Читать книгу Logic as the Science of the Pure Concept - Benedetto Croce - Страница 13

Opposite or contrary concepts.

By what has been said, we have made sufficiently clear the nature of distinct concepts, that is to say, unity in distinction and distinction in unity, and we have left no doubt as to the kind of unity which the concept affirms, that it is not in spite of but by means of distinction. But another difficulty seems to arise, due to another order of concepts, which are called opposites or contraries.

Their difference from distincts.

It is indubitable that opposite concepts neither are nor can be reduced to distincts; and this becomes evident so soon as instances of both are recalled to mind. In the system of the spirit, for instance, the practical activity will be distinct from the theoretic, and within the practical activity the utilitarian and ethical activities will be distinct. But the contrary of the practical activity is practical inactivity, the contrary of utility, harmfulness, the contrary of morality, immorality. Beauty, truth, utility, moral good are distinct concepts; but it is easy to see that ugliness, falsehood, uselessness, evil cannot be added to or inserted among them. Nor is this all: upon closer inspection we perceive that the second series cannot be added to or mingled with the first, because each of the contrary terms is already inherent in its contrary, or accompanies it, as shadow accompanies light. Beauty is such, because it denies ugliness; good, because it denies evil, and so on. The opposite is not positive, but negative, and as such is accompanied by the positive.

Confirmation of this given by the Logic of empiria.

This difference of nature between opposite concepts and distinct concepts is also reflected in empirical Logic, that is, in the theory of pseudoconcepts; because this Logic, while it reduces the distinct concepts to species, refuses to treat the opposites in like manner. Hence one does not say that the genus dog is divided into the species live dogs and dead dogs; or that the genus moral man is divided into the species moral and immoral man; and if such has sometimes been affirmed, an impropriety—even for this kind of Logic—has been committed, since the species can never be the negation of the genus. So this empirical Logic confirms in its own way that opposite concepts are different from distinct.

Difficulty arising from the double type of concepts, opposites, and distincts.

It is, however, equally evident that we cannot content ourselves with enumerating the opposite, side by side with the distinct concepts; because we should thus be adopting non-philosophical methods in place of philosophical, and in the philosophical theory of Logic should be lapsing into illogicality or empiricism. If the unity of the concept be at the same time its self-distinction, how can that same unity have another parallel sort of division or self-distinction, which is self-opposition! If it is inconceivable to resolve the one into the other, and to make of the opposites distinct concepts, or of the distincts opposite concepts, then it is not less inconceivable to leave both distincts and opposites within the unity of the concept unmediated and unexplained.

Nature of the opposites; and their identity with the distincts when distinguished from them.

It will possibly serve towards a solution of this difficulty—undoubtedly a very grave one—to go deeply into the nature of the difference between opposite and distinct concepts. These latter are distinguishable in unity; reality is their unity and also their distinction. Man is thought and action; indivisible but distinguishable forms; so much so that in so far as we think we deny action, and in so far as we act we deny thought. But the opposites are not distinguishable in this way: the man who commits an evil action, if he really does something, does not commit an evil action, but an action which is useful to him; the man who thinks a false thought, if he does something real, does not think the false thought, indeed does not think at all, but, on the contrary, lives and provides for his own convenience and in general for a good which at that instant he desires. Hence we see that the opposites, when taken as distinct moments, are no longer opposites, but distincts; and in that case they retain negative denominations only metaphorically, whereas, strictly speaking, they would merit positive. In order, therefore, that the consideration of opposition be not changed when superficially regarded into that of distinction, it is desirable not to make of it a distinction in the bosom of the concept, that is to say, to combat every distinction by opposition, by declaring it to be merely abstract.

Impossibility of distinguishing one opposite from another, as concept from concept.

So true is this, that no sooner are opposite terms taken as distincts than the one becomes the other, that is to say, both evaporate into emptiness. The disputes caused by the opposition of being to not-being and the unity of both in becoming are celebrated in this connection. And we know that being, thought as pure being, is the same as not-being or nothing; and nothing, thought as pure nothingness, is the same as pure being. Thus, the truth is neither the one nor the other, but is becoming, in which both are, but as opposites, and, therefore, indistinguishable: becoming is being itself, which has in it not-being, and so is also not-being. We cannot think the relation of being to not-being as the relation of one form of the spirit, or of reality, to another form. In the latter case we have unity in distinction: in the former, rectified or restored unity, that is to say, reaffirmed against emptiness; against the empty unity of mere being, or of mere not-being; or against the mere sum of being and of not-being.

The dialectic.

The two moments should certainly be synthesized, when we attack the abstract thought, which divides them: taken in themselves, they are, not two moments united in a third, but one only, the third (in this case also the number is a symbol), that is to say, the indistinguishability of the moments. It thus happens (be it said in passing) that Hegel, to whom we owe the polemic against empty being, was content for this purpose neither with the words unity and identity, nor with synthesis, nor with triad, and preferred to call this indistinguishable opposition in unity the objective dialectic of the real. But whatever be the words that we chose to employ, the thing is what has been said. The opposite is not the distinct of its opposite, but the abstraction of the true reality.

