The Book that Broke the World: Hegel’s “Phenomenology of Spirit”

Quoting Dermot Griffin

t there are harsh criticisms that the book has inspired fascism, communism, and overall totalitarianism

Is democracy not a benevolent tyranny? I don't think one person having power, authority or influence is necessarily a bad thing but such a persons character must be up to the mark. If elected there, chosen by the people, for the persons demonstration of certain desirable attributes in a leader, I wouldnt have any issue serving his or her tyranny as I know that ultimately they are actually serving us.

I wouldnt be happy with an evil tyranny - with someone who stole power by manipulating democracy and eroding it with propaganda. Taking away people's choice of whether to empower them or not.

If your master is a person who cares for you dearly, who wants to raise you up to your full potential using their "mastered wisdom"... Would you mind being their servant?
I think that is the only difference between being a slave and being a servant.

It's not about whether power dynamics can exist. They always exist. It's about how they "should" exist.

Throughout history there have been movements, and counter-movements. Eventually they settle down to a compromise. We see ample evidence of this all the way through from ancient Egypt to early 21st C western politics. Trump's presidency was self-evidently a disaster, so the Dems won control of the House at the mid-terms. Hegel's mistake was to imgine this kind of development as a mystical metaphysical progression, when it's really just human psychology.

Hegel's social and political philosophy cannot be adequately addressed without discussing his Philosophy of Right.

Reply to Dermot Griffin

I think a lot of Hegel's arguments do have 3 parts

Reply to Dermot Griffin

Quoting Dermot Griffin

Fichte introduced into German philosophy the three-step of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, using these three terms. Schelling took up this terminology. Hegel did not. He never once used these three terms together to designate three stages in an argument or account in any of his books.

He may not have used those specific terms, but they can be interpreted in a variety of ways, just as the terms Hegel did use for his triadic dialectic structure can be understood in different ways.For instance, one can translate the triad as understanding, negation-opposition and unification. Do these present a different meaning than thesis-antithesis-synthesis? It seems to depend on one’s interpretation.

“Hegel provides the most extensive, general account of his dialectical method in Part I of his Encyclopaedia of
Philosophical Sciences, which is often called the Encyclopaedia Logic [EL]. The form or presentation of logic, he says, has three sides or moments (EL §79). These sides are not parts of logic, but, rather, moments of “every concept”, as well as “of everything true in general” (EL Remark to §79; we will see why Hegel thought dialectics is in everything in section 3). The first moment—the moment of the understanding—is the moment of fixity, in which concepts or forms have a seemingly stable definition or determination (EL §80).
The second moment—the “dialectical” (EL §§79, 81) or “negatively rational” (EL §79) moment—is the moment of instability. In this moment, a one-sidedness or restrictedness (EL Remark to §81) in the determination from the moment of understanding comes to the fore, and the determination that was fixed in the first moment passes into its opposite (EL §81). Hegel describes this process as a process of “self­sublation” (EL §81). The English verb “to sublate” translates Hegel’s technical use of the German verb aufheben, which is a crucial concept in his dialectical method. Hegel says that aufheben has a doubled meaning: it means both to cancel (or negate) and to preserve at the same time. The moment of understanding sublates itself because its own character or nature—its one-sidedness or restrictedness—destabilizes its definition and leads it to pass into its opposite.
The dialectical moment thus involves a process of self-sublation, or a process in which the determination from the moment of understanding sublates itself, or both cancels and preserves itself, as it pushes on to or passes into its opposite. The third moment—the “speculative” or “positively rational” (EL §§79, 82) moment—grasps the unity of the opposition between the first two determinations, or is the positive result of the dissolution or transition of those determinations (EL §82 and Remark to §82).
( Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Whatever the dialectic is, it is not logic in the modern sense.

Reply to Banno Quoting Banno

Whatever the dialectic is, it is not logic in the modern sense

And, of course, neither is Husserl’s or Kant’s transcendental logic, Deleuze’s logic of sense or Derrida’s logic of the trace. Maybe we should distinguish the modern Analytic philosophical sense from the modern Continental sense.

Quoting Joshs

Maybe we should distinguish the modern Analytic philosophical sense from the modern Continental sense.

