate the relationship between modern formal logic and dialectics and re-appraise some of the formulations given in the Marxist tradition. I show that formal logic is not a fixed doctrine, but a tool that we use to help us model the reasoning process. In its early history formal logic was a subject that was restricted to static, non-interacting events. But, like other tools, formal logic had to be extended and developed in the course of history. On the other hand I argue that dialectics is not a logic at all, but a philosophical and conceptual framework, much more powerful than its rivals. Thus the two approaches are really dealing with different things and certainly should not be seen as opposing each other.

Logic

6. I propose to define a logic to mean a model of a rational thought process. A thought process is a developing sequence of thoughts and it is rational if the development can be justified. A logic should be able to tell us when it is permissible to make a certain deduction and when it is not. This definition has the disadvantage that it will offend both formal logicians and Marxists. In logic there is much excellent research which has no obvious connection with the problem of modelling human reasoning. And proponents of dialectic logic will perhaps find this definition too restrictive in that it almost certainly rules out a dialectic method of reasoning (see below). But, at least for the purposes of this article, I want a word that describes how we can go from premises to conclusions and the word I use is 'logic'.

7. Furthermore, formal logic is mainly concerned with the form rather than the content of an argument. If I point a gun at you and demand your money, my argument is persuasive but not logical. A logic is a formal logic if there are unambiguous rules that tell us whether a deduction is correct, or at least consistent, or not. A formal logic must in no way depend on contextual knowledge of a particular problem domain, nor on intuition or any factors which are not clear and explicit. This separation of form from content in logic is criticised by dialecticians and we'll consider these criticisms later. Still, it should be acknowledged that formal logic has great strengths: the process of reasoning is made clear and transparent.

8. Marxists have made serious criticisms of formal logic but unfortunately the main part of the Marxist literature deals with that form of logic expounded by Aristotle, over 2300 years ago. So here I give a very brief account of some of the key episodes in the development of logic.

9. Before Aristotle's time it was not thought necessary to formalise the deductive process. Elementary properties of numbers and geometry were taken to be self-evident truths. But following the discovery of irrational numbers at the time of Pythagoras, Greek mathematics entered a crisis [Sza78]. Concepts of number and arithmetic, having previously been considered as reliable and beyond all questioning, were shown to be problematic. The Greek philosophers responded partly by adopting geometry instead of arithmetic as a solid foundation of knowledge, but at the same time they no longer trusted their intuition, so they wanted a system of reasoning in which every step in a deduction was clearly justified.

10. The Aristotelian syllogism was the first great system of formalising the laws of rational thought. At its heart there were three principles.

The law of identity. For any object, x, we have x is x.   The law of non-contradiction. Nothing is allowed to have the predicate P and simultaneously the predicate not-P. The law of excluded middle. Everything has either the predicate P or the predicate not-P.

Here a predicate is any property that may or may not apply to an individual, e.g. 'mortality' is a predicate that applies to an individual, say Socrates. Thus 'Socrates is mortal' is a basic proposition in Aristotle's system. Based on these three elementary laws there were a number of syllogisms which were rules about correct inferences that could be made from given premises. An example of such a syllogism is the following:

Socrates is a man, All men are mortal, Therefore Socrates is mortal.

As I mentioned, the basic propositions are predicates applied to single individuals. Aristotle considers relations between different objects to be a very problematic field and not really suitable for formalisation.2 The problem of properties which change in time is not dealt with.

11. Until relatively recently this form of reasoning remained unchallenged. Indeed Kant [Kan92] had argued that

Since Aristotle's time Logic has not gained much in extent, as indeed nature forbids it should. . . . Aristotle has omitted no essential point of the understanding; we have only become more accurate, methodical, and orderly.

Yet since Kant, formal logic has undergone revolutionary changes. If formal logic is to be criticized, it must be in its modern form.

12. Augustus De Morgan was one of the first formal logicians to criticize the Aristotelian syllogism. De Morgan was interested in modelling the laws of rational thought and found the syllogism inadequate in two ways. It was expressively inadequate, because it could not express relations between things, only properties of single objects. And it was deductively inadequate, because properties of relations could not be deduced using the laws of the syllogism. In 1860 he wrote:

Accordingly, all logical relation is affirmed to be reducible to identity A is A, to non-contradiction, Nothing both A and not-A, and to excluded middle, Everything either A or not-A. These three principles, it is affirmed, dictate all the forms of inference, and evolve all the canons of syllogism. I am not prepared to deny the truth of either of these propositions, at least when A is not self-contradictory, but I cannot see how, alone, they are competent to the functions assigned. I see that they distinguish truth from falsehood: but I do not see that they, again alone, either distinguish or evolve one truth from another. [DeM60]

So De Morgan attempted to develop a modern formalism which could overcome some of these limitations. The formalism he chose was an abstract algebra of binary relations. Algebra was increasingly successful in the 19th century and De Morgan was particularly impressed by the calculus of propositions invented by the Irishman George Boole -- what we now call Boolean algebra. De Morgan wrote

When the ideas thrown out by Mr Boole shall have borne their full fruit, algebra, though only founded on ideas of number in the first instance, will appear like a sectional model of the whole form of thought. Its forms, considered apart from their matter, will be seen to contain all the forms of thought in general. The anti-mathematical logician says that it makes thought a branch of algebra, instead of algebra a branch of thought. It makes nothing; it finds: and it finds the laws of thought symbolized in the forms of algebra.

So in the 19th century mathematicians like De Morgan, and later Peirce, Schröder and Tarski, made advances in mathematical logic using an algebraic framework. These algebraic logics made significant advances on Aristotle, notably their basic elements were binary relations (or binary predicates) -- properties which relate two objects to each other.

13. Of even greater significance, though, was the invention of quantifier logic, what we now call first-order logic or predicate logic, by Frege [Fre72]. And later, Alfred Tarski gave first-order logic a formal and precise semantics. In Frege's quantifier logic you can write down predicates that relate more than one object. For example 'sister' is a binary predicate which relates two people to each other. So 'Anne is the sister of John' is a basic formula (called an atomic formula). More complex formulas can be built from these atomic formulas in a number of ways. You can negate a formula: so 'Anne is not the sister of John' is a formula. You can form the disjunction of two formulas: so 'Either Anne is the sister of John or x is the sister of Anne' is a formula (the letter x here is called a variable). Similarly, you can form the conjunction of two formulas by connecting them with the word 'and'. And you can quantify variables: 'there exists some x such that x is the sister of John' is also a formula.3 A conjunction of a formula and its negation is called a contradiction, e.g. 'Anne is the sister of John and Anne is not the sister of John' is a contradiction.

14. There are also methods of deduction in first-order logic. In a Hilbert system, for example, we have a number of axioms and rules of inference. A sequence of formulas each of which is either an axiom or follows from previous formulas in the sequence by one of our rules of inference is called a proof. Incidentally,using just three axiom schemes and one inference rule, one may prove an arbitrary formula from a contradiction. Thus first-order logic (indeed, even the less expressive propositional logic) becomes entirely degenerate in the presence of contradictions.

15. First-order logic is the benchmark for modern logics. It is highly expressive, certainly compared to propositional logic. There are many other logics that have come since. Some of these were developed in response to philosophical criticisms of first-order logic. Intuitionistic logic, for example, rejects the law of the excluded middle. Modal logic has a more sophisticated truth definition in which formulas are not simply globally true or false; their truth depends on your point of view. Recently there has been some interest in paraconsistent logics -- logics where contradictions are permitted but where inference is weakened so that it is not possible to deduce an arbitrary formula from a contradiction. The problem of dealing with uncertainty led to so-called fuzzy logic, in which formulas are not just true or false but are assigned values between 1 (true) and 0 (false). Epistemic logic attempts to model belief and knowledge, so you can write things like 'A believes that B knows the answer'.

Dialectics

16. I do not propose to provide a detailed exposition of the Hegelian and Marxist theories of dialectics (see [Rees98] for an excellent account). A great advantage of dialectics, as a philosophical framework, is its ability to explain why the world is in a state of flux. It contrasts with other world-views which either deny that change occurs at all (e.g. feudal Christianity with its emphasis on the permanence and stability of nature and society) or those which acknowledge change but argue that it is brought about by external forces (as with many mystical explanations). The Hegelian dialectic attempts to grasp the totality of the system and argues that change occurs as a result of contradictions internal to that system. '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' [Heg:SoL, page 439].

