Dialectic

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia For other uses, see Dialect (disambiguation). Dialectic (also dialectics and the dialectical method) is a method of argument for resolving disagreement that has been central to European and Indian philosophy since antiquity. The word dialectic originated in ancient Greece, and was made popular by Plato in the Socratic dialogues. The dialectical method is discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject, who wish to establish the truth of the matter guided by reasoned arguments.[1] The term dialectics is not synonymous with the term debate. While in theory debaters are not necessarily emotionally invested in their point of view, in practice debaters frequently display an emotional commitment that may cloud rational judgement. Debates are won through a combination of persuading the opponent; proving one's argument correct; or proving the opponent's argument incorrect. Debates do not necessarily require promptly identifying a clear winner or loser; however clear winners are frequently determined by either a judge, jury, or by group consensus. The term dialectics is also not synonymous with the term rhetoric, a method or art of discourse that seeks to persuade, inform, or motivate an audience.[2] Concepts, like "logos" or rational appeal, "pathos" or emotional appeal, and "ethos" or ethical appeal, are intentionally used by rhetoricians to persuade an audience.[3] The Sophists taught aret (Greek: , quality, excellence) as the highest value, and the determinant of one's actions in life. The Sophists taught artistic quality in oratory (motivation via speech) as a manner of demonstrating one's aret. Oratory was taught as an art form, used to please and to influence other people via excellent speech; nonetheless, the Sophists taught the pupil to seek aret in all endeavours, not solely in oratory.[citation needed] Socrates favoured truth as the highest value, proposing that it could be discovered through reason and logic in discussion: ergo, dialectic. Socrates valued rationality (appealing to logic, not emotion) as the proper means for persuasion, the discovery of truth, and the determinant for one's actions. To Socrates, truth, not aret, was the greater good, and each person should, above all else, seek truth to guide one's life. Therefore, Socrates opposed the Sophists and their teaching of rhetoric as art and as emotional oratory requiring neither logic nor proof.[4] Different forms of dialectical reasoning have emerged throughout history from the Indosphere (Greater India) and the West (Europe). These forms include the Socratic method, Hindu, Buddhist, Medieval, Hegelian dialectics, Marxist, Talmudic, and Neo-orthodoxy.

Contents

1 Principles 2 Western dialectical forms o 2.1 Classical philosophy 2.1.1 Socratic dialogue o 2.2 Medieval philosophy

2.3 Modern philosophy 2.3.1 Hegelian dialectic 2.3.2 Marxist dialectics 3 Indian forms of dialectic o 3.1 Indian continental debate: an intra- and inter-Dharmic dialectic 3.1.1 Brahmin/Vedic/Hindu dialectic 3.1.2 Jain dialectic 3.1.3 Buddhist dialectic 4 Dialectical theology 5 Dialectical method and dualism 6 Criticisms 7 Formalism 8 See also 9 References 10 Further reading 11 External links

Principles
The purpose of the dialectic method of reasoning is resolution of disagreement through rational discussion, and, ultimately, the search for truth.[5][6] One way to proceedthe Socratic method is to show that a given hypothesis (with other admissions) leads to a contradiction; thus, forcing the withdrawal of the hypothesis as a candidate for truth (see reductio ad absurdum). Another dialectical resolution of disagreement is by denying a presupposition of the contending thesis and antithesis; thereby, proceeding to sublation (transcendence) to synthesis, a third thesis. It is also possible that the rejection of the participants' presuppositions is resisted, which then might generate a second-order controversy.[7] Fichtean Dialectics (Hegelian Dialectics) is based upon four concepts: 1. Everything is transient and finite, existing in the medium of time. 2. Everything is composed of contradictions (opposing forces). 3. Gradual changes lead to crises, turning points when one force overcomes its opponent force (quantitative change leads to qualitative change). 4. Change is helical (spiral), not circular (negation of the negation).[8] The concept of dialectic existed in the philosophy of Heraclitus of Ephesus, who proposed that everything is in constant change, as a result of inner strife and opposition.[9][10][11] Hence, the history of the dialectical method is the history of philosophy.[12]

Western dialectical forms

Classical philosophy

According to Kant, the ancient Greeks used the word "dialectic" to signify the logic of false appearance or semblance. To the ancients, "it was nothing but the logic of illusion. It was a sophistic art of giving to ones ignorance, indeed even to ones intentional tricks, the outward appearance of truth, by imitating the thorough, accurate method which logic always requires, and by using its topic as a cloak for every empty assertion."[13] In classical philosophy, dialectic (Greek: ) is a form of reasoning based upon dialogue of arguments and counter-arguments, advocating propositions (theses) and counter-propositions (antitheses). The outcome of such a dialectic might be the refutation of a relevant proposition, or of a synthesis, or a combination of the opposing assertions, or a qualitative improvement of the dialogue.[14][15] Moreover, the term "dialectic" owes much of its prestige to its role in the philosophies of Socrates and Plato, in the Greek Classical period (5th to 4th centuries BCE). Aristotle said that it was the pre-Socratic philosopher Zeno of Elea who invented dialectic, of which the dialogues of Plato are the examples of the Socratic dialectical method.[16] Socratic dialogue Main article: Socratic dialogue In Plato's dialogues and other Socratic dialogues, Socrates attempts to examine someone's beliefs, at times even first principles or premises by which we all reason and argue. Socrates typically argues by cross-examining his interlocutor's claims and premises in order to draw out a contradiction or inconsistency among them. According to Plato, the rational detection of error amounts to finding the proof of the antithesis.[17] However, important as this objective is, the principal aim of Socratic activity seems to be to improve the soul of his interlocutors, by freeing them from unrecognized errors. For example, in the Euthyphro, Socrates asks Euthyphro to provide a definition of piety. Euthyphro replies that the pious is that which is loved by the gods. But, Socrates also has Euthyphro agreeing that the gods are quarrelsome and their quarrels, like human quarrels, concern objects of love or hatred. Therefore, Socrates reasons, at least one thing exists that certain gods love but other gods hate. Again, Euthyphro agrees. Socrates concludes that if Euthyphro's definition of piety is acceptable, then there must exist at least one thing that is both pious and impious (as it is both loved and hated by the gods)which Euthyphro admits is absurd. Thus, Euthyphro is brought to a realization by this dialectical method that his definition of piety is not sufficiently meaningful. There is another interpretation of the dialectic, as a method of intuition suggested in The Republic.[18] Simon Blackburn writes that the dialectic in this sense is used to understand "the total process of enlightenment, whereby the philosopher is educated so as to achieve knowledge of the supreme good, the Form of the Good.[19]

Medieval philosophy

Dialectics (also called logic) was one of the three liberal arts taught in medieval universities as part of the trivium. The trivium also included rhetoric and grammar.[20][21][22][23] Based mainly on Aristotle, the first medieval philosopher to work on dialectics was Boethius.[24] After him, many scholastic philosophers also made use of dialectics in their works, such as Abelard,[25] William of Sherwood,[26] Garlandus Compotista,[27] Walter Burley, Roger Swyneshed and William of Ockham.[28] This dialectic was formed as follows: 1. The Question to be determined 2. The principal objections to the question 3. An argument in favor of the Question, traditionally a single argument ("On the contrary..") 4. The determination of the Question after weighing the evidence. ("I answer that...") 5. The replies to each objection

Modern philosophy
The concept of dialectics was given new life by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (following Fichte), whose dialectically dynamic model of nature and of history made it, as it were, a fundamental aspect of the nature of reality (instead of regarding the contradictions into which dialectics leads as a sign of the sterility of the dialectical method, as Immanuel Kant tended to do in his Critique of Pure Reason).[29][30] In the mid-19th century, the concept of "dialectic" was appropriated by Karl Marx (see, for example, Das Kapital, published in 1867) and Friedrich Engels and retooled in a non-idealist manner, becoming a crucial notion in their philosophy of dialectical materialism. Thus this concept has played a prominent role on the world stage and in world history. In contemporary polemics, "dialectics" may also refer to an understanding of how we can or should perceive the world (epistemology); an assertion that the nature of the world outside one's perception is interconnected, contradictory, and dynamic (ontology); or it can refer to a method of presentation of ideas and conclusions (discourse). According to Hegel, "dialectic" is the method by which human history unfolds; that is to say, history progresses as a dialectical process. Hegelian dialectic

G. W. F. Hegel

People (forerunners)

Jakob Bhme Baruch Spinoza Immanuel Kant Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Gottlieb Fichte Friedrich Hlderlin Friedrich Schelling

People (later)

Arthur Schopenhauer Ludwig Feuerbach Sren Kierkegaard Alexandre Kojve

Works

Phenomenology of Spirit Science of Logic Encyclopedia Philosophy of Right Lectures on Aesthetics

Philosophy of History

Schools

Hegelianism Absolute idealism British / German idealism Dialectic Masterslave dialectic

Related topics

Right Hegelians Young Hegelians The Secret of Hegel

v t e

Hegelian dialectic, usually presented in a threefold manner, was stated by Heinrich Moritz Chalybus as comprising three dialectical stages of development: a thesis, giving rise to its reaction, an antithesis, which contradicts or negates the thesis, and the tension between the two being resolved by means of a synthesis. Although this model is often named after Hegel, he himself never used that specific formulation. Hegel ascribed that terminology to Kant.[31] Carrying on Kant's work, Fichte greatly elaborated on the synthesis model, and popularized it. On the other hand, Hegel did use a three-valued logical model that is very similar to the antithesis model, but Hegel's most usual terms were: Abstract-Negative-Concrete. Hegel used this writing model as a backbone to accompany his points in many of his works. The formula, thesis-antithesis-synthesis, does not explain why the thesis requires an antithesis. However, the formula, abstract-negative-concrete, suggests a flaw, or perhaps an incompleteness, in any initial thesisit is too abstract and lacks the negative of trial, error and experience. For Hegel, the concrete, the synthesis, the absolute, must always pass through the phase of the negative, in the journey to completion, that is, mediation. This is the essence of what is popularly called Hegelian Dialectics.