Such a distinction would imply that what is loosely called continental philosophy does not use the developments of logic since Frege. While I have some sympathy for that view, it would surprise me if you shared that sympathy.

Stanford has some interesting, if perhaps overly sympathetic stuff on this topic.. At the least, Hegel's rejection of non-contradiction. Such considerations fuel my own scepticism towards Hegel, although I do enjoy the use of dialectic as a rhetorical tool, is say Žižek.

I guess that's one approach - dialectic as rhetoric rather than logic.

Quoting Banno

Whatever the dialectic is, it is not logic in the modern sense.

Modernism is so 1920s. We are post modern now. :grin:

Quoting Fooloso4

Hegel's social and political philosophy cannot be adequately addressed without discussing his Philosophy of Right.

Indeed. Hegel's representation of the ownership of property being an integral component of our experience as free agents is the fault line of the many disputes over what his view of development requires. In the section immediately following the dismissal of slavery as ever being a right in a society of free agents, Hegel says this:

Quoting Hegel, Philosophy of Right, section 49

In relation to external things, the rational aspect is that I possess property, but the particular aspect comprises subjective aims, needs, arbitrariness, abilities, external circumstances, and so forth (see §45). On these mere possession as such depends, but this particular aspect has in this sphere of abstract personality not yet been established as identical with freedom. What and how much I possess, therefore, is a matter of indifference so far as rights are concerned.
Remark: If at this stage we may speak of more persons than one, although no such distinction has yet been made, then we may say that in respect of their personality persons are equal. But this is an empty tautology, for the person, as something abstract, has not yet been particularised or established as distinct in some specific way.
‘Equality’ is the abstract identity of the Understanding; reflective thought and all kinds of intellectual mediocrity stumble on it at once when they are confronted by the relation of unity to a difference. At this point, equality could only be the equality of abstract persons as such, and therefore the whole field of possession, this terrain of inequality, falls outside it. The demand sometimes made for an equal division of land, and other available resources too, is an intellectualism all the more empty and superficial in that at the heart of particular differences there lies not only the external contingency of nature but also the whole compass of mind, endlessly particularised and differentiated, and the rationality of mind developed into an organism.
We may not speak of the injustice of nature in the unequal distribution of possessions and resources, since nature is not free and therefore is neither just nor unjust. That everyone ought to have subsistence enough for his needs is a moral wish and thus vaguely expressed is well enough meant, but like anything that is only well meant it lacks objectivity. On the other hand, subsistence is not the same as possession and belongs to another sphere, i.e. to civil society.

Quoting Banno

I guess that's one approach - dialectic as rhetoric rather than logic.

Hegel maintains the unity of thinking and being. Dialectic is the movement of thought and being in time, from becoming to being, from knowledge to self-knowledge, from development to completion.

A few quick comments:

Hegel's logic is the sublation or aufheben of earlier concepts including the different senses of Greek logos - to gather together, to speak to give an account, to syllogisms, and later to John's logos, and Kant's formal logic.

The process of sublation both negates and preserves. It takes up and develops earlier incomplete concepts.

It addresses the ancient problem of change. How can what is the same thing be different over time? It is both same and other, identical and different.

The whole is both one and many. A self-realising unity through difference.

Reply to Banno

Hegel only rejected the law on non-contradiction because he thought all contradictions were paradoxes in nature and that contradiction was an empty term. He went for the big fish, trying to unite all human thought in a system that still maintained the reality of truth. The East has dependent origination (interdependent coarising) and if all is one then truth is interdependent. That happens to be what Hegel thought as well!

Reply to Fooloso4 , Reply to Gregory Thanks. Yep, rhetoric over logic it is.

Reply to Dermot Griffin Adorno's negative dialectics is more on point political-economically than Marx-Engel's "dialectical materialism" (i.e. inverted dialectical idealism).

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/699682

Quoting Fooloso4

Hegel's social and political philosophy cannot be adequately addressed without discussing his Philosophy of Right

:clap:

Reply to Banno :up:

Reply to Banno

It may be faulty metaphysics but it's still logic, unless you're going to say no faulty metaphysics is logical

Reply to Gregory Perhaps. I found your post obscure.