17. A second achievement of dialectics, at least in its materialist form, is to solve that central problem in philosophy -- the relation between thinking and being. Marx took the Hegelian dialectic and placed it on a materialist base. So Marx's view of society was one in which economic contradictions are more fundamental than ideological ones.

18. To understand the significance of this materialist dialectic we should first consider the opposing schools of idealism and materialism in philosophy. Many of the enlightenment thinkers saw a strict division between the mental and the physical worlds. For example, Kant argued that we could have no true knowledge of the 'thing-in-itself' as this remained hidden behind the veil of sensory appearances. Famously, Descartes' view was of two separate worlds, the world of ideas and the world of things, which had hardly any interaction with each other at all. Hegel broke from this Cartesian dualism, describing the world as a dialectic unity. But for him, history was still the history of ideas, reality was secondary. He wrote, 'Once the realm of ideas is revolutionized, actuality does not hold out' (quoted in [Avi72]).

19. Against that, there is a kind of crude, mechanical materialism where our ideas are seen as passive reflections of our environment. This philosophy is there in part in the works of Hobbes and Locke. More explicitly, Helvetius wrote, 'All our thoughts and will must be the immediate effect or necessary consequence of impressions we have received' (quoted in [Hampson68, page 126]). Feuerbach is said to have taken materialism to an extreme by arguing, 'What you eat is what you are'!

20. Marx applied the dialectic to provide a far richer solution to this problem. He described consciousness and reality as a unity of opposites in which the material is fundamental. Consciousness depends on the physical world and has no independent existence -- 'But life involves before everything else eating and drinking, a habitation, clothing and many other things' [ME:GermI]. But Marx also argued that humans have the ability to consciously alter their own environment. Thus our ideas have the capacity to bring about a change in the world and in the process we change ourselves. In one of his most powerful and well known extracts, Marx wrote, 'Men make their own history but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past' [Marx:18th]. History is not imposed on us from outside; it is made up of our own choices and activities. But our objective situation, which is the outcome of previous history, imposes a structure on our choices and activities. 'The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brain of the living'.

Criticism of dialectics as a logic

21. The first problem with dialectics, from the point of view of formal logic, has to do with the concept of a contradiction. As we saw, contradiction is fundamental to the Hegelian view: 'Contradiction is the very moving principle of the world' [Hegel30]. The notion of contradictions in reality was emphasised by Marx and Engels, indeed motion itself is taken to be a contradiction:

. . . even simple mechanical change of place can only come about through a body at one and the same moment of time being both in one place and in another place, being in one and the same place and also not in it. [Eng:AD, page 137].

But this violates the laws of identity and non-contradiction in classical logic. Hence, this kind of reasoning cannot be a generalisation of formal logic: it is inconsistent with it. In part I believe the argument cited above is just plain wrong: a moving object is at different places at different times, not different places at the same time.4 But also this problem has to do with the meaning of 'contradiction'. In Hegel and Marx, a contradiction is more or less the same as a negation or an opposition. But in logic, and in common usage, contradiction refers to an absurdity or impossibility.

22. As an illustration of these different meanings of the word, let's first consider the way contradictions are used in mathematics. There is a well-known mathematical proof that the square root of two is not a fraction using a method of deduction called 'proof by contradiction' or 'reductio ad absurdum'. Starting from the assumption that the square root of two is a fraction p/q it is possible to deduce a contradiction.5 In mathematics at least, we do not conclude that the square root of 2 is some sort of dialectic or contradictory fraction. No, instead we argue that a contradiction is impossible and so we reject our original assumption that the square root of 2 is a fraction.

23. Well, that is mathematics, a very formal subject. But let us consider a political example. There are people around who claim that the US military, whatever its motives were in the past, is now an organisation committed to humanitarianism and against terrorism. They argue that the US/UK bombing of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003 is explained by these new motives. This argument can be refuted by deriving a contradiction. Bombing a country (Afghanistan) with over seven million dependent on food aid is a serious hindrance to the aid agencies. Blocking access for the aid organisations in a devastated country (Iraq) also contradicts the supposed humanitarian motive. The opposition to terrorism is contradicted by the support provided in the 1980s to the Al Quaida organisation and by the military support given now to Israel. The anti-terrorist motive is also contradicted by acts of terrorism conducted by the US occupying forces in Iraq, for example at Falluja in April 2003. We should not conclude from this that on the one hand the US military is anti-terrorist and pro-humanitarian (because its spokespersons tell us so) and on the other hand it is not (by the above), nor that it 'depends on your point of view'. Neither do we want to allow left wing supporters of the war a way of avoiding this inconsistency by some sophisticated dialectic reasoning. No, we must be absolutely clear: the assumption of a humanitarian and anti-terrorist motive is contradicted by the facts and must therefore be rejected. It seems to me that if you are willing to accept the existence of contradictions in reality then the mere fact that assertions are contradicted by events does not of itself refute those assertions. Proponents of dialectic logic are left in a horrible muddle -- they accept contradictions and so they have no way of refuting the arguments of our opponents.

24. It should be apparent from this that we have two meanings of a contradiction (see [Ros98, chapter 8] for a useful discussion of the conflation of these two meanings in Hegel). In mathematics and formal logic, and in common usage, a contradiction is impossible. But in dialectics, contradictions exist all over the place. There are contradictions, or oppositions, that exist and motivate change and there are other contradictions that are really impossible. In order to be clear we must separate these two meanings. This could be done, I suppose, by having two different phrases: an absurd or logical contradiction and a dialectic contradiction.6 But it seems easier to reserve the word 'contradiction' for the former meaning and use alternative words and phrases like 'opposition' or 'conflict' for the latter.7

25. The second objection to dialectics from formal logic is that dialectics is often presented as a kind of logic. There are several different ways in which the Hegelian dialectic has been proposed as a logic. Systematic dialectics8 considers patterns of conceptual development where we start from the universal abstract concept and move to a more concrete category (particularisation) driven by contradictions in the abstract concept. From the opposition between the universal abstract and the particularisation, Hegel argues, a more concrete characterisation of the universal is obtained as a synthesis (see, for example, [Reuten93, pp. 90-93]).9 An illustration of Hegelian conceptual development is given in [Smith93], where Smith contrasts formal logic to the way Hegel, in the Philosophy of Right, deduces one category from another: Hegel argues that the category property gives rise to the category contract which in turn leads to crime. For an individual within society it does not necessarily follow that property implies contract or that contract implies crime, but for the whole of society there is a necessary tendency along these lines.

26. Historical dialectics identifies dialectics with the idea of the 'essentially historical character of social formations, and so (in its "rational form") with the principle of the nonexistence of transhistorical laws of social reality' [Mattick93, page 117]. Accordingly, dialectic logic cannot be a formal axiomatic logic. Sekine argued that dialectics is

not a strictly formal (abstract-general) logic but rather a formal-substantive (concrete-synthetic) one. In other words it constitutes a teleological rather than a tautological system. . . . The result of a dialectics investigation must, in other words, stand on its own without depending on any axiom or postulate. [Sekine98]

27. Another approach to dialectics uses the terminology of the Aristotelian syllogism but, rather confusingly, has the middle term of a syllogism also representing the totality of that syllogism [Smith93, pp. 28-31]. Elsewhere, it is the contradiction between essence and appearance that is emphasised in the dialectic approach.

28. But it seems to me that each of these provides a conceptual framework or language to describe phenomena, their interactions and the way they transform. What is not given, though, is a deduction method -- a way of determining when a particular conceptual development is justified. As Mattick put it,

Even in the best cases [of sequences of concepts in Hegel's Logic, RH], it must be said, the necessity, as opposed to the plausibility or illuminating character, of the transition between categories in the Hegelian dialectic -- and hence of its being a logic -- has not been convincingly made. [Mattick93, page 125]

At any rate, the notion of a dialectical deduction strikes me as very problematic. Examples of such deductions seem rather shaky. For example, in 1801 Hegel presented a thesis [Heg01] in which he showed without need of empirical observation, on the basis of logic alone, that there could not be other than seven planets and in particular that there could be no planet between Mars and Jupiter. Of course the reader knows already that just such a planet was discovered, the minor planet Ceres, before Hegel's work had hit the presses. Another piece of dialectic reasoning is Hegel's deduction of the existence of the monarch [Heg: PoR].

29. Certainly a formal logic which comprised a language and semantics but included no deduction method (or, worse, a logic with a faulty deduction method) would not be taken seriously. The use of dialectics as a form of logic is most unreliable and the available 'dialectic deductions' are not convincing. Furthermore, if we are to allow contradictions to exist in reality, we leave the door open to relativism -- the idea that there is not a single reality whose truth we try to discover, but many. Such conclusions are at variance with our materialist concept of the world. Therefore we should reject the notion that dialectics is a form of logic.