To describe the activity of overcoming the negative, Hegel also often used the term Aufhebung, variously translated into English as "sublation" or "overcoming," to conceive of the working of the dialectic. Roughly, the term indicates preserving the useful portion of an idea, thing, society, etc., while moving beyond its limitations. (Jacques Derrida's preferred French translation of the term was relever.)[32] In the Logic, for instance, Hegel describes a dialectic of existence: first, existence must be posited as pure Being (Sein); but pure Being, upon examination, is found to be indistinguishable from Nothing (Nichts). When it is realized that what is coming into being is, at the same time, also returning to nothing (in life, for example, one's living is also a dying), both Being and Nothing are united as Becoming.[33] As in the Socratic dialectic, Hegel claimed to proceed by making implicit contradictions explicit: each stage of the process is the product of contradictions inherent or implicit in the preceding stage. For Hegel, the whole of history is one tremendous dialectic, major stages of which chart a progression from self-alienation as slavery to self-unification and realization as the rational, constitutional state of free and equal citizens. The Hegelian dialectic cannot be mechanically applied for any chosen thesis. Critics argue that the selection of any antithesis, other than the logical negation of the thesis, is subjective. Then, if the logical negation is used as the antithesis, there is no rigorous way to derive a synthesis. In practice, when an antithesis is selected to suit the user's subjective purpose, the resulting "contradictions" are rhetorical, not logical, and the resulting synthesis is not rigorously defensible against a multitude of other possible syntheses. The problem with the Fichtean "Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis" model is that it implies that contradictions or negations come from outside of things. Hegel's point is that they are inherent in and internal to things. This conception of dialectics derives ultimately from Heraclitus. Hegel has outlined that the purpose of dialectics is "to study things in their own being and movement and thus to demonstrate the finitude of the partial categories of understanding"[34] One important dialectical principle for Hegel is the transition from quantity to quality, which he terms the Measure. The measure is the qualitative quantum, the quantum is the existence of quantity.[35] "The identity between quantity and quality, which is found in Measure, is at first only implicit, and not yet explicitly realised. In other words, these two categories, which unite in Measure, each claim an independent authority. On the one hand, the quantitative features of existence may be altered, without affecting its quality. On the other hand, this increase and diminution, immaterial though it be, has its limit, by exceeding which the quality suffers change. [...] But if the quantity present in measure exceeds a certain limit, the quality corresponding to it is also put in abeyance. This however is not a negation of quality altogether, but only of this definite quality, the place of which is at once occupied by another. This process of measure, which appears alternately as a mere change in quantity, and then as a sudden revulsion of quantity into quality, may be envisaged under the figure of a nodal (knotted) line".[36] As an example, Hegel mentions the states of aggregation of water: "Thus the temperature of water is, in the first place, a point of no consequence in respect of its liquidity: still with the

increase or diminution of the temperature of the liquid water, there comes a point where this state of cohesion suffers a qualitative change, and the water is converted into steam or ice".[37] As other examples Hegel mentions the reaching of a point where a single additional grain makes a heap of wheat; or where the bald-tail is produced, if we continue plucking out single hairs. Another important principle for Hegel is the negation of the negation, which he also terms Aufhebung (sublation): Something is only what it is in its relation to another, but by the negation of the negation this something incorporates the other into itself. The dialectical movement involves two moments that negate each other, something and its other. As a result of the negation of the negation, "something becomes its other; this other is itself something; therefore it likewise becomes an other, and so on ad infinitum".[38] Something in its passage into other only joins with itself, it is self-related.[39] In becoming there are two moments:[40] coming-to-be and ceasing-tobe: by sublation, i.e., negation of the negation, being passes over into nothing, it ceases to be, but something new shows up, is coming to be. What is sublated (aufgehoben) on the one hand ceases to be and is put to an end, but on the other hand it is preserved and maintained.[41] In dialectics, a totality transforms itself; it is self-related, then self-forgetful, relieving the original tension. Marxist dialectics Part of a series on Marxism

Theoretical works[show] Concepts[show] Economics[show] Sociology[show] History[show] Philosophy[show] Variants[show] Movements[show] People[show]

Socialism portal Communism portal Philosophy portal v t e

Part of a series on the

Frankfurt School

Major works

Reason and Revolution The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction Eclipse of Reason Escape from Freedom Dialectic of Enlightenment Minima Moralia Eros and Civilization One-Dimensional Man Negative Dialectics The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere The Theory of Communicative Action

Notable theorists

Max Horkheimer Theodor Adorno Herbert Marcuse Walter Benjamin Erich Fromm Friedrich Pollock Leo Lwenthal Jrgen Habermas Axel Honneth

Important concepts

Critical theory Dialectic Praxis Psychoanalysis Antipositivism Popular culture Culture industry Advanced capitalism Privatism Non-identity Communicative rationality Legitimation crisis

v t e

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels proposed that G.F. Hegel had rendered philosophy too abstractly ideal: The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegels 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.[42] In contradiction to Hegelian idealism, Karl Marx presented Dialectical materialism (Marxist dialectics): My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, the life-process of the human brain, i.e. the process of thinking, which, under the name of the Idea, he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of the Idea. With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought. (Capital, Afterword, Second German Ed., Moscow, 1970, vol. 1, p. 29).

In Marxism, the dialectical method of historical study became intertwined with historical materialism, the school of thought exemplified by the works of Marx, Engels, and Vladimir Lenin. In the USSR, under Joseph Stalin, Marxist dialectics became "diamat" (short for dialectical materialism), a theory emphasizing the primacy of the material way of life, social "praxis," over all forms of social consciousness and the secondary, dependent character of the "ideal." The term "dialectical materialism" was coined by the 19th-century social theorist Joseph Dietzgen who used the theory to explain the nature of socialism and social development. The original populariser of Marxism in Russia, Georgi Plekhanov used the terms "dialectical materialism" and "historical materialism" interchangeably. For Lenin, the primary feature of Marx's "dialectical materialism" (Lenin's term) was its application of materialist philosophy to history and social sciences. Lenin's main input in the philosophy of dialectical materialism was his theory of reflection, which presented human consciousness as a dynamic reflection of the objective material world that fully shapes its contents and structure. Later, Stalin's works on the subject established a rigid and formalistic division of Marxist-Leninist theory in the dialectical materialism and historical materialism parts. While the first was supposed to be the key method and theory of the philosophy of nature, the second was the Soviet version of the philosophy of history. A dialectical method was fundamental to Marxist politics, e.g., the works of Karl Korsch, Georg Lukcs and certain members of the Frankfurt School. Soviet academics, notably Evald Ilyenkov and Zaid Orudzhev, continued pursuing unorthodox philosophic study of Marxist dialectics; likewise in the West, notably the philosopher Bertell Ollman at New York University. Friedrich Engels proposed that Nature is dialectical, thus, in Anti-Dhring he said that the negation of negation is: A very simple process, which is taking place everywhere and every day, which any child can understand as soon as it is stripped of the veil of mystery in which it was enveloped by the old idealist philosophy.[43] In Dialectics of Nature, Engels said: Probably the same gentlemen who up to now have decried the transformation of quantity into quality as mysticism and incomprehensible transcendentalism will now declare that it is indeed something quite self-evident, trivial, and commonplace, which they have long employed, and so they have been taught nothing new. But to have formulated for the first time in its universally valid form a general law of development of Nature, society, and thought, will always remain an act of historic importance.[44] Marxist dialectics is exemplified in Das Kapital (Capital), which outlines two central theories: (i) surplus value and (ii) the materialist conception of history; Marx explains dialectical materialism: In its rational form, it is a scandal and abomination to bourgeoisdom and its doctrinaire professors, because it includes in its comprehension an affirmative recognition of the existing state of things, at the same time, also, the recognition of the negation of that state, of its