Quoting Gregory

Hegel only rejected the law on non-contradiction because he thought all contradictions were paradoxes in nature and that contradiction was an empty term.

There's a difference between a paradox and a contradiction. "Contradiction" is not an empty term - it has a clear use.

Quoting Gregory

He went for the big fish, trying to unite all human thought in a system that still maintained the reality of truth.

I've an allergy to big fish, such explanations are more likely to be wrong than right. Nor have I any idea what "real truth" might be. What could it mean to say of a. truth that it is unreal? The word "real" doesn't seem to be doing anything.

Quoting Gregory

The East has dependent origination (interdependent coarising) and if all is one then truth is interdependent.

What does the East have to do with this - are you talking about geography or compass direction, and why? "interdependent coarising" is like "T'was brillig" - “It seems very pretty,” [Alice] said when she had finished it, “but it's rather hard to understand! … Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas–only I don't exactly know what they are!”

Quoting Gregory

That happens to be what Hegel thought as well!

So there's the problem. Some folk seem to find Hegel satisfactory, but to me his work is associated with a most unpleasant odour.

So no, I don't see it as logic.

Quoting 180 Proof

Hegel's social and political philosophy cannot be adequately addressed without discussing his Philosophy of Right
— Fooloso4
:clap:

What are you applauding?

Reply to Banno I applauded @Fooloso4 pointing out that the OP is mistaken in assuming that interpretations of Hegel's political philosophy are/were (mostly) based on the Phenomenology of Mind rather than the Philosophy of Right, etc. Do you disagree?

Quoting 180 Proof

Do you disagree?

Not at all. Just settling a certain puzzlement at an erroneously perceived acquiescence.

Quoting Dermot Griffin

The dialectic of lordship and bondage, most commonly called the master-slave dialectic

I've never read any of Hegel's writings, but somehow I came to associate his name with the notion of a historical (or natural) Dialectic summarized in terms of Thesis - Antithesis - Synthesis. I just read the novel by Ken Follett, World Without End, set in late medieval England, when the long-running semi-stable Feudal System of Lords & Serfs was beginning to unravel. The author doesn't analyze the situation philosophically, but describes it in such visceral detail that the reader feels like a first-hand witness to man's inhumanity to man, and especially to women. In light of our modern -- enlightened, but less than perfect -- system, that darker era feels depressing, especially when compressed into a single story-line.

The period Follett describes is in the centuries following the 1215 Magna Carta*1, when the King was forced to define in writing the legal rights of his subject nobles (Barons, Counts, Earls, etc). Those rights were not directly extended to the Serfs, who were bound to Land & Lord. Yet, they continued to incrementally resist & rebel against the Master-Slave relationship. And since the Lords were dependent on those who provided their food & material, they were eventually forced to pass-on some of their own "individual rights" to those under their authority. As Follett's book illustrated, the historical power struggle leading up to more general democratic rights, as defined in the 1787 US Constitution, followed an excruciating (for both those on top & bottom) zig-zag path of ups & downs, back & forth.

Likewise, the "Class Struggle" that Marx summarized as the Logic of Nature, has not yet been fully resolved. Even the US Constitution and most Parliamentary systems, still accept a natural bicameral order of Lords/Senators (the few) and Commons/Congressmen (the many). Marx's ideal of egalitarian communal politics has proven susceptible to the motivating power of abstract money. Hence, the new Feudalism of Capitalism : Billionaire Oligarchs ruling the bare-survival masses.

If the 3-stage Dialectic is truly the logic of Nature, we must assume that the power-pushing-politics will continue to dance to the Cha Cha rhythms of one step forward, one step back, then both step forward together : as rulers & ruled court the favor of each other in coy pursuit & evasion. The question is, can we consider this erratic process as upward progress toward a more harmonious world? Science Fiction presents both Utopian and Dystopian views of the future. But, if current movies are any indication, dystopian & apocalyptic futures seem to be more common in our "enlightened" era. :meh:



*1. Magna Carta :
"the foundation of the freedom of the individual against the arbitrary authority of the despot"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magna_Carta

Reply to Banno

Hegel's logic is a logic of developmental change. A logos or account of the whole.

Are the acorn and the oak tree the same thing or different things?

