Logic as the Science of the Pure Concept

by Benedetto Croce

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.