The positive outcome of philosophyDietzgen, Joseph
Philosophy
The positive outcome of philosophy
Dietzgen, Joseph
Knowledge, Theory of; Logic; Philosophy
Nevertheless you should know that anything which may take possession of
one's soul shares its sublimity with all other things, and is for this
reason at the same time something ordinary. Without such a dialectic
clarification of our consciousness all adoration is idol worship.
The actual experience, then, that anything and everything may serve as
an idol should clearly convince you that no one thing, but only the
universe is the true God, is truth and life.
Now, is this logic or is it theology?
It is both. At closer range you will notice that all great logicians
occupy themselves a great deal with God and deity, and that on the other
hand all honest theologians are trying to base their faith on some
logical order. Logic is by its whole nature metaphysical.[3]
There exists a class of logicians who attempt to deny the inevitable
connection between the celestial region and the tangible universe. Some
of them do so from excessive religious delicacy of feeling, in order to
protect the sublime from the disintegrating effects of critique. Others
have such an antipathy against the religious abuses that they do not
wish to hear any more about religion. Both classes adhere to the
so-called formal logic.
These adherents of formal logic may be compared to a maker of porcelain
dishes who would contend that he was simply paying attention to the form
of his dishes, pots, and vases, but that he did not have anything to do
with the raw material, while it is evident that he is compelled to form
the body in trying to embody forms. These things can be separated by
words only, but not by actions. In the same way as body and form, the
finite and infinite or so-called celestial spheres, the physical and the
metaphysical, are inseparable.
Logic analyzes thought. But it analyzes thought as it is in reality, and
therefore it unavoidably searches for truth. And whether this truth is
found above or below, or anywhere, is a question which just as
inevitably brings the logician into contact with the theologian. To
think of avoiding such a meeting from considerations of sympathy or
antipathy, would be a rude lack of consideration for science.
Metaphysical logic which aims to extend its field to eternity, which
looks for logical order even in heaven, and seeks to solve even the
so-called last questions of all knowledge, differs in a distinct way
from formal logic, which selects a restricted field for its research and
confines itself to investigating the logical order of the socalled
physical world. This difference is worthy of your special attention,
because in it there is hidden the kernel of our whole correspondence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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