Contradiction and Dialectic

Sean Sayers
University of Kent

The philosophy of dialectic has always been among the most controversial and least well
understood aspects of Hegelian and Marxist thought. It is rejected by many writers who are
otherwise sympathetic to Marxism. One such is Marquit. In a recent article (Marquit, 1990),1
he criticizes the dialectical concept of contradiction. Many of his arguments will be familiar to
anyone acquainted with the relevant literature.2 Nevertheless, they deserve a reply, since they
raise many of the fundamental issues, and misunderstandings, in this area.

Confusingly, Marquit insists on describing his own position as `materialist dialectics'. I shall
come to the question of materialism in due course; but dialectic it is not not, at least, in the
usual sense of the term, which describes the philosophy of Hegel and classical Marxists like
Engels and Lenin. This is quite explicitly a philosophy of contradiction, as Marquit himself
demonstrates at some length (148-56). Its central tenet is that change is an essential feature of
all concrete things; and this can be understood only by recognizing the contradictions which are
inherent in things, and by describing them in contradictory terms.3

Marquit rejects this outlook as both logically and philosophically untenable. Motion and change,
he argues, can be described without recourse to contradictions. The dialectical view that things
are contradictory is a form of idealism deriving from Hegel.

Dialectic and Logic

Marquit's arguments all hinge around his belief in the Law of Non-Contradiction, as I shall call
it.4 This law forms a standard part of traditional, Aristotelian logic. It states that a proposition
and its negation cannot both be true of the same thing, at the same time, in the same respect.
According to Marquit, this is a fundamental law of logic and necessary principle of rational
thought. If he is correct, the philosophy of dialectic must be rejected on purely logical grounds,
for it quite explicitly violates this law.5

Views such as these views are widely shared. They form perhaps the greatest obstacle standing
in the way of a proper appreciation of dialectic. However, recent developments in logic have

1
Unattributed page references are to this article.
2
See Norman and Sayers (1980) for an annotated guide to this literature. In this work, Norman presents a
position very similar to Marquit's, and I criticize it. I have tried not to duplicate this material here.
3
See Sayers (1981). From his comments (162-3), it would appear that Marquit has missed the central point
of this article, which is about dialectic in the area of science. See also Norman and Sayers (1980, chs 1, 4).
4
Marquit starts off by calling it the law of contradiction, but does not stick to this consistently. Both usages
are found in the literature.
5
See Sayers (1981). From his comments, it would appear that Marquit has missed the central point of this
article, which is about dialectic in the area of science. See also Norman and Sayers (1980, chs 1, 4).
 -2-

called them into question. For the whole field of logic has been transformed during the past
hundred years with the development of symbolic or mathematical logic pioneered by Frege and
Russell.6 The significance of this work is still not widely understood.

Frege and Russell showed that the principles of the traditional Aristotelian logic of non-
contradiction can be expressed in symbolic form. Thus, in Frege-Russell logic, there are valid
equivalents of the Laws of Identity, A=A, Excluded Middle, Av~A, and Non-Contradiction,
~(A&~A). For this reason, it is often referred to as `standard logic'. Even so, standard logic
results in a radically altered view of the status of the traditional Aristotlean laws. They are
demoted from their fundamental place: `the law of [non-]contradiction is merely one among
logical propositions; it has no special pre-eminence' (Russell, 1919, 202).

However, even more important in this context is the fact that standard logic is not the only kind
of logic: alternative systems are possible. In some the traditional Aristotelian laws remain valid;
in others they do not. From a purely logical point of view, these are equally valid, equally
possible, alternatives.

In this respect, the impact of symbolic logic in the field of logic has been comparable to that of
the discovery of the possibility of non-Euclidean geometries in mathematics. Just as Aristotelian
logic was regarded as embodying universal and necessary logical laws, so Euclidean geometry
was regarded as giving a true and necessary account of space. And, just as that view has been
undermined by the discovery that there are valid alternatives to Euclid's system, so the possibility
of alternative logics has undermined the idea that Aristotle's laws constitute universal `laws of
thought'.