The dialectic criticism of formal logic

30. Now let's reverse the argument and list some of ways that dialecticians have found formal logic to be lacking. The criticisms listed are widely circulated amongst dialecticians, for example the first four are given in [Nov73, lecture III]. Let's start with the easy ones.

Triviality -- The first objection is that the theorems of classical logic are no more than definitional extensions of the axiom system. They are therefore empty tautologies which add no new information to that already given by the axioms. However, the computation of the theorems that follow from a set of axioms is far from trivial. A result of Turing can be used to show that there is no algorithm that can tell whether a given statement follows from a set of axioms or not: this problem is undecidable. Thus a first-order proof system can yield non-trivial results.

Determinism -- Secondly, formal logic is determinist and incapable of handling uncertainty and choice. But there is nothing to stop us expressing choice in first-order logic by using disjunctions. The formula 'p or q' denotes that either p is true or q is true (or possibly both). We can even express infinite choice by using a quantifier -- the formula 'there exists an x satisfying the predicate P', means that at least one value of x has the property P, though the formula does not specify which value of x to choose. Furthermore, we can incorporate probabilities into first-order logic or adopt a logic like fuzzy logic to handle uncertainty.10

Static -- The next objection is that formal logic has no way of dealing with transformation and change. In formal logic, if a predicate P is true of an object x then it will always be true. However, it is not hard to use first-order logic to express change in time by using an extra time parameter. Instead of saying that 'x has the property P' we say that 'x has the property P at time t'. Here the predicate P has become a binary predicate, relating x to t. In this set up it is perfectly possible for x to have the property P at some time t but not at another time t'.11

Another formalism, though not really a logic, that deals with change is calculus of Newton and Leibnitz. This highly successful subject deals with rates of change at instants of time by calculating the gradient of the tangent to a curve. It is certainly possible to express the fact that a quantity f(t) is changing at time t, indeed we can quantify the rate of change of f using the derivative f'.

Thus, at least on the face of it, it is possible to handle non-determinism and change in a formal system.

Non-contradiction and excluded middle -- Classically, there are only two truth values: every assertion is either true or false and never both. This is the law of excluded middle plus the law of non-contradiction. But in the real world we typically do not find things to be so clear cut. Now there are logics which do not insist on just two truth values (e.g. intuitionistic logic and fuzzy logic), but modelling transitions between, say, life and death, or whatever, in a realistic way would certainly be challenging for any formal system.

Events and Processes -- In dealing with properties that change over time, it is generally the case that formal logic uses static properties and instantaneous events. This is true of all the formalisms mentioned above, except perhaps fuzzy logic, and of the applications of logic to artificial intelligence and planning. A property p will remain true until at some definite time an event takes place terminating p, thereafter p will be false. So the event of `waking-up' will commence a period when a person is awake and some hours later the event of 'falling asleep' terminates that period. But when we look more closely, we see that these events are not instantaneous, but more or less protracted processes. Being awake is a process that is initiated not by an instantaneous and indivisible event but by the process of waking-up. Modelling this kind of behaviour in formal logic is certainly problematic.

Logical Atomism -- A more profound criticism of formal logic is that it leads to the view that the world is made up of indivisible objects and elementary properties. In this view, we start from basic entities and then apply elementary predicates to them and build up from these to more complex properties. Certainly in predicate logic the names and variables stand for individuals that have no internal structure and the atomic formulas also cannot be broken down any further. The same holds for all the other formal logics mentioned above. And yet, although it is very useful to use names and predicates in this way, in reality we find that each individual is a 'unity of opposites' containing different parts interacting with each other. Predicates also are not elementary.

Consider, for example, the property of 'being alive'. The predicate 'alive' actually describes a very complex property which must be analysed further in order to understand it. Furthermore, concepts such as 'value' or 'money' are not obtained as an aggregate of individual quantums of value or money, but result from a whole system based on the exchange of commodities. You cannot start from individual coins and notes and from there build up to the concept of money. It is necessary, as in the Hegelian method, to start from the abstract concept and go from there to the particular. Logical atomism is a criticism of formal logic which carries considerable weight.

Reductionism -- Is it possible to formalise in logic the entire process of rational thought? Within logic there has been a school that gave an affirmative answer to the question. The logicist project, which followed a suggestion of Leibnitz and was promoted by Frege then Russell and Whitehead, was an attempt to place all of mathematics, and perhaps all of science, on logical foundations. Frege wrote

The firmest method of proof is obviously the purely logical one, which, disregarding the particular characteristics of things, is based solely upon the laws on which all knowledge rests. [Fre72, page 103,preface]

He then continues, in the same article, to attempt to demonstrate that arithmetic and probably geometry, differential and integral calculus can be handled by this very rigorous method of deduction. To quote Frege again, 'arithmetic is a branch of logic and need not borrow any ground of proof whatever from experience or intuition'. This logicist project can be seen as a kind of reductionism in which all knowledge is ultimately reduced to simple logical foundations.

Yet it seems implausible that the whole complexity of nature can be determined by an absolute and unchanging formal logic. The same problem occurs with the laws of thought. If it were really possible for us to discover a logical foundation for the whole of science we would be led to a very strong form of determinism. Not only is the future determined by the past but it is possible, at least in principle, for humans to calculate the future from the past.

It should be added that within formal logic the logicist project received a death blow from Gödel's incompleteness theorem which showed, roughly, that a formal logic must be incapable of proving all the true statements of arithmetic.12 Thus formal logic cannot always discover the truth of statements even in such a formal field as arithmetic.

Form without content -- Logic, as I have described it, studies the form of an argument separate from its content. Reuten argues that a general framework for analysing the form of an argument separate to its content is wrong. So, a dialectic argument

should not be grounded merely abstractly (i.e. giving the arguments in advance), because this always leads to regress. That which is posited must be ultimately grounded in the argument itself, in concretizing it. [Reuten93, page 92]

This contrasts with formal logic where the study of the form of an argument is studied separately from its content. By insisting that a proposition must be concretely grounded, it seems to me that we move to nonlogical considerations. Similarly, Marx contends that without content, logic can tell us nothing about specific problem domains or specific historical epochs. '. . . every historical period has laws of its own' [Marx74, page 28].

This is accepted, but it seems to me that there is still some merit in studying the form of argument (e.g. logical consistency, deducability, etc.), so long as we remember that this is but one aspect of a given scientific investigation. Also, the content of an argument is not quite so separate from logic as just indicated. The choice of axioms in a logical system can represent content specific information. So, recently, Hungarian logicians have been able to develop a logical approach to relativity theory and shed light on that subject by selecting suitable axioms and analysing logical properties of the axioms -- consequences of the axioms, independence, etc. [AMN99,AMN:relativity]. Furthermore model theory, mostly using ordinary first-order logic, is a subject devoted to the interaction between syntax and semantics in logic. Hard problems from other fields, unsolved within their own discipline, have been solved using model-theoretic techniques, for example the Mordell-Lang conjecture of algebraic geometry was solved using advanced model theory [Hrushovski96].

31. There do appear to be inadequacies in formal logic. I do not claim that formal reasoning cannot be improved to take some of this into account; indeed I believe this could be fruitful research. But it seems most improbable that a formal system (or, for that matter, a dialectical system) could be devised that once-and-for-all captured all the laws of knowledge and development. Such a formal system might well run into paradoxes if it were capable of describing accurately the development of formal logic leading up to itself -- the final, comprehensive, formal system. For then it would be possible to write down 'liar sentences' in this language of the form 'this sentence is false'. As is well known, it is impossible to assign a truth-value to such sentences. At any rate, leaving aside the problem of paradoxes, the existence of a comprehensive formal system acting as the foundation of all knowledge would certainly be a refutation of the dialectic framework in which fundamental transformations leading to quite new processes and laws not previously evident is considered to be typical.

A dialectic conception of truth

32. In the section on formal logic I concentrated mostly on syntax -- what formulas can you write, what is a proof, etc. etc. The other part of logic has to do with semantics -- what do the formulas mean, is this formula true or valid or at least possible, and so on. The study of semantics in logic is part of a wider philosophical problem of defining truth in language. We can separate out two distinct issues: the definition of truth, i.e. what do we mean when we say that a statement is true; and the question of how we discover the truth. This is an area where dialectics can be particularly illuminating.

