Dialectical Logic has Broken the Narrow Confines of Formal Logic (A Discussion with Comrade Chu-ko Yin-t'ung on "Can the Law of Contradiction Be Contravened?")

Abstract

In connection with the discussion on the problem of logic, both within our country and abroad (the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic), it has already turned from the general, comparatively abstract, and difficult-to-resolve problem of the relationship between formal logic and dialectics to the more concrete problem of the functional scope of formal logic. Some people have even utilized special articles to inquire about a certain law in formal logic: the functional scope of the law of identity or the law of contradiction. The purpose of these philosophers or logicians is to try to define the functional scope of a certain law in formal logic as a starting point, and then to proceed to study the functional scope of formal logic in the entire thinking process of mankind. If the functional scope of formal logic in mankind's entire thinking process is clearly and precisely defined, the solution of this complicated problem of the relationship between formal logic and dialectics would certainly ...