From Daniel Berthold-Bond, Hegel's Grand Synthesis: A Study ofBeing, Thought, and History. New York: Harper, 1993, pp. 81-91.
Probably more has been written about Hegel's theory of dialecticthan any other aspect of his philosophy. It has been ridiculed as a"primitive schematization system," [49] and praised as that whichallows Hegel to "describe as few others have done the paradoxes, theproblems, and the glories of spiritual life." [50] I am not going toattempt a systematic or thorough analysis of Hegel's theory ofdialectic, but wish only to show how the principle of negativityserves to illuminate its structure, and to say a few words about therole of dialectic in Hegel's philosophy as a whole. [51]
Dialectic is both a method of demonstration and an ontologicalprinciple for Hegel. As method, it is meant to show the necessity ofdevelopment, or transition, from one stage of consciousness or ofhistory, or from one abstract category of logic, to a higher stage orcategory. [52] "Once the dialectic has been separated from proof,"Hegel says, "the notion of [genuinely] philosophical demonstrationhas been lost" (PhS 40).
"Thus understood," Hegel writes, "the dialectical principleconstitutes the life and soul of scientific progress, . . . the soulof all knowledge which is truly scientific" [SL -81 Anmerkung& Zusatz). I will say more about the nature of dialectic as aprinciple of philosophic method in Chapter Five, but here I wish tolook at the sense in which dialectic is also an ontologicalprinciple, expressing the immanent teleological development of thingsfrom their potentialities to actuality. In this sense, dialectic is"the indwelling tendency outwards" (immanente Hinausgehen) ofthings (SL -81 Anmerkung), the impulse to externalization andconcretion.
Hegel compares the "simple essence" of substance to a state ofunreflective "satisfaction" {Befriedung), which is, however, a"selfconsuming" state (die unendliche Bewegung won welsher jenesruhige Medium [simple substance] auggezeht wird) (PhS107-9). Substance, or being, defined as self-repose is not yet for isonly potentially) spirit, but only a "motionless tautology" of simpleself-identity, A=A. And yet, Hegel says, "this self-identity ofsubstance is no less negativity: its apparently fixedexistence passes over into its dissolution" (PhS 34). Satisfaction isephemeral, carrying within it a yearning desire, a dialecticalimpulse to self-expression and self-realization.
As such, "dialectic gives expression to a law which is felt in allconsciousness . . . and experience," the law of the internal drive toreach out beyond a thing's isolation and fixedness to a fullerself-determination: dialectic is the dynamic of theself-transcendence of things (SL -81 Zusatz). In history,dialectic "exhibits the . . . successive gradations in thedevelopment of . . . the consciousness of freedom" (PhH 56). Hegelviews freedom as the telos of history, and the actual courseof history as a dialectical "development of [the human] capacity orpotentiality [for freedom] striving to realize itself" (PhH 54). Inlogic, dialectic expresses the "dialectical nature of the idea ingeneral, [53] namely, that it is self-determined -- that it assumessuccessive forms which it successively transcends: dialectic in logicis thus the exposition of "the necessary series of pure abstractforms which the idea successively assumes" (PhH 63). And inphenomenology, dialectic describes the "path of the naturalconsciousness which presses forward to true knowledge; or the way ofthe soul which journeys through the series of its own configurationsas though they were stations appointed for it by its own nature, sothat it may purify itself for the life of spirit and achieve finally,through a completed experience of itself, the awareness of what itreally is in itself (PhS 49). The phenomenological dialectic is asort of via dolorosa which common sense consciousness mustundergo in order to attain authentic spirituality; or it may belikened to the painful path which Plato describes in his Republic bywhich the person chained to the world of appearance becomes liberatedand gradually, painfully, ascends through intermediate forms ofopinion and belief to genuine knowledge.
There are two basic aspects of Hegel's anatomy of dialectic that Iwish to look at here: (a) the idea that dialectic is advance ordevelopment through negativity; and (b) the sense in which dialecticis a mode of thought -- a way of thinking about things -- that is notnecessarily employed in a speculative (i.e., truly philosophic) way,but may be misapplied. Both of these dimensions of the Hegeliandialectic will further illuminate the structure of his grandsynthesis, since (a) the principle of negativity will expose theimportant qualification that harmony (of thought and being) can occuronly through discord; and (b) the anatomy of dialectic as applying indifferent ways to different forms of thought will expose Hegel'sbelief that only with the working-through to a certain "shape" orGestalt of thought -- the standpoint of speculative philosophyor Wissenschaft -- can a reconciliation of thought and beingbe achieved in its fullest sense.
