Formal logic purges the negative, is-ought tension from thought.

Evidence

The contemporary mathematical and symbolic logic is certainly very different from its classical predecessor, but they share the radical opposition to dialectical logic. In terms of this opposition, the old and the new formal logic express the same mode of thought. It is purged from that “negative” which loomed so large at the origins of logic and of philosophic thought—the experience of the denying, deceptive, falsifying power of the established reality. And with the elimination of this experience, the conceptual effort to sustain the tension between “is” and “ought,” and to subvert the established universe of discourse in the name of its own truth is likewise eliminated from all thought which is to be objective, exact, and scientific. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 531

Categorization

• QUESTION: Does contemporary formal logic genuinely eliminate the is-ought tension, or does Marcuse conflate propositional form with philosophical commitment?
• XREF: Directly relevant to the reader’s attention/consumption bridge: the elimination of negative capability from ‘scientific’ discourse parallels the flattening of critical thought in administered society. — connects to: Negative judgments require surpassing the given toward an a priori ideal — Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness: An Essay on…, 1067; Dialectical logic must eliminate all remaining traces of deductive systems; Formal logic neutralizes contradiction and serves prediction and control — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 525

Broader Connections

• Formal logic neutralizes contradiction and serves prediction and control #expands (0.92) — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 525