Dialectics: Which Dialectic is Which?

If the fate of the mankind were to hang on one philosophical term, it would be the word ‘dialectic’. This is because the dialectic a thinker endorses is the key to the inner rooms of his hidden intensions and true values. From this point of view, the safety and sanity of the world hangs on which dialectical system a society underwrites.

There is no denying the importance of the term dialectic but scholarship in this area is fraught with confusion. We rarely discuss the issue. In conversation — even among educated people — the subject is taboo. People in the academic world talk at cross purposes while we, the lay public, remain virtually unaware of the role The Dialectic plays in shaping the fortunes of our families. Vast numbers of ordinary citizens are blindly unaware of how their lives are influenced by various dialectical movements.

Some few are in on the secret. An elite pool of super thinkers know the power of The Dialectic. These worthies can discuss dialectical differences among Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Marx, Sorel, Sartre and relate past theories to modern trends. To this handful, it is no secret that The Dialectic is the hinge on which the philosophical enterprise swings.

However, the number of those who genuinely appreciate the significance of dialectical theory is small indeed. As we mentally play with nuclear weapons and flirt with doom, most of us muddle class Americans are blissfully ignorant of the importance The Dialectic exerts on our lives. Even worse, we are critically unaware of how much our future rides on the choice we make as to which dialectical style we lend our support.

Isn’t this intriguing? The most important happening of our day is a secret known only to a few. It stays that way because it is a forbidden subject of conversation. Even though our society is technically advanced beyond dreams of bygone days, most of us stubbornly refuse to examine the motor we use to drive our society? What is the answer to this mystery?

After stewing over dialectical conundrums for years, I see two solutions, one simple and one complex. The simple solution is to continue as we are and drive by “the seat of our pants”. Perhaps our native commonsense and good will holds enough power to bring civil discourse into dominance in the land.

We could. We, the moderate middle, have the power, by sheer numbers, to subdue the nefarious force of radical negative dialectics and demand that cultivated logical commonsense and fair play become the dominating method of political discourse. If we keep our feet on the ground, our head on our shoulders, and our heart in the right place we could squeeze out totalitarian propensities of social manipulators and not let the crazies in our society spoil the good life. This is a simple solution.

However, this simple solution does not always work. If the millions of tortured victims of Soviet Dialectic could speak, they would say it takes more than workaday commonsense to stand against the mesmeration of sophistic imperial dialectic once it penetrates the engines of power. Using the power of Radical Negative Dialectic, a deft autocrat can gain control behind the backs of the many and grab the wheel. If the dead victims of despotic dialectics could speak, they would tell us that there is an ever present danger, even in societies that claim to be free.

When logical intuition and rational commonsense are not enough to meet the challenge, we must have the courage to enter the realm of critical philosophy and intellectually study the matter. This brings us to my second answer, the complex solution. If we are to introduce a measure of intelligent control over powerful dialectical trends, then we must intellectually study the situation and make a conscious choice about which dialectic we prefer. This takes time and effort.

To gain a notion of the power of the term dialectic, we need to go back in time and learn how the idea has been used in the past. This means opening history books and at least glance at the role of the dialectic in history. If we do this, we will find that the power of the dialectic comes not only from its present role in directing our lives but also from the role it has played in years gone by.

Zeno of Elea, most historians agree, is the oldest known user of the Greek term dialectic. Zeno, a pupil and friend of Parmenides, lived in the fifth century B.C. He sought to uphold his master’s doctrine of the existence of the One by refuting and contradicting the popular belief in the existence of the Many. In reply to those who thought that Parmenides’ theory involved inconsistencies and absurdities, Zeno tried to show that the assumption of the existence of the Many carried with it inconsistencies and absurdities grosser and more numerous. Through this method of indirect argumentation, he invented the dialectic. Zeno expressed his arguments in the form of paradoxes, eight of which survive in the writings of Aristotle and Simplicius. One paradox is the race between the tortoise and Achilles. If the tortoise has the start, Achilles can never pass the tortoise for, while Achilles covers the distance from his starting point to the starting point of the tortoise, the tortoise advances a certain distance and while Achilles covers this distance the tortoise makes a further advance, and so on “ad infinitum”. Consequently, Achilles may run forever without ever overtaking the tortoise. From this source dialectic meant argumentation by contradiction and paradox.

Plato, in one of his dialogues, depicts Socrates, as a young man, meeting Parmenides, who is now an old man, and Zeno, tall and personable, in his middle forties. They engage in philosophical discussion. Although there is question whether such a meeting was chronologically possible, Plato seemed intent on establishing a connection between Parmenides, Zeno, and Socrates. Perhaps Plato bent historical accuracy to acknowledge the debt he felt to Socrates and Socrates felt to Zeno and Parmenides for their understanding of the dialectic, a means of refutation by contradiction and paradox.