I can pick up an acorn and put it in my pocket, but I cannot do the same with an oak tree. In this sense an acorn is not an oak tree. But the acorn and the oak tree are stages in the development of the same thing. They are both the same and not the same.

Are subject and object the same thing or different things?

Here too there is a development. The development of knowledge through its different stages. What is to be known is not simply knowledge of things or objects but knowledge of knowledge, knowledge of the knower, self-knowledge. Here he takes a step beyond Kant, a step beyond the distinction between the phenomenal and noumenal. Subject and object are both the same and not the same.

Quoting Fooloso4

Hegel's logic is a logic of developmental change.

So it's of use in examining biological growth? It explains the way cities expand? It has uses in the design of computers?

It seems not.

Reply to Banno

In each of these cases there is a logical development. The development is intelligible, that is, rational.

Hegel continues the philosophically formative dispute between Parmenides and Heraclitus. With Heraclitus he asserts not simply flux or change but logos.

Quoting Fooloso4

In each of these cases there is a logical development. The development is intelligible, that is, rational.

You seem to think logical, intelligible and rational are synonyms...

Reply to Banno

It is not a question of what I think but of understanding what Hegel thinks. This is why in previous posts I pointed to the development of the concept of logos.

It should be pointed out that

Quoting Banno

logic in the modern sense.

supports Hegel's insight into the importance of the recognition of historical development.

Reply to Fooloso4 Sure. Thanks.

Reply to Banno
Developmental psychology.
Game Theory.
Models of urban planning.

All built on the view of process as an interaction of conflicting goals.

Reply to Paine Seems a bit of a stretch to link these back to Hegel. Suit yourself.

Reply to Banno
What do you understand Hegel to be saying to be so confident in your dismissal?

Reply to Paine "Seems" is confident?

Have you a history of, say, game theory that explains how the work of von Neumann and Nash derives from Hegel? Doubtless there is one out there...

Greatest work of philosophy ever. I completely disagree with it.

Reply to Banno
That is a fair challenge after you give some kind of reading of Hegel that could serve as a point of departure. So far, there is no way of knowing what you think Hegel said.

Quoting Banno

Whatever the dialectic is, it is not logic in the modern sense.

In his 1958 book, Physics & Philosophy, Werner Heisenberg tried to explicate -- for a general audience -- his key concept of "Quantum Uncertainty". So he contrasted the fractional statistical nature of quantum superposition with the integral factual assumptions of Aristotelian Logic. Apparently, he coined the term "Quantum Logic"*1, but today we might substitute the term "Fuzzy Logic"*2. Early quantum physicists were grappling with the ambiguous reality of super-posed particles that are not-yet particular, but holistic, as-if merely waves in a universal fluid medium*3.

Since, in dual-slit experiments, sub-atomic particles acted-as-if continuous & undefined -- until the moment of measurement -- the statistical status of their pre-measurement existence seemed too vague to be real --- for those accustomed to yes/no classical Logic. So, Heisenberg proposed a new way of thinking about statistical "expectations", which he called "Uncertainty" or "Undecided". Hence, describing particles in their statistical-state, he said "one might call it an objective tendency or possibility, a 'potentia'*4 in the sense of Aristotelian philosophy".

In the math of Schrodinger's equation, that not-yet-real state exists as a fraction of the whole system of Potential + Actual physics. Hence, the necessity to include an "imaginary" number*5 in the equation. Like "Zero", we can imagine the concept of a fractional object, but we can't measure it in situ. So, our statistical expectations are based on an internal dialectic of Possible / Actual = Probable or Potential --- a state we can imagine mathematically, but can't measure physically. In the Dialectic, Thesis & Antithesis are fractional (possible) facts (opinions), and only become whole & real upon Synthesis into a complete universal system (truth).

Ironically, Quantum Logic is a Complementary concept, as illustrated in the Yin-Yang symbol. Which may explain why the pioneers of Quantum Physics began to use some of the Holistic language of Eastern philosophies. Which you could call the dialectic logic of post-modern post-classical Quantum Physics. Maybe that East-West Dialectic didn't "break the world", but merely undermined the certainty of Classical worldviews. ?