33. Although these problems can seem very abstract and philosophical, they are in fact highly practical. Socialists attempt to study history in order to intervene in our own society and change it for the better. But after we make our intervention, how are we to assess whether it worked? Also, we constantly have to put forward theories that explain the world better than the theories of our opponents in order to combat the political conclusions that they would like to lead us towards. Again, how can we demonstrate the truth of our theories? And yet without a method of testing the truth of our ideas we lose all sense of direction. If we cannot correctly assess our interventions then we have no chance of learning from our mistakes. So we must take this question seriously.

34. In formal logic and more generally in philosophy there are two key approaches: correspondence theories and coherence theories. There are many other theories of truth, e.g. the pragmatic theory (with some similarities to the Marxist theory), the redundancy theory and Tarski's semantic theory (see [Haack78] for an account) and (apart from the redundancy theory) these involve elements of correspondence and coherence.

35. According to the correspondence theory the formula 'Anne is the sister of John' is true if the names 'Anne' and 'John' refer to real individuals and the former is the sister of the latter. Correspondence theorists attempt to find a structural isomorphism from a formula into the world, i.e. a mapping from names to objects such that all the predicates are preserved.13 The strength of the correspondence theory is that it acknowledges an external world independent of our thoughts and judges our own theories by how well they correspond to that external world. Indeed, any materialist concept of truth must include some kind of correspondence as a definition of truth. But there is a tendency14 with this definition of truth to lead to a type of logical atomism in which the real properties of the world are built up from elementary entities and properties like 'Anne' and 'sister', whereas this assumption is certainly questionable.

36. And for an account of how we can discover the truth of our ideas, a pure correspondence theory is inadequate. One problem is that although we have direct knowledge of our own ideas and theories we have no direct knowledge of reality, only knowledge mediated through experience. It is therefore problematic to establish this correspondence, even for elementary statements. Correspondence theories reflect a kind of Cartesian dualism because you have reality on the one hand and ideas on the other and you can say that the ideas are true if they correspond, but it is hard to see how this correspondence can be demonstrated.

37. Coherence theories judge the truth of a statement by its relationship to other beliefs, in particular they ask whether a given statement is consistent with a large set of beliefs. One worry with this, however, is that many false beliefs have been widely held by previous societies. Coherence theories have a tendency towards idealism and subjectivism.

38. Let me outline how a materialist, dialectic approach could set about analysing the problem of truth. I believe that any materialist must accept that there is a single reality and therefore the definition of truth must be some kind of correspondence definition. I depart from the pure correspondence theorists in a number of ways. First, although it is acknowledged that there is but a single reality in the world, I do not accept that it is entirely independent of our thoughts. Particularly when we study our own thought processes and the workings of our own society it becomes clear that what we think is tied up with what actually happens. Secondly, correspondence as a definition of truth faces the problem that our ideas can never exactly correspond to reality. The thought process involves abstracting from reality, the use of words and symbols, and many other simplifications. Our thoughts and ideas are of a different quality to the things they refer to. We therefore should not expect any of our theories to correspond absolutely and exactly to reality. A more sophisticated notion of correspondence taking these considerations into account is therefore needed for a definition of truth. Finally, we are not content with a mere definition of truth; we seek a method of establishing the truth and proving its correctness. This takes us beyond the limits of correspondence theory.

39. The way we prove the truth of our assertions involves a number of different methods. In fact we are generally interested in the truth of whole theories, not just individual assertions. We can test such a theory using logical consistency, because a theory that contradicts itself cannot be true to reality. And we can test a theory by seeing how it works in practice. To quote Marx,

The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but a practical question. Man must prove the truth -- i.e. the reality and power, the this-worldliness of his thinking in practice. The dispute over the reality and non-reality of thinking which is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question. All social life is essentially practical. All mysteries which lead theory into mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and in the comprehension of this practice. [Ma:F]

To show that our theories correspond to reality we must prove them in practice. Our ideas, which arise from experience, lead us to act in certain ways in order to achieve our goals. If we are scientific, we then compare our plans to the actual results of our actions and modify our theories if necessary. This means that none of our ideas express an absolute truth in the world. The best that can be hoped for is that we demonstrate that a certain theory correctly expresses the behaviour of some phenomenon when tested in a certain way. Thus the truth we establish is contingent on the circumstances.

40. This approach to the problem of truth differs from both the correspondence and the coherence theories in that it makes the process of finding the truth an active process in which we simultaneously investigate the world and attempt to change it. To summarise: in the dialectic conception of truth we recognize that the world is neither independent (as with correspondence theories) nor determined (as with coherence theories) by our own thoughts. It is the interaction between our own thoughts and actions, those of countless other individuals and other properties of the world, i.e. it is the way our own activity fits into the wider class struggle, that determines history.

How logic changes over time

41. Because of the complexity of nature and the fact that completely new processes and behaviour come into existence, the dialectical scientist does not accept that any logical formalisation can fully capture the thought process or the laws of nature. There is a requirement to establish a correspondence between theory and practice and to adjust the theory when the correspondence fails.

42. There are situations in which the inadequacies of our formal logic become acute because of new circumstances and new ways of reasoning. In such situations there is a possibility of creating new logics and new formalisms. We saw that the Aristotelian syllogism arose in just such a way that the previous approach to mathematics which relied on intuition became untenable. And Aristotle's system was restricted in its application, dealing with permanent properties of objects taken in isolation from each other. But as the productivity of society developed and at the same time science advanced, this form of logic became inadequate. This provided an impulse to divize new logics. Modern logic is far in advance of the logic of Aristotle and has overcome some of the limitations. But of course any formal system, indeed any human theory, cannot capture the entire complexity of the universe.

43. In mathematics, which comprises a range of formalisms, a similar story can be told. Up to the 17th century, mathematics dealt only with static, discrete quantities (as well as geometry, which was not related to arithmetic or algebra until the time of Descartes). But changes in technology and science meant that it was necessary to handle the notion of instantaneous change. The language of mathematics was quite incapable of doing this. Yet mathematicians were able to revolutionize the subject by inventing a whole new language of mathematics which was capable of expressing instantaneous change: that language was the calculus. This revolution was of course problematic; it took 200 years to come up with a satisfactory explanation which could make sense of it. The point is that just as humans have the ability to invent new tools to deal with new problems, so we are able to create new formalisms to model the reasoning process.

44. Indeed this type of development in formal logic and mathematics is typical of developments throughout science. Engels explains how in its early phase all of the sciences present a very static view of the world. First of all the world is seen as being literally fixed and unmoving; the Ptolomeic system is a system of eternal repetition; the geology of the earth's surface is unchanging; the species date from the creation; and human nature and human society are also permanent. One by one these assumptions came under attack. First we had the Copernican revolution, then Kant put forward the nebular theory of the evolution of solar systems. This theory implied that the earth itself had evolved and put into question the idea of a fixed geology and thereby questioned the dogma of an unchanging collection of species. Later, these subjects also were revolutionised showing that the surface of the earth and the organisms populating it have undergone a history.15 Marx's theory of history showed human societies developing in history on the basis of the class struggle. Later, Freud put forward a theory in which the human psychology represented a struggle between different parts of the psyche.

45. So formal reasoning is not different in this respect to other sciences, except that it operates at a more abstract level. We are engaged in a process of developing new formalisms to help clarify our reasoning. These logical formalisms are applied and tested in applications in other sciences, in everyday phenomena or in logic and mathematics themselves. As the sciences become more sophisticated and abstract we need to overcome the contradictions internal to our scientific theories and we must demonstrate their rational consistency. For this, the techniques of formal logic and proof are well suited. As we develop new modes of reasoning in science we may find the logical formalisms to be inadequate. This motivates the development of new logics.

46. Materialist dialectics is the best philosophical framework within which we can scientifically investigate and discover the properties and laws of our world and how it can be changed. But it is not a substitute for this scientific study. It does not ensure that our investigations will be successful, nor that others who are not thinking dialectically won't come up with advances in the scientific theory. Isaac Newton, for example, held to a Christian philosophy quite distinct from dialectical materialism but was still able to produce some of the greatest advances in science so far. But when science investigates our own thinking and our own society we cannot stand at a distance and look from the outside, and the need for a dialectical, materialist framework becomes more pressing.

47. Yet dialectics is not magic and will not produce the right answers on its own. Dialectics is not economics: Marx did not write Capital purely on the basis of the dialectic; it was necessary for him to make a detailed study of economic theory and the working of capitalism. Similarly, dialectics is not logic, not in the sense of a system that derives conclusions from premises, and it does not tell us the correct form of logic or the correct way to model rational thought. Formal logic is a tool which can be used to analyse and clarify the reasoning process. For Marxists, who seek to explain how the world works and how it can be changed, a formalisation of the reasoning process can only be helpful. But the material that we use this tool on, human thought, is not immutable. And the tool also must be developed and extended.