Although Zeno may have been the inventor of the dialectic, Socrates was undoubtedly the one who popularized dialectic as a method. Since Socrates taught orally, his contributions come to us filtered through the opinions of others and it is difficult to know his exact teachings. The Socrates of Plato, for example, is much different than the Socrates depicted by Zenophon. Most historians agree, however, that Socrates did exist, that he brought into fashion a method for seeking the truth that has been a turning point in the growth of man’s knowledge, and that he called this method the dialectic. Through the writings of Plato, whose dialogues featured Socrates in the role of questioner, we have several definitions of this method. In the Craytlian Dialogue, Socrates asked,

“And him who knows how to ask and answer you would call a dialectician?” Hermogenes replied, “Yes that would be his name.”[1]

In this definition, given about the year 300 B.C., dialectic means simply questioning and answering by deliberate design. In the centuries that followed, in some schools this was all that was meant by the word dialectic.

In a more subtle use of the term dialectic, the questioner designed the questions in such a manner as to lead the person doing the answering from one opinion to its opposite opinion, from thesis to antithesis. The skill of a dialectician was measured by his dexterity at maneuvering his companion into denying what he had previously affirmed. This process, if repeated often, puts virtually all opinion in question and tends to encourage radical skepticism that can be seriously damaging to the morals of the young.

Plato addressed the problems created by endless questioning and contradicting in his educational plan in The Republic. Although he describes dialectic as the

“coping stone of the sciences”[2].

He is aware that the questioning spirit can be abused.

“Do you not remark how great is the evil which dialectic has introduced?”

and he goes on to explain,

“Now, when a man is in this state, and the questioning spirit asks what is fair or honourable, and he answers as the legislator has taught him, and then arguments many and diverse refute his words until he is driven into believing that nothing is honourable any more than dishonourable, or Just and good any more than the reverse, and so of all the notions which he most valued, do you think that he will still honour and obey them as before? And when he ceases to think them honourable and natural as heretofore, and he fails to discover the true, can he be expected to pursue any life other than that which flatters his desires? And from being a keeper of the law he is converted into a breaker of it. Now all this is very natural in students of philosophy such as I have described, and also, as I was just saying, most excusable. . .”[3]

Plato recognized that the dialectic often introduced an evil effect on the young. Filled with the questioning spirit, the immature easily became cynical, rebellious, developed disgust with their elders, and fell into habits of dissipation. One of the charges against Socrates was “the corruption of youth”. Although his trial was political, it is not hard to imagine a number of distraught parents among those who cast their vote against Socrates.

Plato solves this problem by advising that the dialectic should not be introduced to the young, but should be postponed to the mature years. He says,

“Every care must be taken in introducing them [the young] to dialectic. There is a danger lest they should taste the dear delight too early for youngsters, as you may have observed, when they first get the taste in their mouths, argue for amusement, and are always contradicting and refuting others in imitation of those who refute them like puppy dogs they rejoice in pulling and tearing at all who come near them . . . And when they have made many conquests and received defeats at the hands of many, they violently and speedily get into a way of not believing anything which they believed before, and hence, not only they, but philosophy and all that relates to it is apt to have a bad name with the rest of the world. But when a man begins to get older, he will no longer be guilty of such insanity; he will imitate the dialectician who is seeking for truth, and not the eristic, who is contradicting for the sake of amusement: and the greater moderation of his character will increase instead of diminish the honour of the pursuit.”[4]

To Plato, the dialectic was the Questioning Spirit, but it was also more than that. As he grew older and his philosophy matured, Plato’s explanations of the dialectic became mystical and rhapsodic. To develop an understanding of this deeper and encompassing meaning of the Platonic dialectic requires thorough study of his total philosophy. There is no way adequately to condense it without distorting Plato’s meaning. I will quote a remarks from the Republic because Plato’s own words best explain the exalted position the dialectic held in his estimation.

“And when I speak of the other division of the intelligible, you will understand me to speak of that other sort of knowledge which reason herself attains by the power of dialectic, using the hypotheses not as first principles, but only as hypotheses: that is to say, as steps and points of departure into a world which is above hypothesis, in order that we may soar beyond them to the first principle of the whole and clinging to this and then to that which depends on this, by successive steps she descends again without the aid of any sensible object, from ideas, through ideas, and in ideas she ends.

And so with dialectic: when a person starts on the discovery of the absolute by the light of reason only, and without any assistance of sense, and perseveres until the pure intelligence he arrives at the perception of the absolute good, he at last finds himself at the end of the intellectual world, as in the case of sight at the end of the visible.

Exactly, he said.

Then this is the progress which you call dialectics?

True.