Dialectic is defined by Hegel as the power (or energy or force) ofnegativity. Negativity involves, in general, the opposing ofsomething to its "other." When applied to epistemology, this is the"pathway of doubt" and "loss of immediate certainty" involved in thedisparity between subject and object in the course of consciousness'experience of the world. And when applied to ontology, negativity isthe EntauBerung of substance by which it "becomes other" toitself.
As we mentioned in section 2, this EntauBerung is one oftwo basic features of becoming, the other being the feature ofconcretion. We may say now that both of these features of becomingare due to the principle of negativity. Negativity is externalizing,because, according to Hegel, "what is undifferentiated is lifeless"(HPh 2:67), and it is precisely the immanent impulse of negativitywhich accounts for differentiation. Self-identity without negativityspells the death of being for Hegel, whether this being is the beingof an individual existent or the historical being of world culture.Hence, Hegel writes in his Philosophy of History that
the nation lives the same kind of life as theindividual: . . . in the enjoyment of itself, the satisfaction ofbeing exactly what it desired to be, . . . [and the consequent]abandonment of aspirations, . . . [the nation slips into a] merelycustomary life (like the watch wound up and going on of itself), intoan activity without opposition. And this is what brings on itsnatural death. . . . Thus perish individuals, and thus perishnations, by a natural death (HPh 74f}. [54]
And negativity is also a making-concrete, a self-determination, inthat self-development is brought about by "the dialectical forcewhich deposes [the thing's] immediacy" and gives it a "specificcharacter" (SL -239). Specificity is thus linked by Hegel tonegativity: Omnis determinatio est negatio, as Spinoza says --every determination is a negation. Hegel frequently cites this dictumof Spinoza's (e.g., HPh 3:267, 286; SL -91 Zusatz; and cf. HPh2:140), and he likes it so much because it suggests the positiveaspect of negativity. While negativity is externalizing, it is alsopositive, for it makes the thing determinate, or individuates it.[55] Determinate negation (bestimmte Negation) gives the thinga content, which is to say that in actualizing a potentiality throughits externalization, a thing is determinately negating various otherpotentialities, transforming the initially merely hypothetical natureof the thing into a concrete content.
Dialectic is thus the transition of things, and of knowledge, frompotentiality or abstraction to actuality and content, but in such away that the arising of a fuller determination points beyond itselfto a further determination. Every determination is both a result anda new beginning, concrete and abstract, for it occurs within aprocess of the becoming of a thing (or of knowledge), and hence isconcrete relative to the origin of the process but abstract relativeto the telos of the whole process. A thing becomes more andmore fully developed through this successive dialectic ofself-reconstruction.
And so too does knowledge. Negativity is the principle by whichthought disrupts its instinctive or immediate certainty, or by whichthought becomes "split up" (PhM -408 Zusatz) or "divided"(Diff 87) into an opposition of consciousness to a specific object.Dialectic is thus the very process of thinking, where thought "losesitself in" and becomes "entangled in the contradiction" of itsnonidentity with its object, [56] and yet where this very negativityurges thought to "persevere," to "work out in itself the solution toits own contradiction" (SL -11). It is in this sense that Kojevecalls dialectic "a series of successive 'conversions' "whereby the relation of consciousness to the world is progressivelytransformed. [57] Kant, too, is close to Hegel's insight, in that hefeels that the dialectic of reason involves thought in a search whichit cannot avoid since it is driven to the search by an inner impulseto satisfy itself. [58] But while for Kant this search precipitatesthought into illusion, for Hegel it leads to the insight that realityis in truth dialectical.
