Philosophical underpinnings

One of the clearest rejections of dialectical research and theory was provided by Popper (1963) who used Aristotelean Laws of Logic, including the Law of Contradiction to demonstrate that any theory that contained a contradiction was entirely useless as a theory, claiming that dialectics was based on a loose and woolly way of thinking. Marcuse (1964) argued that the formal logicians, by eliminating contradiction, were masking the dialectical nature of reality.  Eward Ilenkov (1977) in his book ‘Dialectical Logic’, put the problem well when he asked:

If any object is a living contradiction, what must the thought (statement about the object) be that expresses it? Can and should an objective contradiction find reflection in thought? And if so, in what form? (p.313)

Popper, K. (1975) The Logic of Scientific Discovery,  London; Hutchinson & Co.

Marcuse, H., 1964. One Dimensional Man. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Ilyenkov, E. (1977) Dialectical Logic. Moscow; Progress Publishers.