Tiếng ViệtThe law of logical thinking refers to the inherent, essential, and common relationships between the forms that make up the logical structure within the process of thinking.
Concept
The law of logical thinking in English is called The Law of Logical Thinking.
A law is the inherent, essential, and common relationship between objects, phenomena, or between aspects within an object or phenomenon in the objective world.
Logical thinking is also a process in which thoughts are linked together according to certain laws. Adherence to the laws of thought inherent in it is a prerequisite for ensuring the objective truth of cognition.
So, the law of logical thinking is the inherent, essential, and common relationships between the forms that make up the logical structure within the process of thinking. This structure has been formed throughout history based on the objective relationships between objects and phenomena in the external world.
Characteristics of the law of logical thinking:
– Like all laws of nature and society, the laws of thought are objective. Humans cannot arbitrarily create or change them; they can only discover them. Moreover, the laws of thought adapt to the laws of the objective world because the laws of the objective world determine them.
– Recognizing the objectivity of the laws of thought allows us to study them as relatively independent existing phenomena, clearly seeing the role of correct thinking in perceiving the objects and phenomena of the objective world.
In daily life, the laws of thought are repeated many times. Through life experiences, humans accept their naturalness, without the need for proof when referring to them. Therefore, the laws of thought are regarded as premises when applying them in the thinking process.
– The laws of thought are manifested in every thinking process, in every field of scientific cognition, and must be followed at any level of thinking.
Failure to adhere to the laws, the internal structure of thought, will result in the breakdown of thought, violating the logical truthfulness of thought. Thus, thought will not accurately reflect the objective reality. Therefore, the laws of thought exist universally in every thinking process.
– Although they exist universally, the laws of thought are only relatively true and limited within a certain scope. Because the laws of thought only reflect the relatively stable state of objects and phenomena, they are true within a certain space and time, in a certain system of reference.
Therefore, adhering to the laws of thought is necessary and essential but not sufficient to ensure the objective truth of cognition. It needs to be supplemented by various methods.
Basic laws of logical thinking
– The Law of Identity:
The content of this law is that every correct thought or concept about an object must be clear and maintain its meaning throughout the thinking process.
The law of identity requires maintaining the content of concepts throughout the thinking process, determining the correct and consistent definition of the object, avoiding confusion, arbitrary changes, or substitutions of objects.
– The law of non-contradiction (also known as the law of contradiction):
When considering the same object in the same relationship at the same time, two opposing opinions cannot both be correct; one of the opinions must be false.
– The Law of the Excluded Middle:
If there are two opposing opinions about the same phenomenon at the same time, then both of those opinions cannot be wrong, meaning that one of them is right and the other is wrong. There can be no middle ground.
However, the law of the excluded middle has only relative significance because we only consider our thinking to reflect the object to a certain extent. It is the relatively stable state of the object without considering its changes and developments as in dialectical logic.
– The Law of Sufficient Reason:
This law states that every reliable thought must have another thought that has been proven or is so clear that it serves as the basis.
The law of sufficient reason requires: No thought is accepted as truth without a basis. The reasons used to prove a certain viewpoint must be true and must be necessarily related to the viewpoint to be proven.
(Reference: General Logic textbook, National University Publishing House, Hanoi)