inevitable breaking up; because it regards every historically developed social form as in fluid movement, and therefore takes into account its transient nature not less than its momentary existence; because it lets nothing impose upon it, and is in its essence critical and revolutionary.[45] Class struggle is the central contradiction to be resolved by Marxist dialectics, because of its central role in the social and political lives of a society. Nonetheless, Marx and Marxists developed the concept of class struggle to comprehend the dialectical contradictions between mental and manual labor, and between town and country. Hence, philosophic contradiction is central to the development of dialectics the progress from quantity to quality, the acceleration of gradual social change; the negation of the initial development of the status quo; the negation of that negation; and the high-level recurrence of features of the original status quo. In the USSR, Progress Publishers issued anthologies of dialectical materialism by Lenin, wherein he also quotes Marx and Engels: As the most comprehensive and profound doctrine of development, and the richest in content, Hegelian dialectics was considered by Marx and Engels the greatest achievement of classical German philosophy.... The great basic thought, Engels writes, that the world is not to be comprehended as a complex of ready-made things, but as a complex of processes, in which the things, apparently stable no less than their mind images in our heads, the concepts, go through an uninterrupted change of coming into being and passing away... this great fundamental thought has, especially since the time of Hegel, so thoroughly permeated ordinary consciousness that, in its generality, it is now scarcely ever contradicted. But, to acknowledge this fundamental thought in words, and to apply it in reality in detail to each domain of investigation, are two different things.... For dialectical philosophy nothing is final, absolute, sacred. It reveals the transitory character of everything and in everything; nothing can endure before it, except the uninterrupted process of becoming and of passing away, of endless ascendancy from the lower to the higher. And dialectical philosophy, itself, is nothing more than the mere reflection of this process in the thinking brain. Thus, according to Marx, dialectics is the science of the general laws of motion both of the external world and of human thought.[46] Lenin describes his dialectical understanding of the concept of development: A development that repeats, as it were, stages that have already been passed, but repeats them in a different way, on a higher basis (the negation of the negation), a development, so to speak, that proceeds in spirals, not in a straight line; a development by leaps, catastrophes, and revolutions; breaks in continuity; the transformation of quantity into quality; inner impulses towards development, imparted by the contradiction and conflict of the various forces and tendencies acting on a given body, or within a given phenomenon, or within a given society; the interdependence and the closest and indissoluble connection between all aspects of any phenomenon (history constantly revealing ever new aspects), a connection that provides a uniform, and universal process of motion, one that follows definite laws these are some of the features of dialectics as a doctrine of development that is richer than the conventional one.[46]

In practice, Marxist dialectics was frequently used as a tool of eristic and propaganda. In 1857 Marx explained that in a letter to Engels, commenting on his predictions published in New York Times: It is possible that I could disgrace myself. But there's always a bit of Dialectic to help out. I have naturally expressed my statements so that I am also right if the opposite thing happens.[47]

Indian forms of dialectic

Indian continental debate: an intra- and inter-Dharmic dialectic
Anacker (2005: p. 20), in the introduction to his translation of seven works by the Buddhist monk Vasubandhu (fl. 4th century), a famed dialectician of the Gupta Empire, contextualizes the prestige of dialectic and cut-throat debate in classical India and makes references to the possibly apocryphal story of the banishment of Moheyan post-debate with Kamalala (fl. 713763): Philosophical debating was in classical India often a spectator-sport, much as contests of poetryimprovisation were in Germany in its High Middle Ages, and as they still are in the Telugu country today. The king himself was often the judge at these debates, and loss to an opponent could have serious consequences. To take an atrociously extreme example, when the Tamil aivite nasambandar Nyanr defeated the Jain cryas in Madurai before the Pya King Mravarman Avanilmani (620-645) this debate is said to have resulted in the impalement of 8000 Jains, an event still celebrated in the Mnksi Temple of Madurai today. Usually, the results were not so drastic; they could mean formal recognition by the defeated side of the superiority of the winning party, forced conversions, or, as in the case of the Council of Lhasa, which was conducted by Indians, banishment of the losers.[48] Brahmin/Vedic/Hindu dialectic See also: Hindu philosophy While Western philosophy traces dialectics to ancient Greek thought of Socrates and Plato, the idea of tension between two opposing forces leading to synthesis is much older and present in Hindu Philosophy.[49] Indian philosophy, for the most part subsumed within the Indian religions, has an ancient tradition of dialectic polemics. The two complements, "purusha" (the active cause) and the "prakriti" (the passive nature) brings everything into existence. They follow the "rta", the Dharma (Universal Law of Nature). Jain dialectic Further information: Jain philosophy, Anekantavada, and Syadvada Anekantavada and Syadvada are the sophisticated dialectic traditions developed by the Jains to arrive at truth. As per Jainism, the truth or the reality is perceived differently from different points of view, and that no single point of view is the complete truth.[50][51] Jain doctrine of Anekantavada states that an object has infinite modes of existence and qualities and, as such,

they cannot be completely perceived in all its aspects and manifestations, due to the inherent limitations of being human. Only the Kevalisthe omniscient beingscan comprehend the object in all its aspects and manifestations, and that all others are capable of knowing only a part of it. Consequently, no one view can claim to represent the absolute truth. According to Jains, the ultimate principle should always be logical and no principle can be devoid of logic or reason.[52] Thus one finds in the Jain texts, deliberative exhortations on any subject in all its facts, may they be constructive or obstructive, inferential or analytical, enlightening or destructive.[53] Sydvda is a theory of conditioned predication that provides an expression to aneknta by recommending that epithet Syd be attached to every expression.[54] Sydvda is not only an extension of Aneknta ontology, but a separate system of logic capable of standing on its own force. The Sanskrit etymological root of the term Syd is "perhaps" or "maybe", but in context of sydvda, it means "in some ways" or "from a perspective." As reality is complex, no single proposition can express the nature of reality fully. Thus the term "syt" should be prefixed before each proposition giving it a conditional point of view and thus removing any dogmatism in the statement.[55] Since it ensures that each statement is expressed from seven different conditional and relative view points or propositions, it is known as theory of conditioned predication. These seven propositions also known as saptabhangi are:[56] 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. syd-asti: "in some ways it is" syd-nsti: "in some ways it is not" syd-asti-nsti: "in some ways it is and it is not" syd-asti-avaktavya: "in some ways it is and it is indescribable" syd-nsti-avaktavya: "in some ways it is not and it is indescribable" syd-asti-nsti-avaktavya: "in some ways it is, it is not and it is indescribable" syd-avaktavya: "in some ways it is indescribable"

Buddhist dialectic See also: Buddhist philosophy Buddhism has developed sophisticated, and sometimes highly institutionalized traditions of dialectics during its long history. Nalanda University, and later the Gelugpa Buddhism of Tibet, are examples. The historical development and clarification of Buddhist doctrine and polemics, through dialectics and formal debate, is well documented. Buddhist doctrine was rigorously critiqued (though not ultimately refuted) in the 2nd century by Nagarjuna, whose uncompromisingly logical approach to the realisation of truth, became the basis for the development of a vital stream of Buddhist thought. This dialectical approach of Buddhism, to the elucidation and articulation of an account of the Cosmos as the truth it really is, became known as the Perfection of Wisdom and was later developed by other notable thinkers, such as Dignaga and Dharmakirti (between 500 and 700). The dialectical method of truth-seeking is evident throughout the traditions of Madhyamaka, Yogacara, and Tantric Buddhism. Trisong Detsen, and later Je Tsongkhapa, championed the value of dialectic and of formalised training in debate in Tibet.

Dialectical theology

Neo-orthodoxy, in Europe also known as theology of crisis and dialectical theology,[57][58] is an approach to theology in Protestantism that was developed in the aftermath of the First World War (19141918). It is characterized as a reaction against doctrines of 19th-century liberal theology and a more positive reevaluation of the teachings of the Reformation, much of which had been in decline (especially in western Europe) since the late 18th century.[59] It is primarily associated with two Swiss professors and pastors, Karl Barth[60] (18861968) and Emil Brunner (18991966),[57][58] even though Barth himself expressed his unease in the use of the term.[61]

Dialectical method and dualism

Another way to understand dialectics is to view it as a method of thinking to overcome formal dualism and monistic reductionism.[62] For example, formal dualism regards the opposites as mutually exclusive entities, whilst monism finds each to be an epiphenomenon of the other. Dialectical thinking rejects both views. The dialectical method requires focus on both at the same time. It looks for a transcendence of the opposites entailing a leap of the imagination to a higher level, which (1) provides justification for rejecting both alternatives as false and/or (2) helps elucidate a real but previously veiled integral relationship between apparent opposites that have been kept apart and regarded as distinct. For example, the superposition principle of quantum physics can be explained using the dialectical method of thinkinglikewise the example below from dialectical biology. Such examples showing the relationship of the dialectic method of thinking to the scientific method to a large part negates the criticism of Popper (see text below) that the two are mutually exclusive. The dialectic method also examines false alternatives presented by formal dualism (materialism vs idealism; rationalism vs empiricism; mind vs body, etc.) and looks for ways to transcend the opposites and form synthesis. In the dialectical method, both have something in common, and understanding of the parts requires understanding their relationship with the whole system. The dialectical method thus views the whole of reality as an evolving process.