But the release of the prisoners from chains, and their translation from the shadows to the images and to the light, and the ascent from the underground den to the sun, while in his presence they are vainly trying to look on animals and plants and the light of the sun, but are able to perceive even with their weak eyes the images in the water (which are divine), and are the shadows of true existence... This power of elevating the highest principle in the soul to the contemplations of that which is best in existence, with which we may compare the raising of that faculty which is the very light of the body to the sight of that which is brightest in the material and visible world this power if given, as I was saying, by all that study and pursuit of the arts which has been described. ...Say then what is the nature and what are the divisions of dialectic, and what are the paths which lead thither: for these paths will also lead to our final rest.

my best and you should behold not an image only but the absolute truth, according to my notion...

alone can reveal this, and only to one who is a disciple of the previous sciences...and assuredly no one will argue that there is any other method of comprehending any regular process all true existence of ascertaining what each thing is in its own nature.

Then Dialectic, and dialectic alone, goes directly to the first principle and is the only science which does away with hypothesis in order to make her ground secure the eye of the soul, which is literally buried in an outlandish slough, is by her gentle aid lifted upwards and she uses as handmaids and helpers in the work of conversion, the science which we have been discussing.”[5]

From the above statements, we can abstract several observations. First of all the dialectic was a method of seeking the truth through a dialogue where one person questioned and another answered. Often the questions were designed to lead the answerer from one opinion to the denial of that opinion. This led to what Plato called the questioning spirit which in turn led to a state of doubt. Socrates insisted that although he was ignorant, he was wiser than others because he knew he did not know. The questioning spirit led to this condition. But doubting was a new kind of knowing with a new kind of certainty and Plato went from here, beyond what Socrates had done, to a philosophy of absolute good and absolute truth that was virtually a religion. The dialectic was the progress of discovering the absolute by the light of reason only. By its gentle aid the soul was lifted upward. Plato calls the dialectic a “hymn”, a “strain which is of the intellect only”. The dialectic was a process that went in stages but always the aim was to rouse people to search after eternal truth and good and to “labour after eternal being” by the light of reason. Dialectic thus interpreted is a faith and, clearly, is a religion.

From this brief resume of Plato’s philosophy, we can list several definitions of dialectic: (1) Dialectic is a method of seeking truth by means of questions and answers. (2) Dialectic is a method of questioning designed to lead the responder from an affirmed opinion to the denial of that opinion. (3) Dialectic is a “questioning spirit”. (4) Dialectic is a method of criticism. (5) Dialectic is a systematic method of doubting and contradicting. (6) Dialectic is a way to discover the absolute by the light of reason only. (7) Dialectic is a religion.

Although some claim that the first definition implies the following definitions, not all persons recognize this implication and, the result is, when the term dialectic was used, even in Plato’s time, it was often questionable which meaning was intended.

Aristotle was one of Plato’s students. He, too, was concerned with seeking eternal being by the light of reason. By attending and participating in the many debates, dialogues, and disputations then popular, he became convinced that reasonings varied drastically in quality. He says at the beginnings of “Sophistical Refutations”,

“That some reasonings are genuine, while other seem to be so but are not, is evident. This happens with arguments, as also elsewhere, through a certain likeness between the genuine and the sham.”[6]

Aristotle made a clear distinction between genuine reasoning and sham reasoning. He still believed in the Greek ideal of seeking wisdom, truth and reason, but the reasoning, he figured, should be genuine reasoning. Sham reasoning led only to the show of wisdom and the pretense of truth.

Because Aristotle believed that sham reasoning was foul fighting, he began searching for rules to distinguish genuine reasoning from sophistical or contentious reasoning. It was through such efforts that he discovered the syllogism. He learned that by relating a major and a minor premise containing a common term, a conclusion followed. He further discovered that the necessity of the conclusion varied with the arrangement of the terms, that is, the validity depended on the form. Through seriously studying the rules of correct reasoning and through the discovery of the syllogism, Aristotle became the father of a new science. He called it Analytics. We call it Logic.

Aristotle stated the first syllogism thus: If all B is A, and all C is B, then all C is A. Later logicians simplified the syllogism into the familiar form:

Major Premise: All men are mortal.     All M is P

Minor Premise: Socrates is a man.   All S is M

Conclusion: Socrates is mortal.   All S is P

This simple scheme, full of implications, added a new dimension to man’s understanding of reason. Much of Aristotle works is an expansion of the possibilities inherent in the syllogistic scheme and the distinction between valid and sham reasoning. His works are sometimes referred to as syllogistic.

This did not mean Aristotle abandoned the dialectic he learned from Plato. Although forsaking some of Plato’s doctrines, namely Plato’s contempt for the senses, Aristotle saw the dialectic and syllogistic schemes as complementary. In the Topics[7], he lists for kinds of reasoning:

1. Demonstration
2. Dialectical
3. Contentious
4. False Demonstration.[8]

According to Aristotle, both demonstration and dialectical reasoning are genuine. Demonstration reasons from premises that are true and primary. Dialectic reasons establish opinions commonly accepted or supposed by prominent persons. Both contentious reasoning (which is the abuse of the dialectical method and only appears to reason), and false demonstration (which starts from assumptions that are not true) are invalid forms of reasoning. Those who seek truth should avoid being taken in by sham tactics.

