The Form of Truth

Hegel's Philosophical Logic

Elena Ficara

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9783110703658
• eBook ISBN: 9783110703818
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Logic in Philosophy

This book is a consideration of Hegel's view on logic and basic logical concepts such as truth, form, validity, and contradiction, and aims to assess this view's relevance for contemporary philosophical logic. The literature on Hegel's logic is fairly rich. The attention to contemporary philosophical logic places the present research closer to those works interested in the link between Hegel's thought and analytical philosophy (Stekeler-Weithofer 1992 and 2019, Berto 2005, Rockmore 2005, Redding 2007, Nuzzo 2010 (ed.), Koch 2014, Brandom 2014, 1-15, Pippin 2016, Moyar 2017, Quante & Mooren 2018 among others). In this context, one particularity of this book consists in focusing on something that has been generally underrated in the literature: the idea that, for Hegel as well as for Aristotle and many other authors (including Frege), logic is the study of the forms of truth, i.e. the forms that our thought can (or ought to) assume in searching for truth. In this light, Hegel's thinking about logic is a fundamental reference point for anyone interested in a philosophical foundation of logic.

Index of Subjects

• Antinomies
• Berliner Aristotelismus
• Common sense
• Concepts
  • and antinomies
  • and categories
  • and definitions
  • and dialectic
  • and ideas
  • and inferences
  • and judgements
  • as essences of things
  • as forms
  • completeness of
  • containing different and opposite determinations
  • contradictory
  • dynamic nature of
  • fluid nature of
  • heterogeneous
  • internally differentiated
  • life of
  • movement of
  • philosophical
  • pure
  • rational
  • realisation of
  • reflexive
  • self-referential
  • semantic
  • the concept [der Begriff]
  • versus representations [Vorstellungen]
• Consequentia mirabilis
  • the marvellous fact (das Wunderbare) in Hegel
• Contradiction
  • and completeness
    • principle of completion
  • and contrariety
  • and the Opposition Principle (O)
  • and the Principle of Contradiction (C)
    • as the form of truth
  • as the norm of truth
  • biconditional contradictions
    • and simplification
  • explosion
    • dialectic and dialetheism
  • true contradictions
• Dialectic
  • and reductio ad absurdum
  • and scepticism
  • and sophistry
  • and the “three sides of das Logische”
  • as the art of the dialogue
  • as the logic of contradiction
  • as the movement of pure concepts
  • dialectical inferences
    • and consequentia mirabilis arguments
    • and paradoxical deductions
  • external dialectic versus immanent dialectic
  • formalisation of
  • Hegel’s dialectic and Aristotle’s Topics
  • immanent dialectic with negative result versus immanent dialectic with positive result
• Doppelsatz
• Elenchos
• Empiricism
  • speculative empiricism of Aristotle
• Form of truth
• Formal
  • as general
  • as pertaining to forms
  • as pertaining to rules
  • as pertaining to the structure of sentences or arguments
  • as reflexive
  • as symbolic
  • as the result of abstraction
  • as the result of semantic ascent
  • as universal and necessary
• Formalistic argument (FA)
• Forms see Logical forms
• Idealism
  • and realism
  • metaphysical
  • transcendental
• Ideas
  • and rationality
  • reality of
• Infinite
  • bad infinite
  • genuine infinite
  • mathematical infinite
• Judgement (Urteil)
• Law of Excluded Middle
• Law of Non-Contradiction
• Liar Paradox
• Logic
  • alethic logic
  • and education
  • and truth
  • classical logic
  • common logic [gewöhnliche Logik]
  • conceptual logic
  • das Logische
  • dialectical logic
  • die logische Frage
  • formal logic
    • and transcendental logic
    • as calculus ratiocinator
    • as lingua characteristica
    • critique of
  • Hegel’s logic
    • and formalisation
    • and the history of logic
    • as conceptual analysis
    • as non-classical logic
    • as philosophical logic
    • as rebuilding traditional logic
  • history of logic
  • intellectual logic (Verstandeslogik)
  • logica naturalis and logica scholastica
  • logic as science
  • logic as theory
  • mathematical logic
  • natural logic
  • non-classical logic
    • paraconsistent logic
    • relevant logic
  • philosophical logic
    • logic of philosophy
  • rational logic (Vernunftlogik)
  • speculative logic
  • syllogistic logic
  • transcendental logic
    • and ontology
  • universal and necessary character of
• Logical forms
  • and content
  • as deposited in natural language and reasoning
  • as modalities of thought
  • as norms of thought
  • as revealing the essence of things
  • as seeds in plants
  • as truth-implying
  • forms of reality
  • forms of thought
  • forms of truth
  • generative
  • organic
  • power of
  • self-revising
  • syllogistic forms
• Metaphysics
  • das Metaphysische
  • metaphysics as theory
  • natural metaphysics
• Natural reasoning
  • errors of
• Negation
  • and concepts
  • as contradictory forming operator
  • and scepticism
  • as cancellation
  • connexivist
  • determinate negation
  • double negation
  • internal
  • iteration of negation in dialectic
  • Law of Dialectical Double Negation (DDN)
  • negativity
  • predicative negation
  • propositional negation
• Objective thought
• Ontology
• Principle of Identity (I)
• Reality (Wirklichkeit)
  • and rationality
  • sentence-like nature of reality
• Reflexive thought
• Scepticism
  • and logic
  • and philosophy
  • sceptical principle (S)
• Semantic ascent
• Sentence (Satz)
  • speculative sentence (spekulativer Satz)
• Syntax
  • interplay with semantics
• Tarski’s Schema
  • and Aristotle’s definition of truth
  • and Hegel’s Doppelsatz
• Transcendental philosophy
• True
  • as the process
  • as the whole
  • meaning of “true”
• Truth
  • and certainty
  • and episteme
  • and validity
  • as coherence
  • as correspondence
  • as property of sentences
  • as property of things
  • conceptual truth
  • correctness (Richtigkeit) versus truth (Wahrheit)
  • philosophical truth
  • pragmatistic conception of truth
  • speculative truth
  • transcendental truth
• Truth-bearers
• Validity
  • and dialectical logic
  • in Hegel and Aristotle
  • proof-theoretic and model-theoretic validity
  • semantic validity
• Vereinigung