Criticisms
Some philosophers have offered critiques of dialectic, and it can even be said that hostility or receptivity to dialectics is one of the things that divides 20th-century Anglo-American philosophy from the so-called "continental" tradition, a divide that only a few contemporary philosophers (among them, G.H. von Wright, Paul Ricoeur, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Richard Rorty, Charles Taylor) have ventured to bridge.[citation needed] It is generally thought dialectics has become central to "Continental" philosophy, while it plays no part in "Anglo-American" philosophy. In other words, on the continent of Europe, dialectics has entered intellectual culture as what might be called a legitimate part of thought and philosophy, whereas in America and Britain, the dialectic plays no discernible part in the intellectual culture, which instead tends toward positivism. A prime example of the European tradition is Jean-Paul Sartre's Critique of Dialectical Reason, which is very different from the works of Popper, whose philosophy was for a time highly influential in the UK where he resided (see below). Sartre states:

"Existentialism, like Marxism, addresses itself to experience in order to discover there concrete syntheses. It can conceive of these syntheses only within a moving, dialectical totalisation, which is nothing else but history orfrom the strictly cultural point of view adopted here'philosophy-becoming-the world'."[63] Karl Popper has attacked the dialectic repeatedly. In 1937 he wrote and delivered a paper entitled "What Is Dialectic?" in which he attacked the dialectical method for its willingness "to put up with contradictions".[64] Popper concluded the essay with these words: "The whole development of dialectic should be a warning against the dangers inherent in philosophical system-building. It should remind us that philosophy should not be made a basis for any sort of scientific system and that philosophers should be much more modest in their claims. One task which they can fulfill quite usefully is the study of the critical methods of science" (Ibid., p. 335). In chapter 12 of volume 2 of The Open Society and Its Enemies (1944; 5th rev. ed., 1966) Popper unleashed a famous attack on Hegelian dialectics, in which he held that Hegel's thought (unjustly, in the view of some philosophers, such as Walter Kaufmann,[65]) was to some degree responsible for facilitating the rise of fascism in Europe by encouraging and justifying irrationalism. In section 17 of his 1961 "addenda" to The Open Society, entitled "Facts, Standards and Truth: A Further Criticism of Relativism," Popper refused to moderate his criticism of the Hegelian dialectic, arguing that it "played a major role in the downfall of the liberal movement in Germany,... by contributing to historicism and to an identification of might and right, encouraged totalitarian modes of thought. . . . [and] undermined and eventually lowered the traditional standards of intellectual responsibility and honesty".[66]

Formalism
In the past few decades, European and American logicians have attempted to provide mathematical foundations for dialectical logic or argument. There had been pre-formal treatises on argument and dialectic, from authors such as Stephen Toulmin (The Uses of Argument), Nicholas Rescher (Dialectics), and van Eemeren and Grootendorst (Pragma-dialectics). One can include the communities of informal logic and paraconsistent logic. However, building on theories of defeasible reasoning (see John L. Pollock), systems have been built that define wellformedness of arguments, rules governing the process of introducing arguments based on fixed assumptions, and rules for shifting burden. Many of these logics appear in the special area of artificial intelligence and law, though the computer scientists' interest in formalizing dialectic originates in a desire to build decision support and computer-supported collaborative work systems.[67]

See also
Philosophy portal Thinking portal

Philosophy

Chinese philosophy Critical theory (Frankfurt School) Dialectic process vs. dialogic process Dialectical behavioral therapy Dialectical research Dialogic Doublethink False dilemma Gotthard Gnther Paradox Recursion Reflective equilibrium Relational dialectics Strange loop Synechism Taoism Universal dialectic

Interdisciplinary concepts

Didactic method List of cycles Mbius strip Talmud: Form and style TRIZ

References
1. The Republic (Plato), 348b 2. Corbett, Edward P. J.; Robert J. Connors (1999). Classical Rhetoric For the Modern Student (4th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. p. 1. ISBN 9780195115420. 3. Corbett, Edward P. J.; Robert J. Connors (1999). Classical Rhetoric For the Modern Student (4th ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. p. 18. ISBN 9780195115420. 4. see Gorgias, 449B: "Socrates: Would you be willing then, Gorgias, to continue the discussion as we are now doing [Dialectic], by way of question and answer, and to put off to another occasion the (emotional) speeches [Rhetoric] that [the Sophist] Polus began?" 5. Pinto, R. C. (2001). Argument, inference and dialectic: collected papers on informal logic. Argumentation library, vol. 4. Dordrecht:Kluwer Academic. pp. 138139. 6. Eemeren, F. H. v. (2003). Anyone who has a view: theoretical contributions to the study of argumentation. Argumentation library, vol. 8. Dordrecht:Kluwer Academic. p. 92. 7. The musicologist Rose Rosengard Subotnick gives this example: "A question posed in a Fred Friendly Seminar entitled Hard Drugs, Hard Choices: The Crisis Beyond Our Borders [1] (aired on WNET on February 26, 1990), illustrates that others, too, seem to find this dynamic enlightening: 'Are our lives so barren because we use drugs? Or do we use drugs because our lives are so barren?' The question is dialectical to the extent that it enables one to grasp the two opposed priorities as simultaneously valid."

8. Jon Mills (2005). Treating attachment pathology. Jason Aronson. pp. 159166. ISBN 978-0-7657-0132-9. Retrieved 8 May 2011. 9. Herbermann, C. G. (1913) The Catholic encyclopedia: an international work of reference on the constitution, doctrine, and history of the Catholic church. New York: The Encyclopedia press, inc. Page 160 10. Howard Ll. Williams, Hegel, Heraclitus, and Marx's Dialectic. Harvester Wheatsheaf 1989. 256 pages. ISBN 0-7450-0527-6 11. Denton Jaques Snider, Ancient European Philosophy: The History of Greek Philosophy Psychologically Treated. Sigma publishing co. 1903. 730 pages. Pages 116-119. 12. Cassin, Barbara (ed.), Vocabulaire europen des philosophies [Paris: Le Robert & Seuil, 2004], p. 306, trans. M.K. Jensen 13. Critique of Pure Reason, A 61 14. Ayer, A. J., & O'Grady, J. (1992). A Dictionary of Philosophical Quotations. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers. Page 484. 15. McTaggart, J. M. E. (1964). A commentary on Hegel's logic. New York: Russell & Russell. p. 11 16. ([fr. 65], Diog. IX 25ff and VIII 57) 17. Vlastos, G., Burnyeat, M. (Ed.) (1994) Socratic Studies, Cambridge U.P. ISBN 0-52144735-6 Ch. 1 18. Popper, K. (1962) The Open Society and its Enemies, Volume 1, London, Routledge, p. 133. 19. Blackburn, Simon. 1996. The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford 20. Abelson, P. (1965). The seven liberal arts; a study in medival culture. New York: Russell & Russell. Page 82. 21. Hyman, A., & Walsh, J. J. (1983). Philosophy in the Middle Ages: the Christian, Islamic, and Jewish traditions. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. Co. Page 164. 22. Adler, Mortimer Jerome (2000). "Dialectic". Routledge. Page 4. ISBN 0-415-22550-7 23. Herbermann, C. G. (1913). The Catholic encyclopedia: an international work of reference on the constitution, doctrine, and history of the Catholic church. New York: The Encyclopedia press, inc. Page 760764. 24. From topic to tale: logic and narrativity in the Middle Ages, by Eugene Vance,p.43-45 25. "Catholic Encyclopedia: Peter Abelard". Newadvent.org. 1907-03-01. Retrieved 201111-03. 26. William of Sherwood's Introduction to logic, by Norman Kretzmann,p.69-102 27. A History of Twelfth-Century Western Philosophy, by Peter Dronke,p.198 28. Medieval literary politics: shapes of ideology, by Sheila Delany,p.11 29. Nicholson, J. A. (1950). Philosophy of religion. New York: Ronald Press Co. Page 108. 30. Kant, I., Guyer, P., & Wood, A. W. (2003). Critique of pure reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Page 495. 31. The Accessible Hegel. Michael Allen Fox. Prometheus Books. 2005. p.43. Also see Hegel's preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A.V. Miller (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), secs. 50, 51, p.29. 30. 32. See 'La diffrance' in: Margins of Philosophy. Alan Bass, translator. University of Chicago Books. 1982. p. 19, fn 23. 33. Hegel. "Section in question from Hegel's ''Science of Logic''". Marxists.org. Retrieved 2011-11-03.

34. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. 1874. The Logic. Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences. 2nd Edition. London: Oxford University Press. Note to 81 35. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. 1874. The Logic. Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences. 2nd Edition. London: Oxford University Press. 107-111 36. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. 1874. The Logic. Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences. 2nd Edition. London: Oxford University Press. 108-109 37. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. 1874. The Logic. Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences. 2nd Edition. London: Oxford University Press. 108 38. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. 1874. The Logic. Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences. 2nd Edition. London: Oxford University Press. 93 39. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. 1874. The Logic. Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences. 2nd Edition. London: Oxford University Press. 95 40. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. 1812. Hegel's Science of Logic. London. Allen & Unwin. 176-179. 41. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. 1812. Hegel's Science of Logic. London. Allen & Unwin. 185. 42. Marx, Karl (1873) Capital Afterword to the Second German Edition, Vol. I [2] 43. Engels, Frederick, (1877) Anti-Dhring,Part I: Philosophy, XIII. Dialectics. Negation of the Negation. [3] 44. "Engels, Frederick, (1883) ''Dialectics of Nature:''II. Dialectics". Marxists.org. Retrieved 2011-11-03. 45. Marx, Karl, (1873) Capital Vol. I, Afterword to the Second German Edition. [4] 46. Lenin, V.I., On the Question of Dialectics: A Collection, pp. 7-9. Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1980. 47. In German: Es ist mglich, da ich mich blamiere. Indes ist dann immer mit einiger Dialektik zu helfen. Ich habe natrlich meine Aufstellungen so gehalten, da ich im umgekehrten Fall auch Recht habe, K. Marx, F. Engels, "Works", vol. 29 48. Anacker, Stefan (2005, rev. ed.). Seven Works of Vasubandhu: The Buddhist Psychological Doctor. Delhi, India: Motilal Banarsidass. (First published: 1984; Reprinted: 1986, 1994, 1998; Corrected: 2002; Revised: 2005), p.20 49. Paul Ernest; Brian Greer; Bharath Sriraman (30 June 2009). Critical issues in mathematics education. IAP. p. 327. ISBN 978-1-60752-039-9. Retrieved 8 July 2011. 50. Dundas (2002) 51. Koller, John M. (July 2000). 52. Duli Chandra Jain (ed.) (1997) p.21 53. Hughes, Marilynn (2005) P. 590 54. Chatterjea, Tara (2001) p.77-87 55. Koller, John M. (July 2000). "Sydvda as the epistemological key to the Jaina middle way metaphysics of Anekntavda". Philosophy East and West (Honululu) 50 (3): Pp.4008. ISSN 0031-8221. Retrieved 2007-10-01. 56. Grimes, John (1996) p. 312 57. "Original Britinnica online". Retrieved 2008-07-26. 58. "Britannica Encyclopedia (online)". Retrieved 2008-07-26. 59. "Merriam-Webster Dictionary(online)". Retrieved 2008-07-26. 60. "American Heritage Dictionary (online)". Retrieved 2008-07-26. 61. See Church Dogmatics III/3, xii.