After making the distinction between the demonstrator and the dialectician, Aristotle explains their relationship to the syllogism[9]. The real distinction between dialectician and demonstrator is the source of their premises, but once these are chosen it makes no difference in the production of a syllogism. He says,

“...both the demonstrator and the dialectician argue syllogistically after stating that something does or does not belong to something else.”[10]

Aristotle stated in Topics that there are two species of dialectical arguments, Induction and Reasoning.

“There is on the one hand Induction, on the other Reasoning. Now what reasoning is has been said before. Induction is a passage from individuals to universals, e.g., the argument that supposing the skilled pilot is the most effective, and likewise the skilled charioteer, then in general the skilled man is the best at his particular task. Induction is the more convincing and clear: it is more readily learnt by the use of the senses, and is applicable generally to the mass of men, though Reasoning is more forcible and effective against contradictions people.”[11]

Aristotle also distinguished between a dialectical and a scientific method of inquiry. He discussed dialectical reasoning, dialectical induction, scientific reasoning, and scientific induction.[12] With these distinctions in mind it is possible to summarize, in part, Aristotle’s understanding of the term dialectic.

1. 1. The dialectic was a method of inquiry.[13]
2. 2. The dialectic was a mode of examination that proceeds by questioning.14]
3. 3. The dialectician was one who examined by the help of a theory or reasoning.[15]
4. 4. The dialectic was a process of criticism wherein lay the path to the principles of all inquiries.[16]
5. 5. The art of examination was a branch of the dialectic whose purpose was to expose the ignorant pretender.[17]

To this point, Aristotle’s understanding of the term dialectic, except for the distinction between dialectic and scientific, is close to Plato’s. However, in his Metaphysics Aristotle distinguished between the dialectician and the philosopher. He says,

“The dialectic is merely critical where philosophy claims to know.”[18]

To Plato the Dialectic was the path to eternal being. To Aristotle, philosophy was the path to eternal being.[19] From an Aristotelian point of view philosophy is a religion and dialectic is a path of right reason. Dialectic is not a religion but rather a method of sound rational thinking.

Aristotle was the father of logic but his works have had a strange and twisted history. Part of the problem is that he attempted to state systematically the rules of syllogistic reasoning for the first time and he made some mistakes. Much of what he did was awkward, overdone, underdone, and contradictory. In light of his incredible positive accomplishments, it feels petty to criticizing what he failed to do but the truth is, his writings are laborious and his arguments hard to follow, often trailing off into wilderness. He lays down careful definitions and rules and then at crucial moments fails to follow them himself. Much of this is due to the natural growth of his philosophy, which he revised as he matured. Even more problems are due to the history of the collections. Some of what we have, may have been notes taken by his students and may not reflect Aristotle’s thinking. Many of his published works are lost. As a result it is virtually impossible to say what the Aristotelian philosophy or the Aristotelian logic actually is. His work is a preface more than a finished product. His writings are open to divergent interpretations and one person’s idea of Aristotelian philosophy or logic might be quite different from another.

Aristotle’s works have had a strange history. After his death his manuscripts, for political reasons, were concealed in a vault in Asia Minor. His school in Athens, the Peripatetics, rapidly declined and those of philosophical ability threw themselves into one of two rival schools which had arisen, the Stoic and the Epicurean. These schools were interested in Aristotle’s theories, especially his logic, but it is probable they did not have copies of his more mature works. They did have some material which they attributed to Aristotle and which has since been lost. Some speculate this might have been dialogues Aristotle wrote while still a young man studying under Plato plus notes made by those who attended Aristotle’s lectures. Whatever they were, they are now missing. It happens, from this turn of events, that there are several Aristotle’s. When one reads comments in ancient works, particularly works of the Stoics, about Aristotle’s logic or his dialectic it does not necessarily mean the Aristotelian logic we now possess. Cicero apparently in his later years had some contact with Aristotle’s mature works.

The thirteenth century was famous because of its rediscovery of Aristotle. Thomas Aquinas (1224?-1274 Mar 17) integrated Aristotle’s philosophy with Christian theology. What happened to Aristotle’s works between Cicero and St. Thomas is somewhat obscure. As a result, significant bits of material attributed to Aristotle was, and still is, hearsay.

External confusion added to the internal difficulties has populated the modern world with widely divergent interpretations of Aristotle. When a philosopher criticizes Aristotelian logic, we are at a loss to know which aspect and which translation of which Aristotle is in question unless the critic is explicit.

When Aristotle died the philosophical ball passed to the Stoics and the Epicureans. The Stoics divided logic into grammar and dialectic. From this practice, on through the Middle Ages, the term dialectic became, in many quarters, synonymous with formal logic. This view was basic to the seven liberal arts which for centuries were the intellectual studies believed to be necessary for a free spirit. Grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic (formal logic) made up the Trivium. Arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music made up the quadrivium. Although the older usage of the term dialectic never died out, the identification of dialectic with logic became generally accepted for centuries. An unabridged 1894 Webster’s Dictionary gives only one meaning of dialectic, dialectician, and dialectics,

“pertaining to logic, logical argumentation a logician, a reasoner that branch of logic which teaches the rules and modes of reasoning.”[20]

For many people and for many centuries this is what the term dialectic meant. Even today, this is what some people mean when they speak of dialectic or dialectics or dialecticians.