Kierkegaard constantly argues that Hegel's dialectic involves anillicit forcing of movement and transition into his logic. Movementis a "chimera" and "mirage" which is "produced only on paper" inHegel's dialectic. [59] Hegel's "introduction of movement intologic," Kierkegaard asserts, "is a sheer confusion," [60] for "thecategory of transition [or becoming, or movement] is itself abreach of immanence, a leap," [61] as opposed to the immanentnecessity Hegel associates with it. [62]
Many other commentators believe the same thing. George Stack, forexample, writes that "Hegelian logic could not account for theprocess of becoming or genesis, and was especially unable to accountfor the transition from possibility to actuality in an individualbeing's development." [63] And Calvin Schrag says flatly that"everything that Hegel has to say about becoming and movement in hislogic is illusory." [64]
Unfortunately, all of these views are based on a profoundmisunderstanding -- the misunderstanding that becoming is regarded byHegel as the movement of abstract categories of logic disembodiedfrom any concrete historical situation and from any existingindividual who thinks those categories. But Hegel is quite clear onthis point. He says that "the principle of development, . . . [theprinciple of] a capacity or potentiality striving to realize itself,[is a] formal conception [which] finds actual existence in spirit,which has the history of the world for its theater and sphere ofrealization" (PhH 54). The formal conception of dialectic, Hegel'slogic, is but the description of the lawlike patterns of developmentwhich are concretely exemplified and realized in the world. [65]
Hence, the suggestion that Hegel's dialectic of becoming is a"mirage" which "takes place only on paper," or that Hegel "could notaccount for becoming" or "the transition from possibility toactuality," is completely unwarranted. This sort of criticismreflects, I suppose, a distaste for Hegel's idealism in general,where the truth of the being of objects is ultimately the "thingthought'' the object for-consciousness. This leads Kierkegaard andothers to the conclusion that becoming and dialectic only occur forHegel "in the head" and not in concrete existents in the world. Butthis is simply not Hegel's view, for, as we have seen, the fact isthat the exemplification and manifestation of that truth takes placein concretely situated beings in the world. Hegel makes this point,which is the very crux of his grand synthesis, endlessly. The man of" 'sound common sense' . . . holds the opinion that philosophy isconcerned only with Gedankendingen ['thought-things or mentalentities]." But, Hegel continues, while philosophy "does have to dowith these pure essences too," its task is to recognize how they are"concretely embodied in existing things" (PhS 78f).
Dialectic, as we have seen, is transition (in both thought andbeing) brought about by negativity. We have also noted that an aspectof this negativity is the opposition and contradiction into whichthings are thrown by their "becoming-other." "Antinomy" as Hegelsays, "is the dialectical influence in logic" {SL -48Anmerkung). And since logic is but the formal expression ofprinciples which are concretely exhibited in the world, antinomy isthe "dialectical influence" in all actual things: "contradiction isthe very moving principle of the world" (SL -119 Zusatz).Contradiction, for Hegel, involves the undermining of a thing'sself-identity by the "other" to which it is related and by which itbecomes defined. In the alienating aspect of its EntauBerung,a thing exemplifies the Sartrean paradox that it "is what it is not"(its 'other') and "is not what it is" {the simple, immediatecoinciding or identity with self). [66]
This brings us to an important point: Hegel says that it is justthis insight into dialectic, that negativity involves contradiction,which characterizes scepticism. [67] In this sense, then,dialectic is a mode of thought or way of seeing things which can leadto the ruin of knowledge. This is a fascinating aspect of Hegel'sphilosophy, that it is one and the same insight and way ofthinking about things -- the insight into the dialectical forceof negativity inherent in things -- which characterizes bothscepticism {the ruin of knowledge) and the speculative philosophywhich is the way to what Hegel calls "absolute knowledge."
Hegel regards scepticism as having a profound grasp of reality andhe says that his own "speculative logic" itself takes over "thedialectic of scepticism, for this negativity which is characteristicof scepticism likewise belongs to true knowledge" (HPh 2:330, and cf.357; SL -81 Zusatz). In this sense, Hegel states that "we mustundoubtedly grant the invincibility of scepticism" (HPh 2:329). Butfinally, Hegel views scepticism as a sort of "paralysis" which people"give themselves over to," an "abyss" in which all certainty isswallowed up, and a deep despair which leads to the "decay of theworld" because of the inability to affirm and give stability to anypositive value (HPh 2:329, 371, 372). [68]
Put very generally, the great merit of scepticism is that it seesthe contradictory character of things, that is, that anydetermination is conditioned by its opposite, or that any propositionis dialectically in conflict with equally compelling, opposingpropositions. Scepticism is "the art of dissolving all that isdeterminate" (HPh 2:329), and as such it demonstrates the inherentflux and discord of reality which is so important in Hegel'sphilosophy. This is for Hegel a deep insight into the unity ofopposites and the insufficiency of viewing things as simpleself-identities. Hence, scepticism is "the far-seeing power [ofthought] which is requisite in order to recognize the determinationsof negation and opposition everywhere present in everything concreteand in all that is thought" (HPh 2:365). But this "art of dissolvingall that is determinate" is also the root of nihilism, andthis is the great defect and danger of scepticism, that "it remainscontent with this purely negative result of dialectic," just as Kantdid with his antinomies and the dialectic of reason, and thus"mistakes the true value of its result" (SL -82 Zusatz). Thequestion now arises as to how Hegel rises above this "purely negativeresult" -- which, however negative, he calls necessary and true --and in what sense dialectic can achieve this transcendence withoutthe simple abolishment of its insight and truth.