Notes

1

An account of the literature will be given in the book. In 1976, 75 Gadamer stressed that the works traditionally engaged in reading Hegel from a contemporary point of view normally consider the Phenomenology of Spirit, and are interested in examining the meaning of Hegel for epistemology and philosophy of mind, while assessing the relevance of Hegel’s logic and metaphysics for contemporary philosophy is traditionally held as thorny. This judgement can now be partially revised. Today there are different works engaged in reading Hegel’s logic and metaphysics from an analytical perspective. Among the most recent ones see: Stekeler-Weithofer 1992, Bencivenga 2000, Burbidge 2004, 131 – 176, Berto 2005, Rockmore 2005, Ameriks/Stolzenberg 2005 (eds.), Redding 2007, Hammer 2007, Nuzzo 2010a (ed.), Butler 2012, Brandom 2014, 1 – 15, Bordignon 2014, Pippin 2016, Chapter II, Pippin 2019. See also the essays collected in Emundts/Sedgwick 2017, Moyar 2017, Quante/Mooren 2018.

2

In Der Gedanke (English translation Frege 1956, 290) Frege writes: “I assign to logic the task of discovering the laws of truth, not of assertion or thought”. In 1897 (now in Frege 1979, 3) Frege defines logic as “the science of the most general laws of truth”. He writes “the laws of logic are nothing else than an unfolding of the content of the word ‘true’ […] Anyone who has failed to grasp the meaning of this word […] cannot attain to any clear idea of what the task of logic is”. On the continuity between Hegelian, Aristotelian and modern logic see also in more detail Chapters 2 and 3. For clarifying insights on the link between logic and truth see d’Agostini 2011, 115 – 127 and the unpublished paper “Logic: the alethic account”.

3

See Part I, Chapter 2. below. Hegel’s supposed identification of logic and metaphysics seems to preclude any treatment in terms of modern logic, which is informe...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Abbreviated References and Citation
• Introduction
• I Logic
• II Form
• III Truth
• IV Validity
• V Contradiction
• Index of Names
• Index of Subjects