The opposites are not concepts, but the unique concept itself.

If this be the fact, the duality and parallelism of distinct and opposite concepts no longer exist. The opposites are the concept itself, and therefore the concepts themselves, each one in itself, in so far as it is determination of the concept, and in so far as it is conceived in its true reality. Reality, of which logical thought elaborates the concept, means, not motionless being or pure being, but opposition: the forms of reality, which the concept thinks in order to think reality in its fullness, are opposed in themselves; otherwise, they would not be forms of reality, or would not be at all. Fair is foul and foul is fair: beauty is such, because it has within it ugliness, the true is such because it has in it the false, the good is such because it has within it evil. If the negative term be removed, as is usually done in abstract thought, the positive also disappears; but precisely because, with the negative, the positive itself has been removed. When we talk of negative terms, or of non-values and so of not-beings as existing, existence really means that to the establishment of the fact we add the expression of the desire that another existence should arise upon that existence. "You are dishonest" means "You are a man that seeks your own pleasure" (a theoretic judgment); "but you ought to be" (no longer a judgment, but the expression of a desire) "something else, and so serve the universal ends of Reality." "You have written an ugly verse" will mean, for example, "You have provided for your own convenience and repose, and so have accomplished an economic act" (a theoretic judgment); "but you ought to accomplish an æsthetic act" (no longer judgment, but the expression of a wish). Examples can be multiplied. But every one has in him evil, because he has good: Satan is not a creature extraneous to God, nor the Minister of God, called Satan, but God himself. If God had not Satan in himself, he would be like food without salt, an abstract ideal, a simple ought to be which is not, and therefore impotent and useless. The Italian poet who had sung of Satan, as "rebellion" and "the avenging force of reason," had a profound meaning when he concluded by exalting God: as "the most lofty vision to which peoples attain in the force of their youth," "the Sun of sublime minds and of ardent hearts." He corrected and integrated the one abstraction with the other, and thus unconsciously attained to the fullness of truth.

Affirmation and negation.

Thought, in so far as it is itself life (that is to say, the life which is thought, and therefore life of life), and in so far as it is reality (that is to say, the reality which is thought, and therefore reality of reality) has in itself opposition; and for this reason it is also affirmation and negation; it does not affirm save by denying, and does not deny save by affirming. But it does not affirm and deny save by distinguishing, because thought is distinction, and we cannot distinguish (truly distinguish i.e., which is a different thing from the rough and ready separations made by the pseudoconcepts) save by unifying. He who meditates upon the connections of affirmation-negation and unity-distinction has before him the problem of the nature of thought, and so of the nature of reality; and he ends by seeing that those two connections are not parallel nor disparate, but are in their turn unified in unity-distinction understood as effective reality, and not as simple abstract possibility, or desire, or mere ought to be.

The principle of identity and contradiction; its true meaning and false interpretation.

If we now wish to state the nature of thought as reality in the form of law (a form which we know to be one with that of the concept, though the first term be adopted by preference for the pseudoconcepts), we can only say that the law of thought is the law of unity and distinction, and therefore that it is expressed in the two formulæ A is A (unity) and A is not B (distinction), which are precisely what is called the law or principle of identity and contradiction. It is a very improper, or, rather, a very equivocal formula, chiefly because it allows it to be supposed that the law or principle is outside or above thought, like a bridle and guide, whereas it is thought itself; and it has the further inconvenience of not placing in clear relief the unity of identity and distinction. But these are not too great evils, because misunderstandings can be made clear, and because—what we will not tire of repeating—all, all words indeed, are exposed to misunderstandings.

Another false interpretation; struggle with the principle of opposition. False application of this principle.

We have a much greater evil, when the principle of identity and contradiction is formulated and understood, not in the sense that A is not B, but in that of A is A only and not also not A, or its opposite; because, understood in this way, it leads directly to placing the negative moment outside the positive, not-being outside or opposite to being, and so, to the absurd conception of reality as motionless and empty being. In opposition to this degeneration of the principle of identity and contradiction, another law or principle has been conceived and made prominent, whose formula is: "A is also not A," or "everything is self-contradicting." This is a necessary and provident reaction against the one-sided way in which the preceding principle was interpreted. But it too brings in its turn the inconvenience of all reactions, because it seems to rise up against the first law, like an irreconcilable rival destined to supplant it. In the first formula we have a duality of principles, which, as has been said, cannot logically be maintained; in the second, a degeneration in the opposite sense, the total loss of the criterion of distinction. To the false application of the principle of identity and contradiction succeeds the false application of the dialectic principle.

This false application has also been manifested in a form which could be called doubly arbitrary; that is to say, when it has attempted to treat dialectically neither more nor less than empirical and abstract concepts, whereas in any case it could not be applied to anything but the pure concepts. The dialectic belongs to opposed categories (or, rather, it is the thinking of the one category of opposition), not at all to representative and abstract fictions, which are based either upon mere representation or upon nothing. As the result of that arbitrary form, we have seen vegetable opposed to mineral, society opposed to the family, or even Rome opposed to Greece, and Napoleon to Rome; or the superficies actually opposed to the line, time to space, and the number two to the number one. But this error belongs to another more general error, which we shall deal with in its place, when discussing philosophism.