62. Biel, R. and Mu-Jeong Kho (2009) "The Issue of Energy within a Dialectical Approach to the Regulationist Problematique," Recherches & Rgulation Working Papers, RR Srie ID 2009-1, Association Recherche & Rgulation: 1-21. 63. Jean-Paul Sartre. "The Search for Method (1st part) Sartre, 1960, in Existentialism from Dostoyevsky to Sartre, transl. Hazel Barnes, Vintage Books". Marxists.org. Retrieved 2011-11-03. 64. Karl Popper,Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge [New York: Basic Books, 1962], p. 316. 65. Walter Kaufmann. "kaufmann". Marxists.org. Retrieved 2011-11-03. 66. Karl Popper,The Open Society and Its Enemies, 5th rev. ed., vol. 2 [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966], p. 395 67. See Logical models of argument, CI Chesevar, AG Maguitman, R Loui - ACM Computing Surveys, 2000 and Logics for defeasible argumentation, H Prakken, Handbook of philosophical logic, 2002 for surveys of work in this area.

Further reading

McKeon, R. (1954) "Dialectic and Political Thought and Action." Ethics 65, No. 1: 1-33. Postan, M. (1962) "Function and Dialectic in Economic History," The Economic History Review, No. 3. Biel, R. and Mu-Jeong Kho (2009) "The Issue of Energy within a Dialectical Approach to the Regulationist Problematique," Recherches & Rgulation Working Papers, RR Srie ID 2009-1, Association Recherche & Rgulation: 1-21.

External links
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Dialectic

Bertell Ollman Writings on Dialectics: Dialectics.Net David Walls, Dialectical Social Science Dialectics for Kids

[show]

v t e

Philosophy
Categories:

Social philosophy Rhetoric

Dialectic Philosophical methodology

Navigation menu

Create account Log in Article Talk Read View source View history Main page Contents Featured content Current events Random article Donate to Wikipedia Wikimedia Shop

Interaction

Help About Wikipedia Community portal Recent changes Contact page

Tools Print/export Languages

Afrikaans Alemannisch Aragons Asturianu Azrbaycanca Bn-lm-g

( ) Bosanski Brezhoneg Catal etina Cymraeg Dansk Deutsch Eesti Espaol Esperanto Euskara Fiji Hindi Franais Galego Hrvatski Ido Ilokano Bahasa Indonesia slenska Italiano Kurd Latina Latvieu Lietuvi Magyar Nederlands Norsk bokml

Norsk nynorsk Occitan Ozbekcha

Piemontis Polski Portugus Qaraqalpaqsha Romn Shqip Simple English Slovenina Slovenina / srpski Srpskohrvatski / Suomi Svenska /tatara Trke Vahcuengh Ting Vit Winaray Edit links This page was last modified on 29 March 2014 at 05:46. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a nonprofit organization. Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers Contact Wikipedia

Developers Mobile view

Hegel-by-HyperText Resources

Excerpt from Hegel for Beginners

Source: Hegel for Beginners, by Llyod Spencer and Andrzej Krauze, Published by Icon Books, 14 of 175 pages reproduced here, minus the abundant illustrations.

In 1808, Hegel still talked of constructing some sort of bridge between traditional logic set out in classical form by Aristotle and his own. Aristotlean logic had been the standard for 2,000 years. Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC) perfected a form of deductive argument called the syllogism. "Classical reasoning assumes the principle of logical identity: A = A or A is not non-A". Why did Hegel need a different logic? Perhaps you may already have seen the answer to this in Hegel's Phenomenology. Hegel usually referred to the Phenomenology as his "psychology", because it was the only one of his writings which deals with the world, not as it appears to Absolute Mind (or Spirit) but to quite ordinary minds like our own. It traced a path from our everyday commonsense states of mind to the vantage point of "Systematic Science".

"But in writing that book I became aware of employing a new and unprecedented way of thinking".

Dialectical Thinking
Hegel's different way of thinking has become known as dialectical thinking. What makes dialectical thinking so difficult to explain is that it can only be seen in practice. It is not a "method" or a set of principles, like Aristotle's, which can be simply stated and then applied to whatever subject-matter one chooses. How do we begin to understand how this dialectic works? First, by beginning to appreciate Hegel's unique philosophical ambition.

Totality
For Hegel, only the whole is true. Every stage or phase or moment is partial, and therefore partially untrue. Hegel's grand idea is "totality" which preserves within it each of the ideas or stages that it has overcome or subsumed. Overcoming or subsuming is a developmental process made up of "moments" (stages or phases). The totality is the product of that process which preserves all of its "moments" as elements in a structure, rather than as stages or phases. Think of these structural elements as the interrelated ones of a whole architecture or even better, a fractal architecture.

Aufhebung or Sublation
Aristotle's logic is concerned with separate, discrete (self-)identities in a deductive pattern. Hegel dissolves this classical static view in a dynamic movement towards the whole. The whole is an overcoming which preserves what it overcomes. Nothing is lost or destroyed but raised up and preserved as in a spiral. Think of the opening of a fern or a shell. This is an organic rather than mechanical logic. Hegel's special term for this "contradiction" of overcoming and at the same time preserving is Aufhebung, sometimes translated as "sublation". For anything to happen, everything has to be in place. Quantum theory, postmodern cosmology, chaos theory, computer interfacing and ecology all essentially subscribe to this view of "totality" in question, without being "hegelian".

A Grammar of Thinking

In Hegel's treatment of logic, thinking dwells on itself, rather than trying to comprehend the world. The Science of Logic deals with logical categories, not the accidents of history or various modes of relating to the world. It is rather absent or distant from the world as such. "I liken my study of logic to the study of grammar. You only really see the rewards when you later come to observe language in use and you grasp what it is that makes the language of poetry so evocative". Hegel deals with a sequence of logical categories: being, becoming, one, many, essence, existence, cause, effect, universal, mechanism, and "life". Each is examined in turn and made to reveal its own inadequacies and internal tensions. Each category is made to generate another more promising one which in its turn will be subject to the same kind of scrutiny.

Negation
Hegel calls this dynamic aspect of his thinking the power of "negation". It is by means of this "negativity" of thought that the static (or habitual) becomes discarded or dissolved, made fluid and adaptable, and recovers its eagerness to push on towards "the whole". Dialectical thinking derives its dynamic of negation from its ability to reveal "contradictions" within almost any category or identity. Hegel's "contradiction" does not simply mean a mechanical denial or opposition. Indeed, he challenges the classical notion of static self-identity, A = A, or A not= non-A. By negation or contradiction, Hegel means a wide variety of relations difference, opposition, reflection or relation. It can indicate the mere insufficiency of a category or its incoherence. Most dramatically, categories are sometimes shown to be self-contradictory.

Three Kinds of Contradiction

1. The three divisions of the Science of Logic involve three different kinds of contradiction. In the first division Being the opposed pair of concepts at first seem flatly opposed, as if they would have nothing at all to do with one another: Being Nothing / Quantity Quality. Only be means of analysis or deduction can they be shown to be intimately interrelated. 2. In the second division Essence the opposed pairs immediately imply one another. The Inner and the Outer, for example: to define one is at the same time to define the other. 3. In the third division the Concept [Notion] we reach an altogether more sophisticated level of contradiction. Here we have concepts such as identity whose component parts, Universality and Particularity, are conceptually interrelated.

The third level is more difficult to depict or illustrate than the others because it is truly abstract. Here we are talking about relations which can only be disentangled from one another by a process of abstraction.

For example. We can see how one of our most vital categories individuality can be built up out of a pair of apparently opposing principles, universality and particularity.

Triadic Structure
If negation is the inner life-force of the dialectic, then triadic structure is its organic, fractal form.
THESIS A thought is affirmed which on reflection proves itself unsatisfactory, incomplete of contradictory ... ANTITHESIS SYNTHESIS

which propels the and so is affirmation of its negation, again negated the antithesis, which also on ... reflection proves inadequate ...