Identifying dialectic with formal logic and reasoning is further complicated by numerous understandings and definitions of both logic and reason that have accrued over the centuries. In the study of the history of logic many diverse subjects and philosophical arguments have been classified as logical theory. In the history of philosophy, much that has been classified as logic had nothing to do with learning the rules of right reason in order to distinguish the genuine from the sham. Rather we find ponderous declamations on the relative merits of realism and nominalism, the problems of universals and particulars, the priority of essence or existence, the relation of thought and being, etc. Many metaphysical problems would have dissolved into nothing, if people had first known the basic rules of right reason. Unfortunately, the simple conception of logic became buried in the confusion.

In Western history, metaphysical logic often ended in quibbling and petty quarrels. Because logic was identified with dialectic, both logic and dialectic often picked up pejorative connotations. Along with all the other meanings that the term dialectic has acquired over the centuries, it also means “contentious reasoning”.

As the problems of logic grew increasingly more complicated, philosophers became eager to discover a method of resolving these complications. If man was to live by reason, reason needed to be freed from the metaphysical web that entangled it.

Immanuel Kant was such a philosopher. He was born in Germany in 1724, three years before Isaac Newton died, and lived in the 18th century, the century of reason. As a philosopher he taught a Wolffian brand of philosophy which was a modified version of Leibnitz (the German counterpart of Isaac Newton). Kant was also influenced by arguments of David Hume and Rousseau. Kant gave the philosophy of reason a new turn and laid the ground work for a new ideological meaning of the term dialectic. Philosophers are virtually unanimous in agreeing that Kant profoundly influenced subsequent philosophy. In Makers of the Modern Mind, Thomas Neill says,

Hegel, who was steeped in both Greek and German philosophy, accepted Kant’s assessment that dialectical reasoning led to contradictions, but he rejected the assumption that it was therefore an illusion. Instead, he took dialectical reason and the contradictions involved as the true form of reality and built his philosophy, from the ground up, into a sweeping new, dramatically reversed view of reality. With this new method, everything that before had been right now appeared wrong, and everything that had been wrong appeared right.

Hegel devised a philosophy that turned the world upside down. At a time when democracy was gaining respectability, he despised democracy and favored monarchy as the true state of freedom. At a time when people were hungry for peace and world harmony, he justified war. At a time when the generation following Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, etc., was trying to learn how to solve problems of power through parliamentary procedure, Hegel admired men like Caesar, Machiavelli, and Napoleon, who took power in their own hands and forced their will on the spirit of the world.

“These men are heroes and may justifiably contravene ordinary moral rules.”[27]

It was not Hegel’s brand of “situation ethics”, however, that brought him recognition. It was his theory of the dialectic that set Hegel apart, and made his philosophy the ground work of the most revolutionary movement that has ever beset mankind. Although the Hegelian Dialectic was influenced by Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics and was given a vocabulary by Kant’s Critique, his logical theory of reason is something distinct and apart from older dialectical theories. His dialectic is a new idea of reason. He conceived of it as a “higher consciousness”,[28] a “new way of thinking”, “an elevation of the mind”[29] based on the rejection of the old-fashioned laws of thought, and the “old-fashioned”,[30] “dead bones”,[31] “static logic”[32] of traditional philosophy. It is Hegel’s Dialectic that is important for us to understand today. Other dialectical theories are of only historic interest compared to the influence of this revolutionary German professor.

Hegel’s whole philosophy stemmed from one idea. He believed he had discovered a new Logic. Just as Aristotle had brought a revolution to the world when he discovered the syllogism, so too, Hegel thought he was initiating another even more profound revolution by disclosing what he thought was a higher logic which he called the dialectic.

Hegel says in his preface to The Science of Logic (which is his major work) that he is doing something new.

“The fact that it has been necessary to make a completely fresh start with this science [the science of logic], the very nature of the subject matter and the absence of any previous works which might have been utilized for the projected reconstruction of logic, may be taken into account by fair-minded critics, even though a labour covering many years has been unable to give this effort a greater perfection. The essential point of view is that what is involved is an altogether new concept of scientific procedure.” (emphasis mine)[33]

Hegel says in his introduction,

“...the conceptions on which the Notion of logic has rested hitherto have in part already been discarded; and for the rest, it is time that they disappeared entirely and that this science were grasped from a higher standpoint and received a completely changed shape.” [34]

He states that this changed shape is the only true standpoint and in the future must always be the mode of treatment of logical reason.[35]

