What did Aristotle mean when he asked the question: What is the correct way to think?
Contrary
to what is usually the first concluded answer, Aristotle cared very
little about what biases you had in your life that cause you to think
one way or the other. Instead, Aristotle was questioning the method of
existence in logic, epistemology, which then carries over into how to
think logically about existence. Aristotle's famous three laws are as
follows:
1) The Law of Identity: Each existence is identical with itself (A is A)
2) Law of Noncontradiction: Each existence is not different from itself (A is not non-A)
3)
Law of Excluded Middle: No existence can be both itself and different
from itself (Any X is either A or non-A, but not both at once).
It
should be clear that the foundation of existence for Aristotle is
self-identifying reification (recognition of the self). This can be
credited to his teacher and primary influence, Plato. His laws make the
same point from three different angles: Positively, it says that a
thing can only be what it is. Negatively, it says that a thing cannot
be what it is not. Dichotomously, it says that there are only two
alternatives: A or non-A.
Most of these perspectives
we see as general 'truisms', meaning that they are commonly accepted as
facts of existence. They can be summed up by Descartes' "I think
therefore I am." In Descartes' simple sentence he places thought prior
to existence. It is thus only through the identification of the self
that the self can claim its existence.
The historical
materialist however, points out that these so-called 'truisms' are held
chiefly because they are reproduced regularly by society's educational
system as the standard way of thinking about existence. As this note
hopes to show, Aristotle's view is not necessarily false...but it is
rather oversimplified.
Let us start with what John
Somerville used to explain the breakdown in Aristotle's logic, a piece
of paper. According to Aristotelian logic, the paper is paper (A is A);
it is not different from paper (A is not non-A); and anything that
exists must either be paper or not be paper (and X is either A or non-A,
but not both). However, if we watch the paper's existence over a long
period of time we are forced to question whether or not Aristotle was in
fact correct. We know, just by scientific reasoning, that after
thousands of years...even if the paper was isolated from
interaction....it would be very different from what it is now; in fact
it might not even be paper anymore.
The paper would
have changed chemically and physically to such an extent that it would
literally become something else than it originally was. As Somerville
said, it would "crumble into dust." The point to get here is that
everything is constantly becoming something else, and thus Aristotle's
first law is overly simplistic in its assertion about the primacy of
something's existence. For if one were to seriously ask "at what point
does the paper cease to be paper and become something else?" the answer
would be: Constantly. More importantly, the more we examine a
particular object, like paper, we are forced to the conclusion that not
only are changes always taking place, but that changes are taking place
throughout all parts of the object in question.
Scientific
examinations helps to explain this further. Quantum dynamism and
contemporary physics tells us that the paper is in fact made up of
mostly "empty space" in which a series of billions of particles are
spinning and interacting with one another, held together within a
electromagnetic field. As Somerville points out, "the empty space
itself must not be thought of as nothingness...but as a field possessed
with definite properties. All these things and events--the billions of
highly activated particles, the field that has specific effects on them,
the positive and negative forces at work which defines the field, the
opposing combinations of units pushing and pulling in different
directions....all of this is not something that takes place *ON* the
paper.....it **IS** the paper."
The simplification of
Aristotle's first law derives from its neglect of the concept of "rate
of change." When the "total rate" of the paper's existence is not too
long...say....one minute to 10 years.....the paper is usable as paper
and can be further used as paper. These are only SOME of the factors
that are important in understanding the paradoxical but pervasive
dynamics whereby each thing is busy changing itself; is in a process of
becoming something else 24-hours a day, non-stop.
The
historical materialist holds that in a universe such as this, where
units are constantly shifting from one state of existence to the next,
the basic rules of correct thinking should reflect the basic situation
of change. This is not a method of thinking where the static and
changeless take center position in thought while change plays a
secondary role. Rather it is one in which change is the essence and the
core of existence, while it is the static "stabilities" that are merely
passing and temporary. "The process whereby each thing is changing its
identity is primary, continuous and absolute; it is the identities
reached that are secondary, temporary, and relative."
Thus
the historical materialist has a new set of laws from which to derive
the ontological question of "what is correct thinking?"
1) The Law of Strife, Interpenetration, and Unity of Opposites. (A is A, and it is also non-A)
The
reason each thing is in a constant process of growth and change is that
each particular "thing" is made up of opposing forces and different
interacting elements. Simply, these are called "opposites" but the
traditional Marxist or Dialectician will refer to them as "antitheses".