Hegel's solution here is to distinguish between two ways ofviewing the negativity of dialectic, one which sees oppositions onlyin a state of "equilibrium" or of "offsetting polarity," so that nomediation or resolution of them is possible, and the other which seesthe true value of opposition as pointing to a higher unity. The firstsees only discord in the multiplicity and particularity of reality;the second finds the Miltonian "hidden soul of harmony through mazesrunning," the One in the Many, discord resolving itself into unity.In this way, dialectic is in one sense the characteristic of anincomplete form of thought -- what Hegel, following Kant, calls theunderstanding (Verstand) -- and in another sense points beyonditself to a higher form of thought, reason (Vernunft). [69]
The understanding employs dialectic to rigidly exclude themediation of opposites. In this sense, dialectic sets up an"equilibrium" of opposite determinations, so that every opposingdetermination has equal value. This is just what leads to scepticism,the epoche or suspension of judgment (which Hegel calls''paralysis") in the face of equally competing opposites. In thisway, "dialectic is just a subjective see-sawing" from onedetermination to its opposite (SL -81 Anmerkung). Hegel refersto this as the "bad infinite" (die schlechte Unendlichkeit) ofthe understanding (e.g., HPh 2:268- SL -45 Zusatz, 94 &Zusatz, 95 & Zusatz, 104 Zusatz, 194 &Zusatz) -- the opposing of one finite determination to anotherfinite determination where the opposition effects an equal"neutralization" of its terms. The "true infinite" of reason, on theother hand, involves the "connective reference" and "reciprocaldependence" of the opposites, so that their opposition or mutualnegation does not result in a neutralization, but in a "completernotion," that is, in a concrete unity of the opposing terms (v. SL-95 Anmerkung).
An example may help. Hegel views it as a mistake to regard freedomand necessity as polar opposites and as equally legitimate butexclusionary alternatives. If they were equal in this way -- as theKantian antinomy has it, and as the sceptic has it -- the onlyoptions for viewing human action would be the result of completelycancelling one term {by arbitrary fiat)[70] and thus seeing oneselfeither as free in Hegel's sense of negative freedom (= nihilism),[71] or doomed to necessity in Hegel's sense of "merely externalnecessity" (= tychism, fatalism, "the irrational void of necessity"[PhS 443]). For these are the only senses of freedom and necessitywhich are left when we disallow any "reciprocal dependence" of theone on the other. On the other hand, by seeing that the opposition offreedom and necessity is not a polar equilibrium of exclusionaryterms, but involves the two terms negating each other in a positiveway -- so that (positive) freedom negates external necessity(fate), and (rational) necessity negates negative freedom{nihilism) -- we arrive at the completer notion of freedom which isself-limited by the "real, inward necessity" (SL -35 Zusatz)of duty, and of necessity which is the autonomous expression ofself-determination.
An ethical man is aware that the tenor of his conductis essentially obligatory and necessary. But this is so far frommaking any abatement from his freedom, that without it real andrational freedom could not be distinguished from arbitrary choice --a freedom which is merely potential (SL -I58 Zusatz).