Kant had admired Aristotle’s logic as having given an exhaustive exposition of the formal rules of all thought.[36] Hegel, however, disagrees with Kant and says,

“Now if logic has not undergone any change since Aristotle and in fact, Judging by modern compendiums of logic the changes frequently consist mainly in omissions then surely the conclusion which should be drawn is that it is all the more in need of a total reconstruction for spirit, after its labours over two thousand years, must have attained to a higher consciousness about its thinking and about its own pure essential nature. . . In point of fact, the need for a reconstruction of logic has long been felt. In form and in content, as exhibited in the textbooks. it may be said to have fallen into contempt. It is still dragged in, but more from a feeling that one cannot dispense with logic altogether and because the tradition of its importance still survives, rather than from a conviction that such commonplace content and occupation with such empty forms is valuable and useful.” (emphasis mine)[37]

Only those who understand that Hegel is talking about a completely New Way of Thinking can ever begin to grasp what Hegel intends or understand the fervor of those who follow his method. The ordinary, common sense method of thinking in terms of clear concepts, judicious judgments, true facts, sound principles, and validly deduced conclusions is rejected by Hegel.[40] His method is, instead, one of grasping opposites in their unity, the positive in the negative. It is a movement of truth in spirit and as such cannot be defined or stated in propositions. It can only be grasped in its whole and cannot be summarized. Any attempt to explain the Hegelian dialectical method distorts it. What his dialectic is cannot be stated beforehand, but emerges as the final outcome and consummation of the total course of exposition.[41]

Unfortunately, the total course of exposition is a long, tedious course. Many years of study are required just to master Hegel’s vocabulary, many more to begin to guess what he is saying. The result is an esoteric philosophy that, for masses of people, is abstruse in the extreme. Understanding the New Dialectic belongs only to a small elite circle initiated to the mysteries, This elite circle consists of those who think they understand him or can effectively pretend they do. Strangely enough, this secret, enshrouded aspect of the new dialectic affords its strongest appeal. If it is the method of science and the method of reason and the method of understanding history, and only a few comprehend it, then these few are, therefore, very special people. Since they are the only ones who understand, they have a special right that others do not possess. In this manner the New Dialectic seems to select its own “chosen ones” to guide mankind to its realization. The New Dialectic, like Plato’s dialectic, is a means of salvation and a religion.

Hegel’s dialectic, as he meant it in its totality, is impossible to summarize. However, to evaluate his influence some summarization is needed, and, for this purpose what Hegel actually meant in his true inner heart is not as important as what others thought he meant. Very few accept him “as is” anyway. It is from interpretations, reinterpretations, and reconstructions that Hegel’s powerful influence has stemmed. From this source certain characteristics stand out. These features characterize the new dialectic a new meaning and are fundamental in understanding how the term is coming more and more to be used in the modern context.

The most important aspect of Hegel’s Dialectic is the attitude toward contradiction and conflict. Dr. Robert Tucker, believed that Hegel meant by dialectic the pattern of mechanism or development through inner conflict. He said,

“So Hegel asserts, in explaining his dialectical idea, that contradiction is the very moving principle of the world.”[42]

Herbert Marcuse says in Reason and Revolution,

“Negativity” is another important feature of the Hegelian dialectic. Hegel argues that it is through negativity more than any other factor that the dialectic can be translated into action. Herbert Marcuse says in his preface to Reason and Revolution,

The third feature important in understanding the Hegelian influence on modern dialectics is the unity of subject and object. This is expressed in many ways. One interpretation is that the laws of thought and the laws of being are the same.

“Thought and being follow the same law.”[49]

“The movement of thought, then, is the same as the movement of being.”[50]

The third “law” states that the same laws that apply to nature also apply to logic. All reality follows the same law. A division between subject and predicate such as is found in the propositions of traditional logic is a false division. The abstractions of traditional logic again separate subject from object, theory from practice, and lead to alienation of man from nature, man from society, man from himself. These alienations must be crushed by overcoming the false duality imposed by traditional modes of thinking. These dualities include: 1. old definitions of man as a “rational animal”; 2. those old dualities that divided human nature into “body” and “soul” or “matter” and “spirit”; 3. theories that present human nature as distinct and separate from the nature of God. The realization of reason implies the overcoming of these alienations.

Although dialectic based on the Hegelian scheme puts great emphasis on the power of contradiction in the rhythm of the dialectic, the contradiction does not remain but is the force that leads to eventual synthesis and unity. The dualisms of traditional thinking become one of their prime targets. The language of logic should be similar in structure to that of the world. The real is rational and the rational is real.

These three features, contradiction, negativity, and unity of subject and object, distilled from the Hegelian logic, have given a new meaning to the term dialectic. It is a new dialectic, a new way of thinking and reasoning, a “new consciousness”. There is a sense in which it could be said that it stems from the older meanings, but the new dialectic should not be confused with ancient or medieval uses of the term dialectic, because in new dialectic “reason” does not seek to avoid contradiction, but embraces contradiction, as a means to ultimate synthesis.