Conclusion

48. Strangely enough, logic is a political subject. Starting with the technical side, we have seen that the adoption of predicate logic as the basis of reasoning can lead to logical atomism. This encourages a view of the world in which the key unit is the individual. With one more step we arrive at Margaret Thatcher's conclusion: 'there is no such thing as society'.

49. But the other political aspect of logic concerns the function of logic for society. The class that runs our system has no logical explanation about how their system works. When the system is expanding, capitalists fall over themselves in their efforts to expand production even though this inevitably leads to a crisis later on. There is a certain narrow justification for this in that the capitalist who does this most effectively will be among the ones who survive the crisis, but there is no logic to this for the system overall. When the system goes into crisis, it is not logical for governments and banks to implement austerity measures, to cut spending on welfare and to depress wages when this only exacerbates the tendency to overproduction and crisis. It is not logical to use more resources on means of warfare and destruction than on health and education -- at least these policies do not follow from the premises that are usually given.

50. Of course Capitalism recruits scientists and professors who are experts in formal logic. Yet there is no correspondence between the elaborate theories of logic that exist in the academies and universities and the irrationality of the way the system actually works. To leave these two features separate from each other is to miss the whole point of logic which must surely be to clarify the process of rational thought in order to help bring about a rational way of doing things. That is not to say that every aspect of formal logic must have an immediate application to the problems in hand. But if the subject as a whole has no link to significant problems facing society then it risks stagnation and aimlessness.

51. Marxists, on the other hand, do have a coherent and logical explanation of how the system works, why it is a system in motion and therefore in transition, why it has a tendency towards crises, how crises create opposition and resistance and how in the right circumstances and with the right theories it is possible for us to intervene in the conflicts created by the system in order to change it to a different system based on rational, logical planning. The great strength of Marxism is the clarity of these arguments. It can only weaken our case if there are parts of our argument which are hidden in darkness.

52. In the current period the system is undergoing profound and rapid changes. The collapse of the Russian empire and the apparent triumph of the free market has not led to a period of peace and prosperity as we were told by the advocates of the system, but to a period of war, instability and economic ruin for large parts of the world. These changes are also creating a realignment on the left. Stalinism, the ideology that held back two generations of socialists, is overthrown. The War on Terrorism is creating a level of opposition to the system not seen for quite some time. All over the world, people will be looking for solutions to the disaster that is Capitalism. Some of these people will have very confused, illogical ideas about how to change things. A prominent theory that will attract many is reformism, the 'one thing at a time' approach to controlling the system by taking control of the state, bit by bit. The reformist parties are also currently going through a crisis as their ability to deliver reforms is reduced to nil. The reformist argument is quite undialectic. At its heart there is a separation of the economic from the political -- let the politicians handle the politics while the trade unionists deal with narrow economic issues and keep a healthy distance between them. The reformists treat the working class as passive beneficiaries of their policies. To improve the attitudes and the lot of workers there is great emphasis on education, but the question of who educates the teachers is left unanswered. Thus change is brought in from outside.

53. Marxists have a superior explanation in which change results from conflicts internal to the system. We always attempt to overcome the separation of politics and economics -- to link the power of workers at the point of production with the ideas and theories needed to overthrow the system. We see the class struggle itself as a far more effective education than that available in the schools and colleges.

54. In a period of rapid changes we will need to develop our theories and at the same time maintain a dialectic link between theory and practice. If we can ensure that our theory is scientific and logical right to its foundations then our analysis will be more convincing to those we seek to convince, and we will also be subject to a logical discipline that will help maintain the correct link between theory and practice and thereby help us intervene in the struggles ahead in a way that makes a decisive difference.

The logic of existentialism seems to go something like this. First, there's the assertion that God does not exist. This makes the world absurd, chaotic and meaningless. Therefore, the individual must transcend the world. He does so, first, by rising above the natural, instinctive, biological, "animal", determined processes of life. Second, he asserts his own freedom against the world and imposes his own order on it, through his own autonomous will. By doing so he creates a kind of subjective meaning to life, through the pursuit of an individual life project.

1st logic than faith / Existentialism a reason to respect each other Fri, 03/13/2009 - 9:36pm — JustinQD

I have always felt a very close connection to logic and when applying logic to answers that require faith, we can not be sure we have ended at truth. We can call each other stupid for our beliefs because as any logical person willing to submit to an objective perspective knows, no belief is more valid than any other in the search for truth. So why quarrel over our views, why not embrace and discuss in love and anticipation. Why shoot rockets and initiate air strikes over land in the name of faith? Why? Because maybe logic DOES play a role in a healthy faith. Logic is one of those beautiful absolutes that we strive to achieve but we don't always follow it. I believe that any believer or follower should start with logic if he/she wants to end up at truth. Many people strongly profess that logic and faith coinciding simply isn't logical. I think this is because the second a step of faith is required the unbeliever will not believe therefore it is not logical to the unbeliever. However doesn't EVERY single thing require faith? Philosophy often talks about empirical vs metaphysical worlds. Thats a faith. Because honestly our entire collective consciousness and existence could simply be a dream in a giraffes head. And when I speak this way it literally depresses me too. Yes on one hand it fully validates my faith, but it also completely renders my beliefs about beliefs pointless. This argument I am describing is the never ending spiral of philosophy. To think that as mere mortal humans we will be able to answer the questions we debate about different perspectives so frequently is laughable. But thats my belief and it is just as laughable as any other. All of this dread and dreary discussion leads me to the point that logic can only take you so far. We will never have all of the answers. There will always be an infinite many more. While I do agree that logic is the starting point for any belief, it won't answer your questions. Only you can answer your questions. Because in this moment, for whatever reason, in this giraffes dream, you have feelings and you have free will. So use everything you have, to find the truth, not just logic. Use your feelings, and use your free will. Wherever that lands you, is hopefully where you should be.

Existentialism Søren Kierkegaard (1813 - 1855) The Concept of Dread (1844)

In what sense the subject of this deliberation is a theme of interest to psychology, and in what sense, after having interested psychology, it points precisely to dogmatics.

THE notion that every scientific problem within the great field embraced by science has its definite place, its measure and its bounds, and precisely thereby has its resonance in the whole, its legitimate consonance in what the whole expresses-this notion, I say, is not merely a pium desiderium which ennobles the- man of science by the visionary enthusiasm or melancholy which it begets, is not merely a sacred duty which employs him in the service of the whole, bidding him renounce lawlessness and the romantic lust to lose sight of land, but it is also in the interest of every more highly specialised deliberation, which by forgetting where its home properly is, forgets at the same time itself, a thought which the very language I use with its striking ambiguity expresses; it becomes another thing, and attains a dubious perfectibility by being able to become anything at all. By thus failing to let the scientific call to order be heard, by not being vigilant to forbid the individual problems to hurry by one another as though it were a question of arriving first at the masquerade, one may indeed attain sometimes an appearance of brilliancy, may give sometimes the impression of having already comprehended, when in fact one is far from it, may sometimes by the use of vague words strike up an agreement between things that differ. This gain, however, avenges itself subsequently, like all unlawful acquisitions, which neither in civic life nor in the field of science can really be owned.

Thus when a person entitles the last section of his Logic "Reality,"' he thereby gains the advantage of appearing to have already reached by logic the highest thing, or, if one prefers to say so, the lowest. The loss is obvious nevertheless, for this is not to the advantage either of logic or of reality. Not to that of reality, for the contingent, which is an integral part of reality, cannot be permitted to slip into logic. It is not to the advantage of logic, for if logic has conceived the thought of reality it has taken into its system something it cannot assimilate, it has anticipated what it ought merely to predispose. The punishment is clear: that every deliberation about what reality is must by this be made difficult, yea, perhaps for a long time impossible, because this word "reality" will, as it were, require some time to recall to mind what it is, must have time to forget the mistake.

Thus when in dogmatics a person says that faith is the immediate, without more precise definition, he gains the advantage of convincing everyone of the necessity of not stopping at faith, yea, he compels even the orthodox man to make this concession, because this man perhaps does not at once penetrate the misunderstanding and perceive that it is not due to a subsequent flaw in the argument but to this proton psendos. The loss is indubitable, for thereby faith loses by being deprived of what legitimately belongs to it: its historical presupposition. Dogmatics loses for the fact that it has to begin, not where it properly has its beginning, within the compass of an earlier beginning. Instead of presupposing an earlier beginning, it ignores this and begins straightway as if it were logic; for logic in fact begins with the most volatile essence produced by the finest abstraction: the immediate. What then logically is correct, namely, that the immediate is eo ipso annulled, becomes twaddle in dogmatics; for to no one could it occur to want to stop with the immediate (not further defined), seeing that in fact it is annulled the instant it is mentioned, just as a sleepwalker awakes the instant his name is called.