In classical logic, this double negation ("A is not non-A") would simply reinstate the original thesis. The synthesis does not do this. It has "overcome and preserved" (or sublated) the stages of the thesis and antithesis to emerge as a higher rational unity. Note: This formulation of Hegel's triadic logic is convenient, but it must be emphasised that he never used the terms thesis, antithesis and synthesis. Hegel's dialectic triad also serves another logical purpose. Kant had distinguished two kinds of logic:
1. The analytic logic of understanding which focuses the data of sense-experience to yield knowledge of the natural phenomenal world. 2. The dialectical logic of understanding which operates independently of sense-experience and erroneously professes to give knowledge of the transcendent noumena ("things in themselves" or also the "infinite" or the "whole")

Hegel's view is completely different.

1. Analytic understanding is only adequate for natural science and practical everyday life, not for philosophy. 2. Dialectic reason s not concerned with Kant's "transcendent", nor with the abstract "mutilated" parts of reality, but with reality as a totality, and therefore gives true knowledge.

What is Knowing?
Knowing, for Hegel, is something you do. It is an act. But it is also presence of mind. Hegel seems to hold out the vision, even the experience, of thinking as self-presence. Of being present to, or with, oneself of being fully self-possessed, self-aware. Of self-consciousness as a huge cosmic accomplishment.

Reading Hegel gives one a sense that the movement of thought will coincide with a vision of harmony that awaits us at the end of the whole process. Every serious reader of Hegel can bear witness to the intoxication of such moments. Absolute Knowledge, in the form of the complete self-consciousness and self-possession of spirit, is only available at the end-point of the think process. But there is no distinction possible between the driving energy of thought and this sense of harmony and fulfilment in the whole. It is ultimately the universal which has the upper hand. As Hegel's Logic puts it ... Everything depends on the "identity of identity and non-identity". In philosophy, the latest birth of time is the result of all the systems that have preceded it, and must include their principles: and so, if, on other grounds, it deserves the title of philosophy, it will be the fullest, most comprehensive, and most adequate system of all.
"The whole of philosophy resembles a circle of circles"

Further Reading: Introduction to Shorter Logic | Meaning of Hegel's Logic Hegel-by-HyperText Home Page @ marxists.org

Plato's Dialectic
Eugene T. Gendlin, Ph.D. Dialectic is the name Plato gives to his method, to the highest form of thought. In dialectic one examines one's assumptions, one's basic concepts, and one arrives at better assumptions and concepts.

It is perfectly possible, for Plato, that one would not, for the moment, examine one's concepts. One might simply be using them, keeping them static and working down from them, for example, in straight-forward mathematics. Of course, ultimately, it isn't too satisfying always simply to use, and never to examine and improve, one's concepts. Without philosophy, without this examining and improving of basic definitions, one is simply trapped in whatever concepts one has up to a given time. Science, without philosophy, would be pretty blind. What must I add to this axiomatic deducing from assumed definitions, to get "dialectic"? I will organize what I have to say under the following headings: I must add: Our activity of concept formation or thinking; Our pre-conceptual knowledge, our knowing already what we seek to define knowing it sufficiently at least to recognize when something obviously isn't what we seek. Contradiction and paradox.... Our wanting, needing, lacking, or seeking of choice, especially what I shall call "forced choice," in the face of what is presented. By forced choice I mean that, if what we have wished is shown to result in consequences we do not wish, [Page 2] then we are forced to choose against it, despite having thought we wished it. These four facets of dialectic: our activity of concept formation, our pre-conceptual knowing, contradiction, and forced choice, are inter-related facets, of course. After I discuss each one, I will have put them together, because they can't be discussed separately. In dialectic you will regularly find a definition (or answer to a question) set up, then implications drawn out from it until the definition obviously contradicts itself, then a new definition is set up, again its implications lead to contradiction; a new one is again set up, and so on. It is important to see the organization of the argument as such a series of attempted answers to the same question, each of which is drawn out to implications, thereby leads to contradict itself, hence is broken, so that a new one is set up and the whole business begins again. Many people are bothered by Plato's way of arguing from an analogy with some other area of experience -- but this won't be troubling if we keep in mind that all concepts (just look at the word "concept" for instance) are really metaphoric. (Just look at the etymology of most of our words.) And if you keep in mind that in dialectic we are building new concepts hence are going to formulate what we discuss with some different pattern or model naturally we go to some new area to get a new pattern. But that sounds as if you could use just any pattern at all. If you look closely, you'll always find that the other area of experience is like the one we discuss in that respect in which one applies the model from there to here. For example, we don't merely liken

the Sophist teaching pupils to the political leader teaching the city's people. In respect of just the analogy they are the same: the analogy concerns persuading people without concern for making them better, and then complaining afterwards because they are rotten enough not to reward one. It is better to knowingly use analogies in developing new concepts, i.e., new metaphors, than to stay trapped in the old ones. The old concepts are just as metaphoric but no longer sound metaphoric because they are so familiar [Page 3] that we no longer actively form the concept to get at something, but only just use it. Philosophy always questions, examines, and reformulates concepts and models. Dialectic is an activity of concept-formation. Since we are forming concepts, new ones discarding old ones, it is not strange that our concepts and definitions of words don't stand still. It is a famous complaint about Plato that you cannot quote some formulation you find on one page, since on the next page, you'll discover he doesn't really mean it. But, if you want for some reason to keep whatever concepts and definitions you have steady, to do some job with them, you can do that. But then you will be doing something like mathematics, not philosophy. You will be applying concepts, but not examining and forming concepts. One can apply concepts even without oneself having formed them. But that is not knowledge. One advantage of concept formation is that one then knows one's concepts not only as such, but as how they were made. One has gone the steps to form these concepts, and one can lead someone else over these steps. One knows in the sense of being able to teach. One has not only a right opinion to apply, but one knows the activity of development which has resulted in these concepts. One knows the way to them. Thus we are adding to the axiomatic view of concepts an activity of forming them. I am not yet explaining how this activity works. I am only saying that if you think of a concept-forming activity, then there can be a distinction between knowledge and mere right opinion and knowledge will involve not only conclusions but the knowing how to develop the concepts, hence how to teach another person to develop them. How does the activity work? It never starts with nothing. It always starts with some statement, it can be as silly as you like. One begins with some definition or other, and one draws out its implications. (So far that sounds like the [Page 4] axiomatic method I mentioned before.) The implications follow necessarily, logically from the definition. Fine but how does that get us to better, less silly, newly formed concepts? Now, if we can answer that, if we do show how we get from any silly definition you please to better and better new ones, then it is a great advantage to be able to start with any, however silly, beginning definition. After all, this is supposed to be a method of examining one's assumptions and concepts, so as to get to better ones. Hence this method had better work, when our starting definition is silly or wrong. But, our starting definition can never be entirely silly it must be what some real person actually thinks, if only for a moment. It must be an actual person and this is why Plato writes dialogues

between actual characters. The activity of dialectic requires actual living human persons, it isn't just the concepts as such, whatever they imply, it's not an activity of the concepts, but and activity of the speakers and thinkers, of a person. Why must it be so? Because we begin not only with a definition, soon to be shown wrong, but also with a live human, who has some sense of what he is after, some experience of the world, and the power of agreeing or disagreeing. When we draw out the implication of a concept, or a definition, we will always find that it leads to contradictions. To do this, we use examples, we apply the concept, but not simply to use it, rather to see what its implications are. We apply it in all sorts of situations and contexts the person already knows. Whatever we attempted to define or answer, when we apply our definition it will turn out to have all sorts of difficulties; more than that, the definition turns out in the end to imply exactly the opposite of what we meant to define. If we tried to define "power," it will turn out that our definition has defined precisely weakness. If we tried to define X, exactly non-X will be seen to be involved in it. [Page 5] When we have drawn out implications (you can say that's what the activity of dialectic is: a drawing out of implications) we need to have a live person, someone who can say: '"Well, this, which appears to follow from my definition, is obviously not what I wanted to define, but its opposite. So, in spite of my chagrin, I am forced to choose to discard my definition." If we had only concepts, and no person except as grinder of that concept, there would be no way of recognizing that this, which follows from the concept, isn't what I wanted to define. For example, total inability to determine what one does, may follow from my definition of power, but if it follows necessarily, then it must be power. No matter how blatant the contradiction, the logic of the concept alone couldn't correct itself. What follows, follows. Only a person can say: This obviously isn't what I meant, or wanted to define. Anybody can see, i.e., any person can see, that this helplessness is not power although it follows from the definition I set up for power. Hence my definition must be wrong, I have now also discussed the three other elements of this activity called dialectic: the role of contradiction, the forced choice of our respondent, and his pre-defined knowledge, the fact that he meant to define something in the first place, he had some sense of this, whatever it was, which he wanted to define. This sense is not his concepts. We heard what they were and now he himself says that these concepts are not what he meant or wanted to define. How can he tell? Obviously he "knew" what he wanted to define in some sense, and knew it better than just by his conceptualized definition. Thus he has a pre-conceptual or pre-defined knowledge of what he wants to define and this knowledge is sufficient for him to be able to recognize that his definition doesn't define it (now that its contradictory implications have been drawn out for him to see). As far as his pride of argument goes, he certainly may not want to agree to change his stand. He may hate to. But he can't help recognize that the implications contradict what he wanted, despite the fact that they follow with perfectly [Page 6] good tight logic from his very own definition. He discards the definition precisely because these implications do follow from it, but he recognizes

