Rejoinders and Further Comments

Abstract

What is styled 'dialectical logic' is commonly referred to by its apostles as if it were some kind of alternative to, or rival of, standard logic. Now indisputably there are problematic topics in the more advanced spheres of logic, as there are in mathematics; and undoubtedly logicians can make mistakes, as can mathematicians. There may well be a place for something misnamed dialectical 'logic', which is in no sense at variance with standard logic because the 'contradictions' which it highlights are in no sense logical contradictions. If formal logic, and with it the logical Law of Contradiction, is rejected, in favour of 'dialectical logic', which welcomes contradictions, the proposition, 'Logic is an instrument of domination', entails the proposition, 'Logic is not an instrument of domination', and once again precisely nothing is being asserted. Logic alone cannot possibly tell us what to believe, about adult education or anything else.