After Hegel, the new dialectic wrought a profound influence on philosophy. Hegelian movements sprang up everywhere. Even in the United States, after the Civil War, a Philosophical Society was founded in 1866 to study Hegel and to apply his teachings to the emerging mass society and urban culture. One of the founders of this society, William Torrey Harris, became the first United States Commissioner of Education in 1889 and helped start the Journal of Speculative Philosophy published by this society was the most important philosophical journal in the U.S.A. for many years.[51] John Dewey, who is often called the leading philosopher of the United States, was a Hegelian as a young man and his system of logic, although more positive in tone, was definitely influenced by Hegel’s dialectic and by Hegel’s intense dislike of traditional logic.

The influence of the new dialectic in the United States up until the 1960’s, although important, was minor compared with its prestige in Europe. In Europe, almost no one accepted the whole of Hegel’s philosophy. However, his dialectical vocabulary, his themes, his tactics, and the three schemes (mentioned above) set the stage for much subsequent European philosophy and for the history consequent on those philosophies. The negative attitude of Nietzsche, the super race of the Nazis, and the irrationalism of the Existentialists, all have roots in Hegel’s reinterpretation of logic.

Part of Hegel’s influence came simply from reaction. He wrote on logic and was referred to as a rationalist. Many who were appalled at his metaphysical obscurity, turned against all logic and all rationalism. Following the peak of Hegel’s popularity there was a wave of anti-rationalism that can still be felt. Many who now reject traditional logic cite Hegel as an example of traditional logic. Many who currently reject reason and the idea of rational improvement present Hegel as if he represented those attributes. Sometimes Hegel is given as an example of traditional logic. Hegel would love this inversion. He would see it as an example of things turning into their opposite.

The most far reaching influence of Hegel’s dialectic, however, burst forth from a group of German students who became, for a while, Hegel’s devoted followers and who are referred to as The Young Hegelians. All their energies seemed to concentrate in one person, “Hegel’s most passionate disciple”[52], a student named Karl Marx.

“For young Marx, as for all youthful Hegelians, Hegel’s philosophy was the promise of the fulfillment of the Faustian dream of ‘Divine Wisdom”’.[53]

Karl Marx did not take Hegel’s dialectic “as is”, but by a method Marx labeled “transformational criticism or inversion”[54], he switched the dialectic from a spiritual realization to a material realization. Marx said that he turned Hegel on his head.[55] Where Hegel said “spirit” Marx said “man” and where Hegel said “man” Marx substituted “spirit”. God did not create man. Man, rather, created the idea of God in his effort to realize his own fulfillment. Marx believed he was making manifest the latent content disguised in Hegel’s philosophy. Hegel’s logic was thus turned from a dialectic of thought and exposition to a dialectic of action and prediction. In this form, the dialectic became the driving force of Communism as we know it today. Theoretically it is referred to as Dialectical Materialism.

It is in the form of Dialectical Materialism as expounded by Karl Marx, that Hegel has had his most profound and far-reaching influence. Garaudy says,

“Marxism in our day has achieved a universality that no spiritual, political, or philosophical movement has ever known not only because one man in three in the world already lives in a society that is building socialism according to the teachings of Marx, but because Marxism has become the point of reference against which all thought and all action are measured. Are you for it or against it?”[56]

Through Marx, Hegel’s new logic and new idea of reason and new dialectic has become everything Hegel dreamed it would. If it continues to grow in the future as it has in the past few decades, it will be undoubtedly the most significant movement the world has ever known. Walter Kaufman says in his reinterpretation of Hegel,

“It is generally agreed that Hegel was one of the greatest philosophers of all time, and no philosopher since 1800 has had more influence...Indeed recent intellectual history cannot be understood apart from him.”[57]

Henry D. Aiken says in The Age of Ideology;

No one appreciated the dialectic of contradiction as much as Mao Tse Tung. It was through his conversion to the dialectical method, he tells us, that he was able to rise from an insignificant peasant boy to the leader of Communist China’s 650,000,000 people. According to Mao, the dialectic from the hands of Marx, Engles, Lenin, and Stalin, was the weapon that sustained the Communist Party through periods of apparent defeat.[67] Mao said,

“Communists the world over are wiser than the bourgeoisie, they understand the laws governing the existence and development of things, they understand dialectics and they can see farther.”[68]

It was through the Russians that the Chinese found Marxism. Mao Tse Tung said,

“Under the leadership of Lenin and Stalin, the revolutionary energy of the great proletariat and labouring people of Russia, hitherto latent and unseen by foreigners, suddenly erupted like a volcano, and the Chinese and all mankind began to see the Russians in a new light. Then, and only then, did the Chinese enter an entirely new era in their thinking and their life. They found Marxism-Leninism, the universally applicable truth, and the face of China began to change.”[69]

Mao Tse Tung became a leading Marxist philosopher. His viewpoint was thoroughly dialectical. Failure to understand this aspect of the Chinese Communist Movement distorts the reality of what happened. Mao says at the beginning of his essay On Contradiction, which was written as a companion to his essay On Practice,

“The law of contradiction in things, that is, the law of the unity of opposites, is the most basic law in materialist dialectics. Lenin said: ‘In its proper meaning, dialectics is the study of the contradiction within the very essence of things.’ Lenin often called this law the essence of dialectics. he also called it the kernel of dialectics.”[70]

This essay was written to defend the dialectical way of thinking and to eradicate doctrinaire ways of thought. He accordingly distinguishes between the two.