Thus when sometimes in the course of investigations which are hardly more than propaedeutic' one finds the word "reconciliation" used to designate speculative knowledge, or the identity of the knowing subject and the thing known, the subjective-objective, etc., thin one easily sees that the author is brilliant and that by the aid of his esprit he has explained all riddles, especially for those who do not even scientifically take the precaution, which yet one takes in everyday life, to listen carefully to the words of the riddle before guessing it. Otherwise one acquires the incomparable merit of having by one's explanation propounded a new riddle, namely, how it could occur to any man that this might be the explanation. That thought possesses reality was the assumption of all ancient philosophy as well as of the philosophy of the Middle Ages. With Kant this assumption became doubtful. Suppose now that the Hegelian school had really thought through Kant's scepticism (however, this ought always to remain a big question, in spite of all Hegel and his school' have done, by the help of the catchwords "Method and Manifestation," to hide what Schelling' recognised more openly by the cue "intellectual intuition and construction," the fact, namely, that this was a new point of departure) and then reconstructed the earlier view in a higher form, in such wise that thought does not possess reality by virtue of a presupposition - then this consciously produced reality of thought a reconciliation? In fact philosophy is merely brought back to the point where in old days one began, in the old days when precisely the word "reconciliation" had immense significance. We have an old and respectable philosophical terminology: thesis, antithesis, synthesis. They invent a newer one in which mediation occupies the third place. Is this to be considered such an extraordinary step in advance? Mediation is equivocal, for it designates at once the relation between the two terms and the result, that in which they stand related to one another as having been brought into relationship; it designates movement, but at the same time rest. Whether this is a perfection, only a far deeper dialectical test will decide; but for that unfortunately we are still waiting. They do away with synthesis and say "mediation." All right. But esprit requires more, so they say "reconciliation." What is the consequence? It is of no advantage to their propaedeutic investigations, for of course they gain as little as truth thereby gains in clarity, or as a man's soul increases in blessedness by acquiring a title. On the contrary, they have fundamentally confounded two sciences, ethics and dogmatics specially in view of the fact that, having got the word "reconciliation" introduced, they now hint that logic is properly the doctrine about the logos. Ethics and dogmatics contend in a fateful confinium about reconciliation. Repentance and guilt torture out reconciliation ethically, whereas dogmatics in its receptivity for the proffered reconciliation has the historically concrete immediateness with which it begins its discourse in the great conversation of science. What then will be the consequence? That language will presumably have to celebrate a great sabbatical year, in order to be able to begin with the beginning.

In logic they use the negative as the motive power which brings movement into everything. And movement in logic they must have, any way they can get it, by fair means or foul. The negative helps them, and if the negative cannot, then quibbles and phrases can, just as the negative itself has become a play on words.

[Exempli gratia: Wesen ist was ist gewesen, ist gewesen is the preterite tense of "to be," ergo Wesen is das aufgehoben being "the being which has been." This is a logical movement! If in the Hegelian logic (such as it is in itself and through the contributions of the School) one were to take "he trouble to pick out and make a collection of all the fabulous hobgoblins and kobolds which like busy swains help the logical movement along, a later age would perhaps be astonished to discover that witticisms which then will appear superannuated once played a great role in logic, not as incidental explanations and brilliant observations, but as masters of movement which made Hegel's logic a miracle and gave the logical thoughts feet to walk on, without anybody noticing it, since the long cloak of admiration concealed the performer who trained the animals, just as Lulu [in a play] comes running without anybody seeing the machinery. Movement in logic is the meritorious service of Hegel, in comparison with which it is hardly worth the trouble of mentioning the never-to-be-forgotten merits which Hegel has, and has disdained in order to run after the uncertain-I mean the merit of having in manifold ways enriched the categorical definitions and their arrangement.]

In logic no movement can come about, for logic is, and everything logical simply is, [The eternal expression of logic is that which the Eleatic School transferred by mistake to existence: Nothing comes into existence, everything is.] and this impotence of logic is the transition to the sphere of being where existence and reality appear. So when logic is absorbed in the concretion of the categories it is constantly the same that it was from the beginning. In logic every movement (if for an instant one would use this expression) is an immanent movement, which in a deeper sense is no movement, as one will easily convince oneself if one reflects that the very concept of movement is a transcendence which can find no place in logic. The negative then is the immanence of movement, it is the vanishing factor, the thing that is annulled (aufgehoben). If everything comes to pass in that way, then nothing comes to pass, and the negative becomes a phantom. But precisely for the sake of getting something to come to pass in logic, the negative becomes something more, it becomes the producer of the opposition, and not a negation but a counterposition. The negative then is not the muteness of the immanent movement, it is the "necessary other,"' which doubtless-must be very necessary to logic in order to set things going, but the negative it is not. Leaving logic to go on to ethics, one encounters here again the negative, which is indefatigably active in the whole Hegelian philosophy. Here too a man discovers to his amazement that the negative is the evil.' Now the confusion is in full swing there is no bound to brilliancy, and what Mme. de Staël-Holstein said of Schelling's philosophy," that it gave a man esprit for his whole life, applies in every respect to the Hegelian philosophy. One sees how illogical movements must be in logic since the negative is the evil, and how unethical they must be in ethics since the evil is the negative. In logic this is too much, in ethics too little; it fits nowhere if it has to fit both places. If ethics has no other transcendence, it is essentially logic; if logic is to have so much transcendence as after all has been left in ethics out of a sense of shame, then it is no longer logic.

What I have expounded is perhaps rather prolix for the place where it stands (in relation to the subject with which it deals it is far from being too long), but it is by no means superfluous, since the particular observations are selected with reference to the subject of this work. The examples are taken from the greater world, but what occurs in the great may be repeated in the lesser, and the misunderstanding remains the same, even if the injurious consequences are less. He who gives himself the airs of writing the System has the great responsibility, but he who writes a monograph can be and ought to be faithful over a little.

The present work has taken as its theme the psychological treatment of "dread," in such a way that it has in mente and before its eye the dogma of original sin. It has therefore to take account, although tacitly, of the concept of sin. Sin, however, is not a theme for psychological interest, and it would only be to abandon oneself to the service of a misunderstood cleverness if one were to treat it thus. Sin has its definite place, or rather it has no place, and that is what characterises it. Its concept is altered, and at the same time the mood which properly corresponds to the correct concept is confused, and instead of the endurance of the genuine mood one has the fleeting jugglery of the false mood.

[The fact that science, fully as much as poetry and art, assumes a mood both on the part of the producer and on the part of the recipient, that an error in modulation is just as disturbing as an error in the exposition of thought, has been entirely forgotten in our age, when people have altogether forgotten inwardness and appropriation with the characteristic joy they prompt at the thought of all the glory one believed one possessed or through cupidity had renounced, like the dog which preferred the shadow. However, every error begets its own enemy. An error of thought has outside of it as its enemy, dialectics; the absence of mood or its falsification has outside of it its enemy, the comical.]

Thus when sin is drawn into aesthetics the mood becomes either frivolous or melancholy; for the category under which sin lies is contradiction, and this is either comic or tragic. The mood is therefore altered, for the mood corresponding to sin is seriousness. Its concept is altered, for whether it becomes comic or tragic, it is either an enduring thing, or a thing which as unessential is annulled [aufgehoben], whereas properly its concept is, to be overcome. In a deeper sense the comical and the tragical have no enemies; the antagonist is either a bogy which makes one weep, or a bogy which makes one laugh.

If sin is dealt with in metaphysics, the mood is the dialectical indifference and disinterestedness which thinks sin through as something which cannot resist thought. The concept is altered; for it is true that sin has to be overcome, not however as that to which thought is unable to give life, but as that which exists and as such is everybody's concern.