that what the complications lead to is not what he wanted, meant, or knew. Obviously, it isn't his wrong definition, which can tell him that. Therefore, it is important that no matter how silly our starting definition is, that it had to be the definition that some live person actually intended as a definition or conceptualization of something he knew and meant to define. In the MENO Plato calls our using this pre-defined knowledge "reminiscence" that is, he invents a myth to the effect that before birth we knew everything. At birth we forget it, and so the activity of thinking, and concept-formation, is really a remembering. Now, a myth (in dialectic) is a perfectly serious statement, but of a peculiar sort: the real facts leading to the point are too many. When you try to think out one of Plato's myths, just put the words "It really is as though" in front of it, and then consider the whole statement as really true. Of course, the facts of the myth are obviously made up; Plato wants you to be in no doubt about that. So the facts of the myth are obviously made up facts, but the point which the myth makes is intended to be true and serious. By the formula I propose, I get: "It really is as though concept formation were a remembering." In the MENO a slave boy who was known never to have been taught geometry, is being taught geometry by Socrates. It is a fairly ordinary teaching. As we said, teaching is leading another person through the steps of the activity of forming the concepts. Teaching isn't just telling conclusions, but leading a real person over the steps of concept formation, so that he himself actually forms the concepts. (If he himself doesn't form them, he won't know how they're formed, he won't really know, and we won't really have taught him. Thus, there is really no other way to teach, or to know.) Thus, in being taught an individual obtains the concepts from [Page 7] out of himself, as though he had only to remember them. How does he form the concepts, even given that he is ably led? He is shown lines, and asked questions he has never heard before. He gives a false answer. He is then asked many more questions that draw out the implications of his false answer, until he himself can see its falsity and gives up the answer. Reminiscence, then, is precisely this process of setting up a definition or concept, drawing out its implications, and then recognizing that it was false, since one knows more than one's concepts and so is able to recognize. Of course, the implications "drawn out" aren't physically "in" the definition as a string of words. The implications are in the situations when the concept is applied to them, in the lines and squares drawn before one. When one applies the concept, one should get this and that result among the lines and that can then be directly seen as not the case. Implications of a definition are always drawn in a given application or situation. Thus in all dialectic one must see, or know (remember) what the situations are like, one must know it, in a pre-defined, but familiar way. One must apply the concepts and recognize what one gets, even though that is new. The steps of logic follow necessarily, but they follow not in terms of the concept as a mere pattern, but in terms of the situations when they are conceptualized with that concept or defined

with that definition. Thus every single step of the dialectic needs the actual person's assent, his "yes, I see," his "how could it be otherwise," or his "yes, by Jupiter." So we see that this pre-conceptual knowledge is necessary at the start, to first come up with a definition at all, then at each step, and then at the end, to know and recognize that the implications are the opposite of what we meant to define and that the definition must be discarded. Therefore, Plato says that one must (in a sense) know what one doesn't know [Page 8] yet. It is a paradox: You can't try to think what you don't know and you won't learn anything by thinking what you already know. It's no use searching for something if you don't know you're looking for it. Since we are involved in concept-formation, in changing our concepts it is obvious that we have to use something in addition to our concepts. You can see this from the paradox that learning must involve something which in a sense we know and in a sense we don't yet know. You can see from the paradox just in what sort of a way we do know or remember, and in what sense we don't know (we lack the definitions). Now, my next point is to show how we are led to a better concept so far I have only shown how we assent to each step of the drawing out, and then are forced to discard the now contradictory concept. Are we left with nothing at that juncture? For dialectic a contradiction is something very positive, generative, guiding, and informative. It isn't just the demise of our definition, but the directive for the formation of our next and better one. I tried to show you this, just now, when I explored the paradox about how you can't think what you don't know, and can't learn anything from what you already know. It sounds like a dead end, but really it directs us quite clearly to a better and more differentiated definition than that knowing is "having a concept," "an answer." You got it or you don't. The paradox directs us to a better definition, one of concept-formation, and one which leads us to notice something which, in a sense we know, and in a sense we don't know. What would that be? The MENO stops here, with a myth: it really is like remembering: We know it in that we can produce it under certain conditions, but we don't know it as such, now, before we formulate it. But there is not only past experience as it was, and our concept as it was defined. By drawing out how it was defined, we let the contradictions indicate [Page 9] how we must further reformulate it newly. Thus Plato chides those who want only to go by what they literally remember of how it always was, what sorts of things have followed upon what sorts of other things. Such predictions based on past experience use past experience only as it was then already cut up into its (unexamined) definitions. Dialectic also uses past experience and present looking, but it forms new concepts, new ways of cutting and identifying, selecting, and defining variables, guided by the

consequences we draw out in the context of nature and life, as we apply the concepts we formulate. Our pre-conceptual experience is anything but unordered. In using it, we are using the whole order of nature. Our experience went on in nature (let's include human society, situations and the whole world) as part of the organized living of a complex creature and so our experience has whatever that order is. And that order exceeds, by very far, the little that we have ever told ourselves, or been told, in defined concepts. But, not only is past experience within nature, our very activity of thinking, our dialectic, is an activity within the order of nature. We cannot make sense of just anything we please, just any old way we might please. Some chains of thought make sense and some don't. Consequences follow necessarily, whether we like how they do, or not. The process of concept-formation is anything but arbitrary, and in an argument especially we notice how it can go against our wishes. Both what we think about, and the activity of defining, are controlled and guided and corrected by an order that we don't just set up or posit, Nowadays, listening to some people, you might think that if we vary rewards on a teaching machine, we can teach any (however false) sequence of thoughts and definitions. Not at all. On the contrary, teaching machine people work harder than others, to differentiate each step so that the sequence will make sense. No machine can teach a sequence that isn't a sequence, that doesn't make sense. [Page 10] Thinking, or making sense, has a very definite nature. You might manage to memorize a false sequence, if you really had to, but you couldn't force it to make sense, you couldn't produce each step from the foregoing so that it arises out of the foregoing (so that it is a concept-formation sequence), if it isn't. Much false thinking is false because it isn't detailed enough to reveal what a right sequence night be. The new and better definition is usually more differentiated, more detailed with more distinctions, than the earlier ones. The drawing out activity of dialectic is, in a sense, an activity of drawing the distinctions which the contradictions demand and direct. For example, we moved from "either you know the concept or you don't," to a further distinction: Something you in a sense know (without concepts), and in a sense not, i.e., not in concepts. But another way of saying this "increasing differentiation" is to say that we relate whatever we are discussing to other things, thus drawing more and more things into the scope of our considerations: more situations to apply it to, more concerns relevant to it to look at, etc. Thus, this increasing differentiation is also an increasing and unifying thing, as more and more previously unrelated aspects of the world are brought into relation with our definition, each time leading to a reformulation of it. Thus our definition becomes more and more encompassing, as it becomes more differentiated and internal to itself.

From this point of view, perhaps I shouldn't have called dialectic a process of drawing out as if all sorts of things were already "in" the poor definition, but a drawing in, as we draw more and more facets of the world into it, each leading to a differentiation. Contradictions will occur for every definition, since we can always find some other aspect of the world, of situations, of how we might need to apply the definition, so that now, for this new aspect, the definition doesn't work, it contradicts itself and thereby directs us to a new differentiation which will [Page 11] make it able to fit also this case, also this new aspect which until now hadn't been brought into relation with it. Thus, no matter how good a definition is, it always can be brought to contradict itself because we can always find some aspect of the whole world which, in some way, can be made to relate to it, but which it hadn't yet been prepared to encompass. In this sense, too, you already know everything: not really, but in this sense of being capable of the recognition of the contradiction that will ensue, you are ready to recognize in all things, if we apply the definition, whether what we get is, or isn't what you meant to define. Of course, it takes our still doing this (as Socrates [Jowett] put it: "Nothing prevents you from remembering all things, if you desist not from your labors"). Only in the activity of conceptformation carried on, do you have this knowledge of all things. But now, let us try to go all the way. Let us say we have related our definition to absolutely every single thing and aspect of everything. Our definition now includes all things related to it and in it to each other. It is now what you wanted, truly the thing you wanted. The answer we seek may never yet have been invented at all, but its nature isn't indeterminate. In dialectic there is no ultimate difference between the true and the good, facts and values, nature and law, ignorance and evil. I may think I want X, just as I think such and so is the definition of X. But, when I see what is involved in X, what its consequences are as we draw them in, I realize that X isn't what I want at all! And my definition of X is really a definition of not-X. It isn't the case that I change from wanting it to not wanting it. Before, already, when I thought I wanted it, I really didn't. I knew what I did want, and that I still want, but unfortunately that isn't what X is. X happens to be something I don't want and never wanted. [Page 12] But now, what exists which is what I really did want? It isn't X, so what is it? I may not know, precisely, and yet, I want it. I could recognize it if it turned up. And it is wantable, it's something a person might want, and not only before he knew what all is involved in it, but after he knows all its consequences, then too, he'd still want it. This is the "what I wanted" really knowing all that's involved in it, I'd still want it. But, we say, that, to know all that is involved in anything would be to know everything (as it relates to that, and in that, to each other).