The most familiar of these alternatives are the various forms of `many valued' logic. In these
systems, propositions need not be either True or False, other values are possible. In them,
therefore, the traditional Law of Excluded Middle does not hold. Moreover, as Priest (1989)
argues in an important paper, it is also possible to develop systems in which the Law of Non-
Contradiction is not valid. Marquit (159-62) discusses this article without apparently grasping
its significance, since he writes, `although modern formal logic is not formulated in classical
terms, it still retains the essential content of the Law of Non-Contradiction' (162). If Priest is
right, however, Marquit is simply mistaken: the Law of Non-Contradiction is not a necessary or
universally valid logical law; and the dialectical concept of contradiction cannot be rejected on
purely formal logical grounds.

This is a result of great importance for dialectic. It shows that it is logically possible to make
valid statements which are contradictory in form. However, dialectic goes much further than
this. It claims not only that such statements are possible but that, for certain purposes, they are
essential. For concrete things are necessarily in relation to other things, and essentially
changeable; and, according to dialectic, for a correct understanding of these features of things,
it is ultimately necessary to recognize their contradictory nature and use contradictory forms of
expression to describe them.

These views lie beyond the scope of logic, as the term is now normally used. For logic, in this

6
See Kneale and Kneale (1962) for an authoritative account.
 -3-

sense, is concerned solely with the properties of formal deductive systems; whereas questions
about the utility of such systems for describing reality are philosophical questions.7 Confusion
arises because Hegel describes dialectic as a form of logic; and in this he is followed by many
Marxists, including Marquit. This use of the term was common in Hegel's time: it can be found
in the work of Kant and other contemporaries; but it is no longer current, at least in the English-
speaking world. In any case, dialectic is clearly not a logic as just defined. It is a philosophical
theory which attempts to characterize the nature of reality in its most abstract and general terms,
and hence the principles of thought which must be used to describe it correctly.

Problems of Motion and Change

Marquit responds to it in these terms. Thus, in opposition to dialectic, he argues not only that
it is not possible to make valid contradictory statements; but also that it is not necessary to do
so. The facts of relation and change, he maintains, can be described without recourse to
contradictory forms of expression.

Marquit focuses mainly on the problem of change, and I shall follow him in this. It is useful to
distinguish two kinds of change: quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative change is change of
place, mechanical motion. Since the very beginnings of Western philosophy, it has posed
philosophical problems. Zeno's paradoxes, formulated in the fifth century B.C., are designed to
show that motion entails contradictions. These paradoxes are still debated (Salmon, 1970). The
dialectical account of motion accepts Zeno's argument that there are contradictions in the very
nature of motion, but instead of concluding that motion is impossible, it maintains that `motion
is existent contradiction' (Hegel, 1969, 440).

Marquit presents these arguments well enough; but it is not easy to make out his response to
them. He seems to want to have things both ways. Accordingly, his response comes in two
parts. The clearest part is his rejection of the dialectical view that the description of motion
requires the use of contradictions. According to Marquit, we can describe a body in motion
simply by saying that at one instant of time it is in one place, while at another instant it is at
another place. No contradiction need be involved.

This account of motion is familiar from the work of Russell (1922) and other critics of dialectic.
It is perfectly correct as far as it goes, and no one to my knowledge disputes it. However, it does
not go far enough to answer the philosophical problems raised by Zeno's arguments or by
dialectic. For to say only that motion is being in different places at different times is not to
describe motion itself, but only the effects of motion. Indeed, Marquit's account in effect reduces
motion to a succession of states of rest, as he readily admits: `we can only represent a state by
stopping its motion. Motion is then viewed as a succession of states of stopped motion ... like
the succession of frames projected on the screen in a cinema' (157).

To be sure, it is not possible to describe motion as such if contradictions are excluded. To say

7
So, too, geometry is now regarded as a branch of pure mathematics, concerned solely with the mathematical
properties of various formal systems; and questions about the properties of physical space are regarded as
questions for physics rather than geometry.
 -4-

of a moving body only that it is at a particular place at a particular instant, is not to describe it as
in motion there, nor is it to describe it as in a state of `stopped motion', whatever that may mean
it is to describe it as stopped period. This is the basis of Zeno's paradox, and Hegel's argument
(Priest, 1985). In order to get movement into the picture, according to dialectic, we must
recognize both that the body is at that place and that, in the same instant, it is also ceasing to be
so. For our description needs to capture the fact not only that the body is where it is, but also that
it is moving hence in a process of change and becoming. For this contradiction is essential. As
Hegel (1969, 440) says, `something moves not because at one moment it is here and at another
there, but because at one and the same moment it is here and not here.'