*1. Quantum Logic :
"quantum logic" describes uncertainties of the real world (to be more precise, the uncertainty of our best theory of the world), while "fuzzy logic" described the uncertainty of our reasoning. https://scholarworks.utep.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1075&context=cs_techrep

*2. Fuzzy logic is a form of many-valued logic in which the truth value of variables may be any real number between 0 and 1 ___Wiki
Note -- those numbers between 1 (something) and 0 (nothing) represent fractions of whole reality : fractional facts.

*3. Space as Aether :
The story of how early relativity experiments proved the aether doesn't exist isn't really true. What they showed was that the aether isn't needed to explain the results. By the 1970s it was demonstrated that if an aether exists it must be completely undetectable by relativity experiments
https://www.forbes.com/sites/briankoberlein/2018/04/06/the-tale-of-a-1986-experiment-that-proved-einstein-wrong/?sh=517781273ed3
Note -- Aether (fluid space) is like Dark Matter (non-physical matter), undetectable or uncertain, but useful as a hypothetical model of cosmic physics.

*4. Potential / Actual :
Aristotle insists later on that while potentia can be characterized by its relation to actus, actus in the sense of an actuality is a undefinable
https://www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/papers/actus%20and%20potentia.pdf
Note -- Actual is what we call "Real", while Potential is statistically (ideally) Possible, but not physically Real.

*5. Imaginary number :
To understand fractals, you need to understand complex numbers. Complex numbers are a way to put two coordinates (x,y) into one number with two parts. One is a real number, which is any regular number like 3, 8.5, or 12/45. The other is an imaginary number, which is defined as the square root of a negative number,
Note -- Fractals are images illustrating the strange (infinite ; undefined) properties of fragmented (fractional ; incomplete) reality. Maybe the undefined margins of reality are the realm of not-yet-real particles?

THE BLACK AREAS OF A FRACTAL ARE INFINITE, HENCE UNDEFINED

Reply to Gnomon :lol:

I wonder how many have heard of, let alone read, this "book that broke the world." Or Hegel, for that matter. The pretensions of philosophy...

Reply to Ciceronianus

It's largely intellectuals that change history. Hegel influenced a lot of people

People worry they are not properly understanding Hegel and so give up reading him. But they should instead be confident that your interpretation of Hegel is one out if many valid interpretations all of which were intended in some way by Hegel when he wrote them.

Quoting Gregory

It's largely intellectuals that change history.

I think that's an exaggeration. Intellectuals largely influence other intellectuals, who then write history in which their fellow intellectuals loom large.

:up: Reply to Ciceronianus :

Reply to Gnomon I didn't notice this until now.

I don't see how it addresses the point of mine that you quote:

Quoting Banno

Whatever the dialectic is, it is not logic in the modern sense.

Here is a link to an account of logic: The Open Logic Text complete build (Large file). it's pretty much a summation of the core ideas of Logic as presently understood.

Neither Hegel nor Dialectic are mentioned.

Quoting Joshs

“Hegel provides the most extensive, general account of his dialectical method in Part I of his Encyclopaedia of
Philosophical Sciences, which is often called the Encyclopaedia Logic [EL]. The form or presentation of logic, he says, has three sides or moments (EL §79). These sides are not parts of logic, but, rather, ...

Here direct quotations:

"VI. Logic Defined & Divided

§ 79

In point of form Logical doctrine has three sides: [a] the Abstract side, or that of understanding; [ b] the Dialectical, or that of negative reason; [c] the Speculative, or that of positive reason.

These three sides do not make three parts of logic, but are stages or ‘moments’ in every logical entity, that is, of every notion and truth whatever. They may all be put under the first stage, that of understanding, and so kept isolated from each other; but this would give an inadequate conception of them. The statement of the dividing lines and the characteristic aspects of logic is at this point no more than historical and anticipatory.

§ 80

[a] Thought, as Understanding, sticks to fixity of characters and their distinctness from one
another: every such limited abstract it treats as having a subsistence and being of its own.
...

§ 81

[b) In the Dialectical stage these finite characterizations or formulae supersede themselves, and pass into their opposites.

(1) But when the Dialectical principle is employed by the understanding separately and independently — especially as seen in its application to philosophical theories — Dialectic becomes Skepticism; in which the result that ensues from its action is presented as a mere negation.
...