Thus, everyone wants (and in a sense he knows that he wants) the good, i.e., that which people would still want when they know what it involves and so everyone wants the good, meaning by that this ultimate completely differentiated and all-encompassing totality. This guides our choices and is what we want and forces our agreement at every step as we say, oh, if that's what is involved, I don't want it and never did.... Yet, this totality isn't known by us in concepts, all shaped out. It was not legitimate, earlier, when I said "all things and all aspects," as if these were already cut up in a finite number of ways right now. Dialectic is concept formation; it is that very cutting up, as an activity we do within nature. Dialectic is controlled by and within nature's order. This is an order which controls conceptformation. So it isn't itself concepts. Rather, it includes activity, pre-defined, experiential knowledge, wanting and choice, and it controls what leads even our best definitions to contradict themselves as more aspects of the world are drawn in. Thus, when I want something, or want to know something, I want that which would be what I want, that which IS what I seek to know. Of course, I'll only get this or that, which under some circumstances will be exactly what I didn't want...but "what I want" includes whatever modifications in my definitions I [Page 13] would have to make, whatever additional differentiations and relationships I would have to discover, to make it possible. My wanting has all this for its object. Thus the aimed-at is the object of the dialectic, (the aimed-at not as defined this way or that, but in a way in which it would never turn out to be what I didn't at all want). This aimed-at we want controls our forced choices at every juncture of every discussion. Philosophy is a loving of knowledge, and a loving is a lacking, a wanting. We could have emphasized the negative aspect of the paradox just as well. Instead of saying we are guided by what we (in a sense) know, I could have said we are guided by what we want, seek, i.e., don't yet have, i.e., lack. To say that my recognition of a problem guides me in thinking, is to say that the not "yet" had, the needed, guides even though we don't have it yet. We don't have it formulated yet, but it guides the object we seek guides. No one may ever yet have defined it, it may be a brand new problem, still the answer which we lack guides. Dialectic, being concept formation, breaks the concepts it begins with, and is guided by the concepts it moves toward. It is guided from ahead of itself, from what we (in a sense) don't yet know and which has perhaps never as yet been defined. A contradiction is such a lack, provided you realize that along with the lacking, broken, self-contradictory definition we still have our seeking, what we intended and wanted. In dialectic there is no difference, basically, between practice and theory. If you know, you know how to form the concepts which is the same as knowing how to form the thing (if not, then the concept is inadequate). You don't really know what justice is, if you can't produce it, teach it not as a verbal definition, but so as to make your pupils just. In making something we may well meet many facets that our theory was blind to, but this only says our theory was inadequate. No one may ever before have made a good object of that kind, but from need and trouble alone we know what it must satisfy. Thus the practical needs and [Page 14] and lacks will guide to a

knowing making, through however many steps of discovering new lacks. How we need it to be in practice controls also what respects of nature we will discover and have to formulate. Man, both as animal and as person, is, with all his practice and life situations, within nature, within this pre-defined but ordered whole. Choice doesn't come added on, after some useless monstrosity is made choice provides the forced steps of discovery, controlled by what we love, lack and need, within the nature and world in which we want, love and need. A new line of argument starts when a new character is drawn in, since we then have a different person, pre-defined knowledge and experience. Gorgias already knows that it isn't more rewarding to be a rotten person, but Callicles doesn't yet. Gorgias did want his activity to somehow include justice, to include its own aims, to have the power to determine its own aims, but Callicles thought he would be content without the power to determine aims, or to choose among various pleasures, or to direct his life, himself. Thus, a different respondent means a new line of argument (though it will build on the earlier). The questions asked, and the whole line of argument will depend on whom we talk with, since it depends completely on what he really thinks, not just on what he says. He can be very cooperative or very recalcitrant, but no argument is the least bit interesting if it doesn't involve some live human's actual choices and pre-defined knowledge, where he is hung up really, what he thinks he is committed to really, since without that the possibility of critically examining and developing concepts drops out and only verbiage is left, Thus dialectic is self-knowing, its knowledge is its own steps, how it develops its concepts. In contrast, a merely blind or rhetorical use of concepts we haven't made would be an activity that wouldn't know itself, wouldn't be able to say what it was. Such a rhetorical activity wouldn't know its own aim either. [Page 15] It would be using the concepts but it wouldn't know for what. It could be for anything since the choices are not examined any more than the concepts, but merely assumed. Furthermore, the choices are made separately and on different grounds than the concepts. Thus merely using concepts and conclusions cut off from how and why they are developed by persons, this cuts facts and values apart, letting one use the knowledge of facts for any values whatever. Such activity seems to have no objective of its own and no way of choosing one except arbitrarily. Thus the problem of being able to use some knowledge or power so it can result in either good or evil for me is a contradiction resolved only if knowledge and questions of good and evil are being examined. Then they develop together, for the critical examination of concepts requires our forced choices and wanting, and vice versa. Of dialectic there can be no "wrong use." Who, in all this, is the real judge or witness? It is you, the individual himself, but only as implications are presented to him, i.e., only as he engages in examining and developing concepts. Thus he might fail to judge rightly because he still has much of that left to do, and only in the ongoing dialectic is there a standard. The judges in courts, and the public generally, are even farther away as a group, from being a good standard.

How can we express this? The further along one has come on this dialectic path of examining one's meanings, the better one is and the more natural and personally desirable one's life is. But no live judges are unbiased or far enough along even Socrates says he doesn't know, he only seeks knowledge, engages in dialectical activity. It is really as though the value of our lives can be judged only by someone who is already at the total all-inclusive end, not someone alive, really as though what best expresses the value of our lives is what such all-knowing non-living judges would evaluate after we have finished living. Eugene T. Gendlin Note to Readers:

How Do I Refer To This Document? An example reference is at the top of this page. Please include the Internet address in the reference, even if you cite the document in a printed article, so that others can find the Gendlin Online Library. Can I Link Directly To This Document? Yes. We encourage you to link directly to it from your own online documents. We have built "hooks" into this web page to make it very easy to connect to individual pages and headings in the text. For examples, see: How to Link to The Gendlin Online Library. Biographic Note: Eugene T. Gendlin is a seminal American philosopher and psychologist. He received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Chicago and taught there from 1963 to 1995. His philosophical work is concerned especially with the relationship between logic and implicit intricacy. Philosophy books include Experiencing and the Creation of Meaning, Language Beyond Post-Modernism: Saying and Thinking in Gendlin's Philosophy edited by David Michael Levin, (fourteen commentaries and Gendlins replies), and A Process Model. There is a world wide network of applications and practices (http://www.focusing.org) stemming from this philosophy. Gendlin has been honored three times by the American Psychological Association for his development of Experiential Psychotherapy. He was a founder and editor for many years of the Associations Clinical Division Journal, Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice. His book Focusing has sold over half a million copies and has appeared in seventeen languages. His psychology-related books are Let Your Body Interpret Your Dreams and Focusing-Oriented Psychotherapy. If you see any faults in this document please send us an email. Add a comment to the Gendlin Online Blog for this article. See the reference for this document in the Gendlin primary bibliography. More on Philosophy of the Implicit from the Focusing Institute website.

Hegel's Dialectic
One of the earliest forms of employing the dialectical method was the Dialogues of Greek philosopher Plato. in which the author sought to study truth through discussion in the form of questions and answers. The Greek philosopher, Aristotle, thought of dialectic as the search for the philosophic basis of science, and he frequently used the term as a synonym for the science of logic. Hegel's aim was to set forth a philosophical system so comprehensive that it would encompass the ideas of his predecessors and create a conceptual framework in terms of which both the past and future could be philosophically understood. Such an aim would require nothing short of a full account of reality itself. Thus, Hegel conceived the subject matter of philosophy to be reality as a whole. This reality, or the total developmental process of everything that is, he referred to as the Absolute, or Absolute Spirit. According to Hegel, the task of philosophy is to chart the development of Absolute Spirit. This involves (1) making clear the internal rational structure of the Absolute; (2) demonstrating the manner in which the Absolute manifests itself in nature and human history; and (3) explicating the teleological nature of the Absolute, that is, showing the end or purpose toward which the Absolute is directed. Hegel, following the ancient Greek philosopher Parmenides, argued that "what is rational is real and what is real is rational." This must be understood in terms of Hegel's further claim that the Absolute must ultimately be regarded as pure Thought, or Spirit, or Mind, in the process of selfdevelopment Traditionally, this dimension of Hegel's thought has been analyzed in terms of the categories of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. Although Hegel tended to avoid these terms, they are helpful in understanding his concept of the dialectic. The thesis, then, might be an idea or a historical movement. Such an idea or movement contains within itself incompleteness that gives rise to opposition, or an antithesis, a conflicting idea or movement. As a result of the conflict a third point of view arises, a synthesis, which overcomes the conflict by reconciling at a higher level the truth contained in both the thesis and antithesis. This synthesis becomes a new thesis that generates another antithesis, giving rise to a new synthesis, and in such a fashion the process of intellectual or historical development is continually generated (reference- Encarta Encyclopedia) Hegel believed that the evolution of ideas occurs through a dialectical process-that is, a concept gives rise to its opposite, and as a result of this conflict, a new and third view, the synthesis, arises. This synthesis is at a higher level of truth than the first two views. Hegel's work is based on the idealistic concept of a universal mind that, through evolution, seeks to arrive at the highest level of self-awareness and freedom. At Nuremberg Hegel worked on his 'Science of Logic', which was published between 1812 and 1816. The success of this work brought him three offers of professorships. He taught at Heidelberg for a time and then in 1818 went to the University of Berlin (reference- Comptons Encyclopedia)