 crossed but not seen, or why the Cheshire Cat could not leave its grin behind it is perplexity about the 'nature of things', then certain category‑propositions will give the required information about the nature of things. And the same will hold good of less frivolous type‑perplexities."
Because he confined philosophy to describing "collocations of symbols", Ryle may be justly likened to Horatio. At the same time, because he set philosophy the task of formulating category‑propositions, and considered that this (especially in its "less frivolous" applications) would throw some light on the "nature of things", it may be said of him that there is more in his philosophy than he dreamed of. For the yield of this investigation is nothing more nor less than the principles of materialist dialectics.
Dialectics, as an investigation and discipline distinct from formal logic, deals with categoriesand so studies and distinguishes modes of abstraction and assembly of abstractions. Evidently, for the purposes of managing information there is required not only the observance of formal consistency, as enjoined by formal logic, but also the observance of the rules of abstraction and assembly of abstractions, as enjoined by dialectics. Dialectics comprises the procedures for arriving at less abstract and more generalised working conceptions of ourselves and our environment by the proper conduct and assembly of the different modes of abstraction.
Thus, for example, it is generally agreed among Marxists that dialectics has to do with understanding things in their inter‑relations and changes, as opposed to the "metaphysical" way of considering things separately, out of relationship and in abstraction from their changes. Evidently, to get a concrete picture of any phenomenon we must assemble the available information in a way that adequately reflects the actual interconnections and motion of things, and thus understand the separate properties of things, and their temporary states, as products of processes of interaction and change. The dialectical approach consists in doing thisits "laws" are the laws for doing it. As Lenin observed, the essence of dialectics is "the concrete analysis of concrete conditions".
This makes the word "dialectics" a many‑purpose oneas it is, indeed, in common use. Thus one may speak of "dialectics" in general, as the universal method of procedure of right thinking, and also of "the dialectics" of any topic one chooses to mention. One can speak of "the dialectics" of the thought‑process in general, as management of information, and also of "the dialectics" inherent in the subject matter of thought. But there emerges as of the very greatest interest and importance the investigation of the most universal modes of abstraction and assembly which are variously exemplified and applied in dealing with any subject matter on which information may be abstracted and assembled.
Hegel has the credit of being the first to open up this department of investigation, in his Science of Logic. True, he obfuscated the whole issue by working with a merely mystical conception of category. But as Marx said of him (in the Afterword to the second German edition of Capital): "The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel's hands by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner. With him it is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell." If only linguistic philosophers could so far overcome their prejudices as to ignore the mystifying misuses of language in Hegel, they might be able to extract the "rational kernel" for themselves, and break out of their own shell. As Engels remarked in the Dialectics of Nature: "If we turn the thing round, then everything becomes simple, and the dialectical laws that look so extremely mysterious in idealist philosophy at once become simple and clear as noonday."
To this department of investigation belongs, for example, the investigation of the r