A Discussion of Hegel's Introduction to Logic

Hegel's Introduction to Logic is an interesting text, more interesting to discover about the so-called logic than the contents of Science of Logic itself. But perhaps he has over-evaluated logic. Is it true that as he put it in a statement that "But in the first place it is most inept to say that Logic abstracts from all content, that it teaches only the rules of Thinking without going into what is thought or being able to consider its nature. For since Thinking and the Rules of Thinking are the subject of Logic, Logic has directly in them its own peculiar content"?


First of all, Hegel acknowledges that there are two separate parts of knowledge: the rules of Thinking which is the Form of Knowledge and the Thinking which is the Content of Knowledge. It is also that this Content of Knowledge is known as material of knowledge but is rawer than the content itself because the material of knowledge has not yet become the Object of the Thinking or has not been connected with the subject by the means of the Form of Knowledge; in another word, Thinking is empty in itself towards the material of knowledge. Next, these two constituents then have a reciprocal relation and cognition is then constructed out of them in a best mechanical fashion called Logic, and unless these constituents are placed in a relation, thought is something incomplete and has to adapt itself to its raw material. Of course, Hegel's important statement in this part is that: "Truth is supposed to be the agreement of thought with its object, and in order to bring about this agreement (for this agreement is not there by itself) thinking must accommodate and adapt itself to its object." This is where he began his Logic with.


When thinking is connected with material, the material becomes Matter, or Object of Thought. However, in the Older Metaphysic world - Hegel's language - Thought in its relation to Object does not go out of itself into the Object, and the Object is a thing-in-inself that also remains as something beyond Thought. The Older Metaphysic which Hegel talks about refers to Platonic and Kantian systems of thoughs whereas "that alone is what is really true in them; that what is really true is not things in their immediacy, but only things when they have been taken up into the Form of Thought, as conceptions" are pointing towards Plato's ideas of abstract concepts or essence and the necessary conflict of the reflections is what Kant calls the antinomies in his Prolegomena. But above all is Hegel's acknowledgmetnt that the contradiction in those antinomies is necessary and "is the lifting of Reason above the limitations of Understanding, and the dissolution of these." And this is an interesting point where my opposing thought had to stop myself to think while reading him. But it was not very explosive until I have finished the next statements. In latter passages, Hegel who seems to forget what he just said opposes Kant's famous statement that "we can never understand things-in-themselves" with a serious voice. He writes:


Instead of starting from this point to make final
step upwards, knowledge recognizing the unsatisfactory
nature of the determinations of Understanding, flies
straight back to sensible existence, thinking to find
therein stability and unity. But on the other hand,
since this knowledge knows itself to be knowledge
only of appearances, its insufficiency is confessed,
yet at the same time it is supposed that things, as
though only the kinds of objects were different, the
other kind,namely things in themselves, did not fall
within knowledge, and the other kind, namely Appearances
did so fall.


He then concludes mockingly "It is as though accurate perception were attributed to a man, with the proviso that he yet could not perceive Truth but only untruth. Absurd as this could be, a true knowledge which did not know the object of knowledge as it is in itself, would be equally absurd." Here again, Hegel gives more credits to his Logic by thinking that things-in-themselves can become reasonably and order cognitive if they are to be related in a manner where they can be drawn together under one subject using logic. This is where my opposing point is going to the highest intense because it seems that Hegel has just contradicted himself with the previous thoughts that contradiction is a useful means to uplift Reason. When he fist said that contradiction was one of the instruments to help uncover an illogical link that may come up in a logic chain, right away, I thought that this point of view couldn't be wholly true for since this would mean nothing in the case of one subject that is considered in different perspectives where no perspective can make the arguments in relation to the subject become wholly logical. Moreover, in seeking for the correct answer, if there are 2 propositions that are both right or both wrong, then it is easier to approach a certain conclusion than one is right and the other is wrong. If the righ one that is actually the wrong one that is presupposed to be the right then the wrong one is always considered to be right, and if so we can never have a precise knowledge of which is truly right and which is truly wrong. The first presupposition is a wrong one or a right one is very dangerous; sometimes it's better that we don't presuppose anything wrong or right but just list out some seem-to-be-conflict propositions as Kant did for his antinomies, and then proceed to prove whether which one is more correct than the other.