CU Course on Hegel,
Part 7a
Syllogism
The Subject and
the Syllogism
“The Notion is the principle of freedom, the
power of substance self-realised. It is a systematic whole, in which each of
its constituent functions is the very total which the notion is, and is put as
indissolubly one with it. Thus in its self-identity it has original and
complete determinateness.
“The onward movement of the notion is no longer
either a transition into, or a reflection on something else, but Development.
For in the notion, the elements distinguished are without more ado at the same
time declared to be identical with one another and with the whole, and the
specific character of each is a free being of the whole notion.” (The Shorter Logic, The Notion §160-1)
Lenin in “The State
and Revolution” writes about the true theory of development. He
is referring to the dialectical logic of Hegel. This is not the theory of
“service delivery”, or of the “developmental state”. It is the theory of how
humans, taken all together, became what they now are, and how they continue to
develop as humanity as a whole, into the future.
What are we getting
from our studies of Hegel? One thing we are getting is a theory of development
that can help us to make sense of “developmental” state, which is otherwise
little more than a “buzz word” in our times.
So, for example, in
the quotation above we may substitute the word “nation” for the word “notion”,
and it makes sense, and is compatible with Karl Marx and Frederick Engels’
statement in the Communist Manifesto that “the free development of each is the
condition for the free development of all”.
We have also noted
that Karl Marx used Hegel’s ways and means to work out what became “Capital”,
the most influential book in history.
We have got pointers
or signposts which will help us as we continue to read, study and discuss.
Do we all need to
fully master Hegel at once? No, but as a Party we do need a significant number
of the communists to have mastered Hegel. The knowledge of Hegel needs to be
kept alive by a virtual collective of communist scholars.
The rest of us need
to be constantly moving towards a better understanding of Hegel. We need at
least to have an appreciation of why we have to have some understanding
of Hegel if we are properly to understand Marx; and in this course we have
probably achieved that much, at least, by now. We need to appreciate that for
the Party, Hegel is indispensible, and not a disposable option. That is why
this ten-part course on Hegel is one of the twelve Communist University Generic
Courses and must remain so.
The Subject
The downloadable
study text for this instalment (see below) is Andy Blunden’s seventh lecture,
on The Subject in Hegel’s Logic.
What is “The
Subject”? In philosophy in general, the fundamental question is the
relationship between human Subject and the material Objective universe. Simply
put, life is a dialectical unity-and-struggle-of-opposites between Subject and
Object, where the one cannot exist without the other. Paulo Freire is eloquent
about this, notably at the end of Chapter
One of “The Pedagogy of the Oppressed,” where he writes, among other
things:
“A revolutionary leadership must accordingly
practice co-intentional education. Teachers and students (leadership and
people), co-intent on reality, are both Subjects, not only in the task of
unveiling that reality and thereby coming to know it critically, but in the
task of re-creating that knowledge. As they attain this knowledge of reality
through common reflection and action, they discover themselves as its permanent
re-creators. In this way, the presence of the oppressed in the struggle for
their liberation will be what it should be: not pseudo-participation, but
committed involvement.”
The first page of
Andy Blunden’s lecture gives depth to this basic understanding of The Subject
and then introduces a Hegelian elaboration of The Subject. This may typify the
difficulty of Hegel: Just when you thought that you had secured yourself to a
firm philosophical rock, Hegel seems to be taking a hammer to it and setting
you adrift again. Please do not fear: nothing is going to be lost.
Nor are we in the
realm of mysteries. On the contrary, what we find is that Hegel is providing
ways to think about quite familiar things, which may not have been in the realm
of philosophy before, like The Judgement of Solomon, the Declaration of
Independence, the Magna Carta, and we can add, the South African Freedom
Charter. Hegel is making a theory of how these determined movements forward
can and do, in Hegel’s words, “emerge out
of the throng of disputation”.
Hegelian philosophy,
as obscure as it may seem, turns out to be the only philosophy that can
help us with the actual political life we lead.
Almost at the end of
this lecture Andy Blunden says:
“…the notions,
judgments and syllogisms of the section on Subjectivity, render themselves as
typical of the forms of consciousness encountered within such formal
organisations. Lenin’s insistence in 1901 that to be a member of the Party an
individual had to participate in one of the Party’s branches or activities is
rational in this light.” (Read it! This is one occasion when the
introduction will not suffice without the reading of the actual text.)
Earlier, Andy had written:
“[Hegel’s] Doctrine of
the Notion is made up of Subject, Object and Idea. The Idea is the unity of
Subject and Object, the process in which the objectification or
institutionalization of the Subject continues to drive the development of the
active and living subject. This development of the Subject itself, the inner
development of the subject which continues within and alongside its
objectification, has the form of the movement towards an all-round developed
relation between individual, universal and particular.”
So we can note that there is a connection between Notion,
Subject and Object, and then that the development of the Subject involves the individual, universal and particular,
which three are soon reduced to “I”, “U” and “P”; and all this moves towards an
articulation of socio-political behaviour which is practically useful to the
point of being indispensible.
Syllogisms
Andy Blunden goes into the question of Hegel’s specific
“syllogisms” very carefully, so we can simply recommend that reading. But what
is a “syllogism” as such? And what is different about Hegel’s syllogisms, as
compared to other ones?
One difference is that Hegel’s syllogisms are all made up of
one each of “I”, “U” and “P”; Individual, Universal and Particular. Andy
Blunden shows very well what that means.
But syllogisms in general are also typically like the
“Socrates” syllogism ("All men are
mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal.") - a tight,
undoubtedly true series of two premises and a conclusion, where because the
premises are true, therefore the conclusion must also be true.
There are other syllogisms where the conclusion does not
necessarily fully “follow” from the premises. Such a syllogism may appear to be
a “non sequitur” (Latin for “does not
follow”), or at least as a possible “non
sequitur”. Andy Blunden gives several examples of such “deficient”
syllogisms in his lecture.
Are such half-true syllogisms any use? Yes! Hegel has found
a way to make use of them, and this way of Hegel’s works because of the
distinction between Individual, Universal and Particular.
It is a bit like “approximation” in mathematics. When the
student first comes across it, approximation appears to violate and betray
everything that was hitherto taught about truth and certainty. But when
approximation is done scientifically it creates a degree of certainty out of
uncertainty that cannot be got in any other way.
So it is with Hegel’s syllogisms.
We are now getting very close to the precise reference for
Lenin’s remark that: “It is impossible
completely to understand Marx's Capital, and especially its first chapter,
without having thoroughly studied and understood the whole of Hegel's Logic.”
It should not be too difficult to find in Marx’s Capital a lot of syllogisms of
the Hegel type, which are only understandable in the Hegel way.
- The above is to introduce the original reading-text: The Subject - Universal, Particular and Individual, 2007, Blunden.
- To download any of the CU courses in PDF files please click here.
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