We are now in a position to understand the ambiguous significanceof dialectic in Hegel's philosophy. Hegel is concerned to affirm "themerit and rights of the understanding" in his philosophy (SL -80Zusatz), for while the understanding does not rise to therecognition of the synthesis of opposites, its analytic dissection ofthings is necessary for true knowledge. This is so because it"apprehends existing objects in their specific differences" (SL -80Zusatz), which is an absolutely essential component of ourdefinition of objects. The understanding gives us an insight into thedeterminateness of objects, and as such Hegel says that it is"indispensable" and that "no object in the world can ever be wholly[known] if it does not give full satisfaction to the canons of theunderstanding" {SL -80 Zusatz). But when the understandingemploys dialectic, this leads to scepticism (SL -81Anmerkung). For the understanding apprehends things in thefixity of their determinateness, and dialectic, which opposes onething to another, can only lead to exclusionary difference when itsobjects are apprehended in this way. This is the heart of skepticismwhich Hegel also sees as having a large element of sophistry in it(v. PhS 124; cf. 77f). Plato also described this use of dialectic assophistry:
If anyone . . . imagines he has discovered anembarrassing puzzle [in such propositions as 'the same is differentand the different is the same'], and takes delight in reducingargument to a tug of war, he is wasting his pains on a triviality. .. . Taking pleasure in perpetually parading such contradictions inargument -- that is not genuine criticism, but may be recognized asthe callow off-spring of a too recent contact with reality. . . .Yes, my friend, the attempt to separate every thing from every otherthing not only strikes a discordant note but amounts to a crudedefiance of the philosophical Muse. [72]
From the perspective of reason, however, the understanding'semployment of dialectic exhibits something very important, theexposure of the one-sidedness and limitation of fixed oppositions, sothat this dialectic points beyond itself to a higher perspective."Dialectic in this higher sense . . . does not conclude with anegative result, for it demonstrates the union of opposites whichhave annulled themselves" (PhH 2:52). The oppositions of scepticismare seen to annul themselves from the perspective of philosophicalreason . Reason sees what Plato calls the "discordant note" struck by"the attempt to separate every thing from every other thing." In thisway, "the result of dialectic is positive" (SL -82 Anmerkung),for it exposes the "bad infinite" of the understanding's attempt tofix its distinctions at all costs, and points to the resolution ofthis sceptical "tug of war" or "seesawing" between opposites to theunifying activity of reason. Dialectic "constitutes the real and true. . . exaltation [Erhebung] above the finite [understanding]"(SL -81 Anmerkung).
Dialectic, then, may be employed in different ways. When employedby the understanding, it results in the polarizing of mutuallyexcluding determinations which leads to the nihilism of scepticism.When employed by reason, dialectic brings these opposingdeterminations together in a "completer notion" which reflects the"immanenter Zusammenhang," the immanent connectedness {SL -81Anmerkung), of the opposing determinations. The interestingpoint is that the employment of dialectic by the understandingdialectically overcomes itself and points beyond itself to the"higher sense of dialectic," dialectic as employed by reason. For theanalytic method of the understanding leads to contradictions whichthe understanding can neither avoid nor resolve, [73] and thusreveals its own limitations. The dialectic of the understanding,then, is a way of thinking which, in seeing only the differentiationand opposition between things, becomes burdened with a sense ofdiscord -- the "dismembered world" -- without any glimmering ofharmony. But this is a burden which thought is finally incapable ofsustaining, and which internally collapses and transcends itselftowards a rational-dialectical way of thought which sees theinterconnections and mediations between opposing phenomena, and hencethe harmony at the heart of discord. [74]
In this chapter we have accomplished two things. First, we havegiven a detailed description and analysis of the anatomy of Hegel'sconcept of becoming, (a) in its "merely logical" significance as wellas in its "deeper meaning," and (b) in terms of its reliance on theprinciple of negativity. Second, we have seen how Hegel employs hisconcept of becoming to illuminate central aspects of his ontology andepistemology -- specifically, his theory of substance and his notionof the dialectical character of thought and being.
This notion of the dialectical character of things is the locus ofHegel's dispute with Kant's depiction of the nature of thought andbeing. For while Kant would agree with Hegel that dialectic doesactually describe an important characteristic of thought, Kant viewsthis as the "euthanasia of pure reason,'' [75] or as Hegel describesthe Kantian view, as the "derangement of mind" (HPh 3:451). Hegel, onthe other hand, sees the dialectical character of thought not aspathology or as the darkness of illusion, but as expressing aprofound insight into the true structure of the world. This isperhaps the most important lesson to be learned from the presentchapter. It is because the dialectical structure of thought reflectsthe dialectical structure of the world that Hegel argues that thoughtand being, consciousness and object, subject and substance, do notcontradict each other but mutually illuminate each other.
This is the basic principle of Hegel's grand synthesis, and wehave now seen how this synthetic principle lies at the heart of hisabsolute idealist vision and of his attempt to overcome skepticism.Thought is not fundamentally alienated from being, but thisalienation is rather the very act of thought externalizing itselfinto a world, making itself concrete, giving itself shape, and inthis very act creating its world. From the perspective of thedialectic of reason we are able to reconceive this alienation asnourishing a deeper principle of reconciliation, where thought findsitself reflected in the world, and where discord is nothing but theact of thought coming to terms with itself. Scepticism misconstruesthe dialectical character of reality by failing to reach beyond itsdoubt to this vision of reconciliation, and we might say that Hegel'sgrand synthesis is his project for pointing out the way towards aphilosophic reconception where such a vision becomes possible.