If sin is dealt with in psychology, the mood becomes the persistence of observation, the dauntlessness of the spy, not the ardent flight of seriousness away from and out of sin. The concept becomes a different one, for sin becomes a state. But sin is not a state. Its idea is that its concept is constantly annulled. As a state (de potentia) it is not, whereas de actu or in actu it is and is again. The mood of psychology would be antipathetic curiosity, but the correct mood is the stout-hearted opposition of seriousness. The mood of psychology is the dread corresponding to its discovery, and in its dread it delineates sin, while again and again it is alarmed by the sketch it produces. When sin is treated in such a way it becomes the stronger; for psychology is really related to it in a feminine way. Doubtless there is an element of truth in this state of mind, and doubtless it emerges in every mans life more or less when the ethical makes its appearance; but by such treatment sin becomes not what it is but more or less than it is.

As soon therefore as one sees the problem of sin treated, it is possible at once to see from the mood whether the concept is the right one. For example, as soon as sin is talked about as a sickness, an abnormality, a poison, a disharmony, then the concept too is falsified.

Sin does not properly belong in any science. It is the theme with which the sermon deals, where the individual talks as an individual to the individual. In our age scientific self-importance has turned the priests into professorial parish-clerks of a sort, who also serve science and think it beneath their dignity to preach. It is no wonder therefore that preaching has come to be regarded as a pretty poor art. Nevertheless, preaching is the most difficult of all arts, and essentially it is the art which Socrates extols: the art of being able to converse. From this of course it does not follow that there must be someone in the congregation to make answer, or that it might be a help to have someone regularly introduced to speak. When Socrates censured the Sophists by making the distinction that they were able to talk but not to converse, what he really meant was that they were able to say a great deal about everything, but lacked the factor of personal appropriation. Appropriation is precisely the secret of conversation.

To the concept of sin corresponds the mood of seriousness. The science in which sin might most plausibly find a place would surely be ethics. About this, however, there is a great difficulty. Ethics is after all an ideal science, and that not only in the sense that every other science is ideal. Ethics bring ideality into reality; on the other hand its movement is not designed to raise reality up into ideality. [If one will consider this more sharply, one will have opportunity to perceive how brilliant it was to entitle the last section of logic "Reality," inasmuch as not even ethics reaches that. The reality with which logic ends signifies therefore in the way of reality no more than that "being" with which it begins.] Ethics points to ideality as a task and assumes that man is in possession of the conditions requisite for performing it. Thereby ethics develops a contradiction, precisely for the fact that it makes the difficulty and the impossibility clear. What is said of the Law" applies to ethics, that it is a severe schoolmaster, which in making a demand, by its demand only condemns, does not give birth to life. Only the Greek ethics constituted an exception, due to the fact that it was not ethics in the proper sense but contained an ethical factor. This is evinced clearly in its definition of virtue" and in what Aristotle says often but also in Ethica Nicomachea affirms with charming Greek naivete that, after all, virtue alone does not make a man happy and content, but he must have health, friends, earthly goods, be happy in his family. The more ideal ethics is, the better. It must not let itself be disturbed by the twaddle that it is no use requiring the impossible; for even to listen to such talk is unethical, is something for which ethics has neither time nor opportunity. Ethics does not have to chaffer, nor in that way does one reach reality. If that is to be reached, the whole movement must be reversed. This characteristic of ethics, namely, that it is so ideal, is what tempts one in the treatment of it to employ now a metaphysical category, now an aesthetical, now a psychological. But of course ethics above all sciences must withstand temptations, but because there are these temptations no one can write an ethics without having entirely different categories up his sleeve.

Sin belongs to ethics only in so far as upon this concept it founders by the aid of repentance.

[With regard to this point one will find several observations by Johannes de silentio, author of Fear and Trembling (Copenhagen 1843). There the author several times allows the wishful ideality of the aesthetical to founder upon the exacting ideality of the ethical, in order by these collisions to let the religious ideality come to evidence, which is precisely the ideality of reality, and therefore is just as desirable as that of aesthetics and not impossible like that of ethics, and to let it come to evidence in such a way that it breaks out in the dialectical leap and with the positive feeling, "Behold, all things have become new!" and in the negative feeling which is the passion of the absurd to which the concept of "repetition" corresponds. Either the whole of existence is to be expressed in the requirement of ethics, or the condition for its fulfilment must be provided and with that the whole of life and of existence begins afresh, not through an immanent continuity with the foregoing (which is a contradiction), but by a transcendent fact which separates the repetition from the first existence by such a cleft that it is only a figure of speech to say that the foregoing and the subsequent state are related to one another as the totality of the living creatures in the sea are related to those in the air and on the land, although according to the opinion of some natural scientists the former is supposed to be the prototype which in its imperfection prefigures everything which becomes manifest in the latter. With regard to this category one may compare Repetition by Constantine Constantius (Copenhagen 1843). This book is in fact a whimsical book, as its author meant it to be, but nevertheless it is so far as I know the first which has energetically conceived repetition and let it be glimpsed in its pregnance to explain the relation between the ethical and the Christian, by indicating the invisible summit and the discrimen rerum where science breaks against science until the new science comes forth. But what he has discovered he has hidden again by arraying the concept in the form of jest which aptly offers itself as a mode of presentation. What has moved him to do this it is difficult to say, or rather it is difficult to understand; for he says himself that he writes this "so that the heretics might not be able to understand him." As he has only wished to employ himself with this subject aesthetically and psychologically, he might have planned it all humoristically, and the effect would have been produced by the fact that the word at one moment signifies everything, and the next moment the most insignificant thing, and the transition, or rather the perpetual falling from the stars, is justified as a burlesque contrast. However, he stated the whole thing pretty clearly on page 34: "Repetition is the interest of metaphysics and at the same time the interest upon which metaphysics founders," etc. This sentence contains an allusion to the thesis that metaphysics is disinterested, as Kant affirmed of ethics. As soon as the interest emerges, metaphysics steps to one side. For this reason the word is italicised. The whole interest of subjectivity emerges in real life, and then metaphysics founders. In case metaphysics is not posited, ethics remains a binding power; presumably it is for this reason he says that "it is a solution of every ethical apprehension." If repetition is not posited, dogmatics cannot exist at all; for in faith repetition begins, and faith is the organ for the dogmatic problems. in the sphere of nature repetition exists in its immovable necessity. In the sphere of spirit the problem is not to get change out of repetition and find oneself comfortable under it, as though the spirit stood only in an external relation to the repetitions of the spirit (in consequence of which good and evil alternate like summer and winter), but the problem is to transform repetition into something inward, into the proper task of freedom, into freedom's highest interest, as to whether, while everything changes, it can actually realise repetition. Here the finite spirit falls into despair. This Constantine has indicated by stepping aside and letting repetition break forth in the young man by virtue of the religious. Therefore Constantine says several times that repetition is a religious category, too transcendent for him, that it is a movement by virtue of the absurd, and on page 42 it is said that eternity is the true repetition. All this Professor Heiberg has failed to observe, but he has very kindly wished by his knowledge (which like his New Year's gift-book is singularly elegant and up-to-date) to help this work to become a tasteful and elegant insignificance, by pompously bringing the question back to the point where (to recall a recent book) the aesthetic writer in Either/Or had brought it in "The Rotation of Crops." if Constantine were really to feel himself flattered by enjoying in this instance the rare honour which brings him into an undeniably elect company-then to my way of thinking, since it was he who wrote the book, he must have become stark mad. But if on the other hand an author like him, who writes in order to be misunderstood, were so far to forget himself and had not ataraxia enough to account it to his credit that Professor Heiberg had not understood him-then again he must be stark mad. And this I have no need to fear, for the circumstance that hitherto he has not replied to Professor Heiberg indicates that he has adequately understood himself.]

If ethics must include sin, its ideality is lost. The more it remains in its ideality, and yet never becomes inhuman enough to lose sight of reality, but corresponds with this by willing to suggest itself as a task for every man, in such a way as to make him the true man, the whole man, the man kat exohin, all the greater is the tension of the difficulty it proposes. In the fight to realise the task of ethics sin shows itself not as something which only casually belongs to-a casual individual, but sin withdraws deeper and deeper as a deeper and deeper presupposition, as a presupposition which goes well beyond the individual. Now all is lost for ethics, and it has contributed to the loss of all. There has, come to the fore a category which lies entirely outside its province. Original sin makes everything still more desperate - that is to say, it settles the difficulty, not, however, by the help of ethics but by the help of dogmatics. As all ancient thought and speculation were founded upon the assumption that thought had reality, so also all ancient ethics upon the assumption that virtue is realisable. Scepticism of sin is entirely foreign to paganism. For the ethical consciousness, sin is what an error is in relation to knowledge, it is the particular exception which proves nothing.