These different forces and opposing elements do not exist side by side,
"like neighbors each of whom goes his own way without having any vital
relationships to the other. If that were the case, no complex "thing"
would be formed that we would be likely to identify with a name, no
'unity' of elements would emerge." Rather these opposing forces form a
tight knit that balances together and "maintains itself as a pattern for
a sufficient period of time to be distinguishable" from other
"things". THIS...is what accounts for the fact that every "thing" has a
history.
The crude materialist however would reject
that such a notion of existence applies to ideas. Ideas, to the crudely
undialectical materialist, represent nothing more than abstracted
fantasies of material existence. To combat this, let us again use
Somerville's explanation with reference to "constitutionality":
"There
is, indeed, one set of actual facts, one state of affairs that is
objectively and absolutely the case in all fields. But there are
different and competing theories, conceptions, and laws, all derived
from ideas, offered in a continuing effort to explain these facts.
People
ordinarily think of ideas as an isolated unit. But quickly it can be
realized upon reflection that this unit is made up of different
elements, interrelated in a certain way. In fact, the very definition of
an idea is a statement of some of the chief elements and types of
relationship present. Let us take the following idea of
constitutionality as a supposed 'absolute idea.'
Let us
use the following definition of constitutionality: the logical
compatibility of a law or an action with the provisions of a
constitution. We see at once that this idea would not...indeed it could
not...exist except as a combination of elements, which are themselves
other ideas, or aspects of other ideas.
In other words,
if we did not understand the idea of logical compatibility, that of
law, and that of a constitution itself, we would not be able to
understand the idea of constitutionality...just as..if we could not
physically identify hydrogen and oxygen, we would not be able to put
them together in a certain proportion in order to produce water. Every
idea has a specific ***content*** as an idea, quite apart from the fact
that ideas also represent abstractions from material things.
Formal
Logic, established by Aristotle, tells us that while we may move from
one idea to another, ideas themselves are static...like the primary
aspects of reality. This is essentially the same view as that taken of
biological species prior to Darwin's work: the species exist side by
side, but all are fixed; none grew out of others.
The
dialectician thus holds that there is no reason for taking this view in
the case of ideas when a view of this kind is taken in one field, it
influences and encourages the taking of it in another. In any case, he
points to the fact that such ideas as "logical compatibility", "law",
and "constitution" undergo radical changes during the course of time;
and he maintains that it is better, in a scientific sense, to explain a
process of this kind as a growth or evolution than to deal with it as an
unexplained transition between unalterable and unconnected absolute
static entities."
In short, the first law of thought in historical
materialism is a generalization, the point of which is to sum up change
as the common basis to every level of existence.
If
the first law identifies that everything that exists has a history that
can be traced, thus revealing quantitative changes, the second law
expressed that history is not only quantitative, but also qualitative.
2) The Law of Transition from Quantity to Quality (A becomes non-A, which then redefines A)
We
can understand this law by simply referring to quantitative and
qualitative changes in a single thing: water. When we increase the
temperature of water, within certain limitations, we see a quantitative
change. The water remains water: but it becomes a hotter liquid; it's
particles moving at faster rates. If however, this quantitative change
continues...that is...if the temperature continues to be raised...a
transition to a gaseous state occurs and a new qualitative condition
emerges. Steam is not simply water that is hotter than it was before;
it has new definite properties that are not possessed by the liquid
water. Likewise, if the temperature is lowered beyond a certain point,
another qualitative change takes place, this time into a solid. Again:
The chemical properties of ice are not merely an "increased" or
"decreased" degree in the properties of the liquid water; as a
solid....ice contains chemical properties that water does not.
In
other words, what this law is saying is that every accumulation of
quantitative changes must eventually lead to some qualitative shift.
The old qualities are transformed into new ones. It is also suggesting
that the only means for producing these qualitative changes are shifts
in the quantitative changes of the old qualities. Thus history is not a
simple "one-dimensional program" in which late developments can simply
be "reduced" to earlier qualitative states. The new qualitative
differences contain within themselves new internal contradictions; new
"opposites", new "antitheses", and new "quantitative rates of change".
3)
The Law of the Negation of the Negation (A is constantly being
redefined)This law requires somewhat of a more lengthy description,
which will be found in HM 101.3. For now, it is best to summarize the
first two rules and how the third affects them both. The first rule
highlights that everything has a history. The second rule emphasizes
that this history is based upon a transition in quantitative conditions
to qualitative ones. The third rule, in a basic summation, emphasizes
that the history established by Rule (1) and described by Rule
(2)...never ends. History does not stop. Time does not stop. Thus the
only constant, is change.
Historical Materialism 101.1: On the Nature of Thought.
By Joshua Morris. Heavily Influenced by John Somerville's "The Philosophy of Dialectical Materialism"
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