No answer to these arguments is forthcoming from Marquit, beyond a mere assertion of the
position Hegel here criticizes. However, there is another line of thought in Marquit's piece which
appears to conflict with this `cinematic' picture of motion. Thus he claims (166, cf. 157) that
`materialist dialectics can resolve [Zeno's] paradox without invoking a logical contradiction by
considering motion to be a transition between states, whereby the state is considered only
transitory and its static description approximate.' But what does it mean to say that a `state of
being' is `transitory'? To explain this is just the problem; and it is difficult to see how Marquit
can do so consistently. For if motion is resolved into states of rest, as Marquit would like, then
there is no such thing as a `transitory' state. Russell recognizes this. He concedes that such a
view denies `that there is such a thing as a state of motion' (quoted by Priest, 1985, 340); but
Marquit seems unaware of this problem.

In short, Marquit wants to have it both ways. He tries both to resolve motion into successive
states of rest, and at the same time talk of the transitory nature of things. This cannot be done.
Despite his easy assurances, Zeno's paradoxes continue to exercise philosophers, and the
dialectical view that motion is `existent contradiction' is by no means discredited.

Things also change qualitatively: they change their properties. This, too, poses old and familiar
philosophical problems. For in certain circumstances, a thing may retain its identity through
change this, at least, is our ordinary way of speaking. Thus we say that a plant which grows and
changes is still the same plant; and a car which gets battered and worn and repaired is still the
same car. In such cases we say that things change, yet remain the same. However, such talk
seems to involve contradictions; for identity and difference are contradictory opposites.

According to Marquit there is an easy way round this problem. When we say that a thing changes
yet keeps its identity, we are referring to different aspects of the thing. We mean that it changes
in some respects, while remaining the same in others. When the opposites of identity and
difference are thus assigned to different aspects of the thing, no contradiction arises. Thus
Marquit (155, cf. 152) claims that there is a `thread of continuity uniting the object in its previous
state to its new or changed state, so that the object retains its integrity while in some respects it
changes. There is no need to assert the identity of opposites in the sense of Hegel.'

Of course, when something changes, some of its properties may remain unchanged. Its new form
may thus be similar to its old one. But similarity and identity are distinct notions; and the fact
is that the object as a whole has changed: it is no longer the same. Marquit disguises this fact
with vague phrases. He talks of an object which changes `retaining its integrity', and `retaining
 -5-

some aspect of its distinctiveness' (155, 152). Followed through clearly and consistently,
however, Marquit's position rules out the very possibility that a thing can change and yet retain
its identity. More rigorous philosophers have not shrunk from facing these consequences. Thus
Hume concludes that virtually all our everyday talk of identity is mistaken. `Objects which are
variable ... and yet are suppos'd to continue the same, are such only as consist of a succession of
parts, connected together by resemblance, contiguity, or causation ... As such a succession
answers evidently to our notion of diversity, it can only be by a mistake we ascribe to it an
identity' (Hume, 1888, 257).

The philosophy of dialectic, by contrast, maintains that change and development are in the very
nature of things. Up to a point,8 moreover, things keep their identities through these changes.
The plant which grows and develops is the same plant; the car which grows old and battered is
the same car. In other words, the same thing which is present at the beginning of the process of
change, is there at the end, developed and altered. To maintain with Marquit that identity
excludes difference is, quite simply, to deny the very possibility of such development. In order
to comprehend it, we must recognize that the identity of real things includes within it the
possibility of change, the possibility of difference. In short, we must resort to contradictions.
This, at least, is the dialectical view, the view of Hegel and of classical Marxism (Sayers, 1985,
32-5; Norman and Sayers, 1980, 73-7).