With dogmatics begins the science which, in contrast to that science of ethics which can strictly be called ideal, starts with reality. It begins with the real in order to raise it up into the ideality. It does not deny the presence of sin, on the contrary, it assumes it, and explains it by assuming original sin. However, since dogmatics is very seldom treated purely, one will often find original sin drawn into its domain in such a way that the impression of the heterogeneous originality of dogmatics does not strike the eye but is obscured, which happens also when one finds in it a dogma about angels, about the Holy Scripture, etc. Dogmatics therefore should not explain original sin but expound it by assuming it, like that vortex the Greeks talked so much about, a something originating movement, upon which no science can lay its hand.

That such is the case with dogmatics will readily be admitted when one finds leisure to understand for- a second time Schleiermacher's immortal services" to this science. People long ago deserted him when they chose Hegel, and yet Schleiermacher was in the beautiful Greek sense a thinker who could talk of what he has known, whereas Hegel, in spite of his remarkable and colossal learning, reminds us nevertheless again and again by his performance that he was in the German sense a professor of philosophy on a big scale, who á tout prix must explain all things.

The new science then begins with dogmatics, in the same sense that the immanent science begins with metaphysics. Here ethics finds its place again as the science which has the dogmatic consciousness of reality as a task for reality. This ethic does not ignore sin, and its ideality does not consist in making ideal requirements, but its ideality consists in the penetrating consciousness of reality, of the reality of sin, yet not, be it observed, with metaphysical frivolity or psychological concupiscence.

One readily sees the difference of the movement, and that the ethic of which we are now speaking belongs to another order. The first ethic foundered upon the sinfulness of the individual. So far from being able to explain this, the difficulty had to become still greater and the riddle more enigmatic, for the fact that the sin of the individual widens out and becomes the sin of the whole race. At this juncture came dogmatics and helped by the doctrine of original sin. The new ethics presupposes dogmatics and along with that original sin, and by this it now explains the sin of the individual, while at the same time it presents ideality as a task, not however by a movement from above down, but from below up.

It is well known that Aristotle used the name proto philosophia [the first philosophy] and denoted by that more especially metaphysics, although he included also a part of what to our notion belongs to theology. It is entirely natural that in paganism theology should be treated in this place; it evinces the same lack of infinite penetrating reflection which accounts for the fact that in paganism the t heater had reality as a sort of divine worship. If now one will waive the objection to this ambiguity, we might retain this name and understand by proto philosophia the totality of science, we might describe it as ethnic, the nature of it being immanence or use the Greek term "recollection"; and understand by secunda philosophia that of which the nature is "repetition".

[Schelling recalled this Aristotelian name to favour his distinction between negative and positive philosophy. By negative philosophy he understood "logic," that was clear enough; on the other hand it was not so clear to me what he really understood by "positive," except in so far as it remained indubitable that positive philosophy was that which he himself provided. However, it is not feasible to go into that, since I have nothing to hold on to, except my own interpretation.

Of this Constantine Constantius has reminded us by pointing out that immanence founders upon "interest." It is in fact with this concept that reality first comes into view.]

The concept of sin does not properly belong in any science; only the second ethics can deal with its apparition but not with its origin. If any other science were to discuss it, the concept would be confused. For example, coming closer to our theme, if psychology were to do so.

What psychology has to deal with must be something in repose, something which abides in a mobile state of quiet, not with an unquiet thing which constantly reproduces itself or is repressed. But the abiding state, that out of which sin constantly becomes (comes into being), not by necessity, for a becoming by necessity is simply a state of being (as is for example the entire history of the plant), but by freedom-in this abiding state, I say, which is the predisposing assumption, the real possibility of sin, we have a subject for the interest of psychology. What can properly concern psychology, that for which it can concern itself, is the question how sin can come into existence, not the fact that it exists. In its interest in its object psychology carries the thing so far that it is as if sin were there; but the next thing, the fact that it is there, is qualitatively different from this. To show then that this presupposition for the careful observation of psychology turns out to be more and more comprehensive is the interest of psychology; yea, psychology is willing to abandon itself to the illusion that hereby sin is really posited. But this last illusion betrays the impotence of psychology and shows that it has served its turn.

That human nature must be such that it makes sin possible, is, psychologically speaking, perfectly true; but to want to let this possibility of sin become its reality is shocking to ethics and sounds to dogmatics like blasphemy; for freedom is always possible, as soon as it is it is actual, in the same sense in which it has been said by an earlier philosophy" that when God's existence is possible it is necessary.

As soon as sin is really posited, ethics is on the spot and follows every step it takes. How it came into being does not concern ethics, except in so far as it is certain that sin came into the world as sin. But still less than with the genesis of sin is ethics concerned with the still life of its possibility.

If one would ask more particularly in what sense and to what extent psychology pursues the object of its investigation, it is clear from the foregoing and in itself that every observation of the reality of sin as an object of thought is irrelevant to it, nor as the object of observation does it belong to ethics either, for ethics never acts as observer, but accuses, condemns, acts. In the next place, it follows from the foregoing and is evident in itself that psychology has nothing to do with the details of empirical actuality, except in so far as they are outside of sin. As a science, psychology can never have anything to do with the detail which underlies it, and yet this detail may receive its scientific representation in proportion as psychology becomes more and more concrete. In our age this science, which above all others has leave to intoxicate itself, one might almost say, with the foaming multifariousness of life, has become as spare in its diet and as ascetic as any anchorite. This is not the fault of the science but of its devotees. In relation to sin, on the other hand, this whole content of reality is properly denied to it, only the possibility of it still belongs to it. To ethics of course the possibility of sin never presents itself, and ethics never lets itself be fooled into wasting its time upon such reflections. Psychology, on the other hand, loves them; it sits sketching the contours and measuring the angles of possibility, and no more would let itself be disturbed than would Archimedes."

But while psychology thus delves into the possibility of sin, it -is without knowing it in the service of another science, which is only waiting for it to be finished in order to begin for its part and help psychology to an explanation. This other science is not ethics, for ethics has nothing whatsoever to do with this possibility. No, it is dogmatics, and here in turn the problem of original sin emerges. While psychology is fathoming the real possibility of sin, dogmatics explains original sin, which is the ideal possibility of sin. On the other hand, the second ethics has nothing to do with the possibility of sin nor with original sin. The first ethics ignores sin, the second ethics has the reality of sin in its province, and here only by a misunderstanding can psychology intrude.

If what has been here expounded is correct, one will easily see with what justification I have called this book a psychological deliberation, and will see also how this deliberation, in so far as it brings to consciousness its relation to science in general, properly belongs to psychology and leads in turn to dogmatics. Psychology has been called the doctrine of the subjective spirit. If one will pursue this science a little more precisely, one will see how, when it comes to the problem of sin, it must change suddenly into the doctrine of the Absolute Spirit. Here is the place of dogmatics. The first ethics presupposes metaphysics, and the second dogmatics; but it also completes it in such a way that here as everywhere the presupposition comes to evidence.

This was the task of the introduction. The introduction may be correct -while the deliberation itself dealing with the concept of dread may be entirely incorrect. That remains to be seen.

Existentialism and Logic (p 18)

The basic logics to existence starts with? The statement that? If nothingness never exists, Existence always exists.

The reasons why this is true, Is because we have made the statement, Into opposite facts, Not opposite words.

We must not get the fact confused, With opposite words, Otherwise the logic, Becomes illogical.

Like if swearing is immoral, Not swearing is moral.

We do not make opposite each word? Only each fact, (As long as we know it is true).

If heat makes warmth, Then cold makes coolness, (Not cold does not make uncoolness).

If we realize this rule to logic? We can unlock the existential logics, To how we live.

We then can continue, With other logics for eternal motion? As nothingness never moves, Thus existence always moves.

Some questions may have more than one answer, And eternal motion does; It also has the logic, If nothingness does not support existence, Existence must be free to move eternally, Through nothingness.

By logic, We exist, we move, thus we feel, Thus we have stimuli, Thus we have acknowledgement, Thus we have consciousness, Thus we have choice, Thus we have morality, Thus we have goodness, Thus we have perfection, Thus we have perfect organization, Thus we have logic.

Logic binds existential rules together, And makes all truth united, In harmony and peace, Yet staying real.

It only creates chaos, When we forget, That logic is best, Or if we may not want it, For adventure.

It is however the underlining principles, Of existentialism, And the rules, To why we are here.

Because we make logic practical, And worthy to exist, And makes us worthy of life, And life worthy of us.

It makes reality, Because logic itself, Has innate existential logics as being, Existing, and experiencing.

It is the truth to certainties, Of logic, As they are rules of nature, Life and logic; We make them hold true.