Errors of the dialectic applied to the relation of the distincts.

Here it is important to indicate only that false application of the dialectic which tends to resolve in itself and so to destroy distinct concepts, by treating them as opposites. The distinct concepts are distinct and not opposite; and they cannot be opposite, precisely because they already have opposition in themselves. Fancy has its opposite in itself, fanciful passivity, or æsthetic ugliness, and therefore it is not the opposite of thought, which in its turn has its opposite in itself, logical passivity, antithought, or the false. Certainly (as has been said), he who does not make the beautiful (in so far as he does anything, and he cannot but do something) effectively produces another value, for example the useful, and he who does not think, if he does anything, produces another value, the fanciful for instance, and creates a work of art. But in this way we issue from those determinations considered in themselves, from the opposition which is in them and which constitutes them; and from the consideration of effectual opposition we pass to the consideration of distinction. Considered as real, the opposite cannot be anything but the distinct; but the opposite is precisely the unreal in the real, and not a form or grade of reality. It will be said that unless one distinct concept is opposed to another, it is not clear how there can be a transition from one to the other. But this is a confusion between concept and fact, between ideal and therefore eternal moments of the real and their existential manifestations. Existentially, a poet does not become a philosopher, save when in his spirit there arises a contradiction to his poetry, that is to say, when he is no longer satisfied with the individual and with the individual intuition: in that moment, he does not pass into but is a philosopher, because to pass, to be effectual, and to become are synonyms. In the same way, a poet does not pass from one intuition to another, or from one work of art to another, save through the formation of an internal contradiction, owing to which his previous work no longer satisfies him; and he passes into, that is to say he becomes and truly is, another poet. Transition is the law of the whole of life; and therefore it is in all the existential and contingent determinations of each of these forms. We pass from one verse of a poem to another because the first verse satisfies, and also does not satisfy. The ideal moments, on the contrary, do not pass into one another, because they are eternally in each other, distinct, and one with each other.

Its reductio ad absurdum.

Moreover, the violent application of the dialectic to the distincts, and their illegitimate distortion into opposites, due to an elevated but ill-directed tendency to unity, is punished where it sins; that is to say, in not attaining to that unity to which it aspired. The connection of distinct is circular, and therefore true unity; the application of opposites to the forms of the spirit and of reality would produce, on the contrary, not the circle, which is true infinity, but the progressif ad infinitum, which is false or bad infinity. Indeed, if opposition determine the transition from one ideal grade to the other, from one form to the other, and is the sole character and supreme law of the real, by what right can a final form be established, in which that transition should no longer take place? By what right, for instance, should the spirit, which moves from the impression or emotion and passes dialectically to the intuition, and by a new dialectic transition to logical thought, remain calm and satisfied there? Why (as is the contention of such philosophies) should the thought of the Absolute or of the Idea be the end of Life? In obedience to the law of opposition, it would be necessary that thought, which denies intuition, should be in its turn denied; and the denial again denied; and so on, to infinity. This negation to infinity exists, certainly, and it is life itself, seen in representation; but precisely for this reason we do not escape from this evil infinite of representation save through the true infinite, which places the infinite in every moment, the first in the last and the last in the first, that is to say, places in every moment unity, which is distinction.

We must, however, recognize that the false application of the dialectic has had, per accidens, the excellent result of demonstrating the instability of a crowd of ill-distinguished concepts; as we must take advantage of the devastation and overturning of secular prejudices which it has brought about. But that erroneous dialectic has also promoted the habit of lack of precision in the concepts, and sometimes encouraged the charlatanism of superficial thinkers; though this too, per accidens, so far as concerns the initial motive of dialectical polemic is rich with profound truth.

The Improper form of logical principles or laws. The principle of sufficient reason.

The form of law given to the concept of the concept has led to this confusion; for it is an improper form, all saturated with empirical usage. Given the law of identity and contradiction, and given side by side with it that of opposition or dialectic, there inevitably arises a seeming duality; whereas the two laws are nothing but two inopportune forms of expressing the unique nature of the concept, or, rather, of reality itself. The peculiar nature of the concept may rather be said to be expressed in another law or principle, namely that of sufficient reason. This principle is ordinarily used as referring to the concept of cause, or to the pseudoconcepts, but (both in its peculiar tendency and in its historical origin) it truly belonged to the concept of end or reason. That is to say, it was desired to establish that things cannot be said to be known, when any sort of cause for them is adduced, but on the contrary, that cause must be adduced, which is also the end, and which is, therefore, the sufficient reason. But what else does seeking the sufficient reason of things mean but thinking them in their truth, conceiving them in their universality, and stating their concept? This is logical thought, as distinct from representation or intuition, which offers things but not reasons, individuality but not universality.

It is not worth while talking about the other so-called logical principles; because, either they have been already implicitly dealt with, or they are ineptitudes without any sort of interest.