“In the history of human knowledge, there have always been two views concerning the laws of development of the world the metaphysical view and the dialectical view which form two mutually opposed world outlooks.”[71]

The Doctrinaires, he says, are in danger of falling into the metaphysical method because they do not sufficiently understand the contradiction in things. Mao cites both Engels, who was Karl Marx’s friend and collaborator, and Lenin to substantiate his views.

“Engles said: ‘Motion itself is a contradiction.’ Lenin defined the law of the unity of opposites as ‘the recognition (discovery) of the contradictory, mutually exclusive, opposite tendencies in all phenomena and processes of nature (including mind and society)’ Are these views correct? Yes, they are. The interdependence of the contradictory aspects of a thing and the struggle between them determine the life and impel the development of that thing. There is nothing that does not contain contradiction; without contradiction there would be no world.”[72]

In the same essay, On Contradiction, Mao says a few pages later,

“Contradiction exists in the process of development of all things, and contradiction runs through the process of development of each thing from beginning to end this is the universality and absoluteness of contradiction which we have discussed above.”[73]

He says, further,

“. . . contradiction exists in and runs through all processes from beginning to end. Contradictions are movements, are things, are Processes, are thoughts. To deny the contradiction in things is to deny everything. This is a universal principle for all times and all countries, which admits of no exceptions. . . This principle of common character and individual character, of absoluteness and relativity is the quintessence of the problem of the contradiction in things not to understand it is tantamount to abandoning dialectics.”[74]

Contradiction, as viewed dialectically, is the quintessence of the Communist theory. Through the dialectic, contradictions struggle against each other, turn into their opposites, dominate and disappear. This is not only a law of nature, but also a law of thought. It is a “new way of thinking”, a “new” reason. Mao concludes his essay On Contradiction by emphasizing this point.

“Now we can make a few remarks to sum up. The law of the contradiction in things, that is, the law of the unity of opposites, is the basic law of nature and society and therefore also the basic law of thought. It is the opposite of the metaphysical world outlook. It means a great revolution in the history of human knowledge. According to the view point of dialectical materialism, contradiction exists in all processes of objective things and subjective thought and runs through all processes from beginning to end this is the universality and absoluteness of contradiction... If after study, we have really understood the essential points mentioned above, we shall be able to smash those doctrinaire ideas which run counter to the basic principle of Marxism-Leninism and are detrimental to our revolutionary cause, . . . “[75]

Dialectical Materialism, reconstructed from Hegel’s dialectical logic, is not a doctrine. It is “a way of thinking.” It is a “new logic” that explicitly rejects the basic laws of thought that were the foundation of traditional Western rationality. Marxist Communism is revolutionary because a revolution in the basic rules of reasons calls for a corresponding revolution in the basic structure of society. The Communist method of organizing society develops logically out of their understanding of the new dialectic. Conversely, it develops dialectically out of their understanding of logic. Dialectic is the driving force, the unifying principle, the quintessence, the kernel, the hallmark, the very soul of Communism. Of all the dialecticaltheories that have become influential over the centuries, Communist Dialectical Materialism is the most effective, if you measure it in terms of sheer control.

Throughout history the term dialectic has had many meanings and begotten many controversies. The resulting confusion disgusted many people. Large numbers figured that, if logicians spent their days arguing and quibbling and spinning incomprehensible conjurations, then why bother with logic or dialectics at all? Without any particular conscious design, this aversion to dialectics and logic created a tendency to pass over the subject.

In the United States today (1975) many well-educated people have never encountered dialectic in an intellectual sense and are unaware of the rich history of the term. This creates a certain naivete. When the term dialectic is used, even by modern intellectuals, one can never know whether they are innocently throwing in the term because it is stylish, or whether they are using it with understanding and refer to one of the historical meanings. Even if the term is intentionally used, we’re still in the dark as to which historical meaning is implied. Janov says in the “Primal Scream”,

“Feeling is the antithesis of Pain. The dialectic of the Primal method is that the more Pains one feels, the less pain one suffers.”[76]

Will Durant says in The Story of Philosophy,

“...the Jesuits gave him [Voltaire] the very instrument of skepticism by teaching him dialectics-the art of proving anything, and therefore at last the habit of believing nothing.”[77]

Benedict M. Ashle