Hegel and Idealism

According to Marquit, the account of dialectic that I have been defending the philosophy of
Hegel, Engels and Lenin is the idealist form of dialectic. He reserves for his own position the
title of `materialist dialectics'. I have argued that Marquit's ideas are not dialectical; likewise,
they are not materialist.

Marquit's argument goes as follows. The Hegelian dialectic, by taking contradiction as the basis
of motion and change, portrays material and historical phenomena as logical ones. In the
Hegelian scheme, material events, which unfold in time, are portrayed as a purely atemporal,
logical development of concepts; and this is idealism.

These arguments are based on a tangle of misconceptions about Hegel's philosophy which I have
not the space to unravel here (but see Norman and Sayers, 1980, ch. 4; Sayers, 1985, 43-5). I will
confine myself to some central points. According to Marquit, `the idealist dialectics of Hegel's
logic does not share the materialist need for the unity of the logical and the historical. The
movement to which Hegel refers is movement in the notion but not in time' (153). None of this
is correct. The first sentence is extraordinary of a philosopher whose most notorious principle
is that `what is rational is actual and what is actual is rational' (Hegel, 1952, 10) or rather it
would be if such misconceptions about Hegel were not so depressingly common. Furthermore,
it is just because Hegel believes in the unity of the rational and the actual, the logical and the
historical, that he does not regard logical developments as `timeless'. Quite the contrary. One
of Hegel's greatest achievements in philosophy was to portray all aspects of human life
including philosophy and logic as social and historical through and through. To be sure, Hegel

8
According to Hegel (1975, §§107ff), every concrete thing has its limit, or `measure', beyond which change
in it gives rise to a new thing. Cf. also Engels' on the transformation of `quantity into quality'.
 -6-

regards history as the `realization of reason'. Partly he means this in the idealistic and ultimately
theological sense that history is the result of rational purpose. But at the same time he sees
history as a progressive process the outcome of conflicts and contradictions in which reason
is increasingly developed and realized in human practical and social life. Marx's work develops
from this basis, as Marx himself never hesitated to acknowledge.

In short, the idea that logical developments are entirely distinct from material ones and `not in
time' is quite foreign to Hegel. In this respect Hegel is unusual; for this doctrine is a standard part
of much modern philosophy. It is implied by the view that the Law of Non-Contradiction and
the other supposed laws of logic are universal and eternal principles. This, of course, is Marquit's
view. It cannot be reconciled with Marquit's claims to materialism; for, as he rightly says,
materialism insists on the unity of the logical and the historical. Something has to give in
Marquit's position; and there is not much doubt what it will be. For the claim to materialism is
a mere adornment, it plays no essential part; whereas the claim that the Law of Non-
Contradiction is a universal logical law is the linchpin of it all.
 -7-

REFERENCES

Hegel, G.W .F., 1952. Philosophy of Right, tr. T.M. Knox. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Hegel, G.W.F., 1969. The Science of Logic, tr. A.V. Miller. London: Allen and Unwin.

Hegel, G.W.F., 1975. Logic (Encyclopedia, Part I), tr. W. Wallace. Oxford: Clarendon Press,
3rd edn.

Hume, D., 1888. A Treatise of Human Nature. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Marquit, E., 1990. "A Materialist Critique of Hegel's Concept of Identity of Opposites."
Science & Society, 54:2 (Summer), 147-66.

Norman, R. and Sayers, S., 1980. Hegel, Marx and Dialectic: A Debate. Atlantic Highlands,
NJ: Humanities Press.

Priest, G., 1985. "Inconsistencies in Motion." American Philosophical Quarterly, 22:4

(October), 339-46.

Priest, G., 1989. "Dialectic and Dialethic." Science & Society, 53:4, 388-414.

Russell, B., 1919. Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy. London: Allen and Unwin.

Russell, B., 1922. Our Knowledge of the External World. London: Allen and Unwin.

Salmon, W.C. ed., 1970. Zeno's Paradoxes. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.

Sayers, S., 1981. "Contradiction and Dialectic in the Development of Science." Science &
Society, 45:4 (Winter), 409-36.

Sayers, S., 1985. Reality and Reason: Dialectic and the Theory of Knowledge. Oxford:
Blackwell.