§ 82

[c] The Speculative stage, or stage of Positive Reason, apprehends the unity of terms (propositions) in their opposition - the affirmative, which is involved in their disintegration and in their transition.
...
(1) The result of Dialectic is positive, because it has a definite content, or because its result is not empty and abstract nothing but the negation of certain specific propositions which are contained in the result - for the very reason that it is a resultant and not an immediate nothing.

(2) It follows from this that the ‘reasonable’ result, though it be only a thought and abstract, is still a concrete, being not a plain formal unity, but a unity of distinct propositions. Bare abstractions or formal thoughts are therefore no business of philosophy, which has to deal only with concrete thoughts.

(3) The logic of mere Understanding is involved in Speculative logic, and can at will be elicited from it, by the simple process of omitting the dialectical and ‘reasonable’ element. When that is done, it becomes what the common logic is, a descriptive collection of sundry thought-forms and rules which, finite though they are, are taken to be something infinite."

Quoting Dermot Griffin

“Fichte introduced into German philosophy the three-step of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, using these three terms. Schelling took up this terminology. Hegel did not. He never once used these three terms together to designate three stages in an argument or account in any of his books. And they do not help us...

Interesting note from Kant about "trichotomies":

"That my divisions* in pure philosophy almost always turn out tripartite has aroused suspicion. Yet that is in the nature of the case. If a division is to be made a priori, then it will be either analytic or synthetic. If it is analytic, then it is governed by the principle of contradiction and hence is always bipartite (quodlibet ens est aut A aut non A). If it is synthetic, but is to be made on the basis of a priori concepts (rather than, as in mathematics, on the basis of the intuition corresponding a priori to the concept), then we must have what is required for a synthetic unity in general, namely, (1) a condition. (2) something conditioned, (3) the concept that arises from the union of the conditioned with its condition; hence the division must of necessity be a trichotomy."

* Kant refers to his various "tables" consisting in three concepts e.g. table of categories


https://monoskop.org/images/7/77/Kant_Immanuel_Critique_of_Judgment_1987.pdf

Quoting Banno

?Gnomon
I didn't notice this until now.
I don't see how it addresses the point of mine that you quote:
Whatever the dialectic is, it is not logic in the modern sense. — Banno
Here is a link to an account of logic: The Open Logic Text complete build (Large file). it's pretty much a summation of the core ideas of Logic as presently understood.
Neither Hegel nor Dialectic are mentioned.

My post was intended to address your conditional assertion that The Dialectic is not logical*1. Says who? As presently understood, by whom?

Since you didn't define "modern logic", or specify which canon of modern logic you considered authoritative, I felt free to introduce some alternative views, that I consider pertinent to the OP. I quoted two modern (20th & 21st century) definitions of Logic*1 that go beyond the ancient categorical Logic of Aristotle, extending its scope to include Quantum & Information sciences.

The OP may be interpreted to imply that the Linear Logic*2 of Classical science & history was "broken" (or bent) by the antitheticall discovery of Non-linear Logic at the foundations of Physics. So IMHO, a 21st century synthesis of philosophy & science should make allowance for the inherent uncertainties & ambiguities of human understanding, while still pursuing practical & logical conclusions.

The Open Logic Project*3 seems to be mostly linguistic & mathematical, and ignores the practical & historical & evolutionary logic of Hegel and the physical Fuzzy Logic*4 of Quantum science. Which I think are pertinent to the OP topic. So, please pardon me, if I took liberties with your undefined quote. My response may not address your (ambiguous) intended point, so I inserted my own definitions into the gap.

BTW, please don't take my quotes to be arguing in favor of Marxism*5. Politics makes for strange philosophical bedfellows. Yes, I had an ax to grind, but it was philosophical, not political. :smile:


*1. "Dialectic, also called dialectics, originally a form of logical argumentation but now a philosophical concept of evolution applied to diverse fields including thought, nature, and history."
https://www.britannica.com/topic/dialectic-logic

*2. "Linear logic is deeply ingrained in the Western mind set. There is one ‘right’ answer, and we need to find it. . . . This might have been true until quantum mechanics introduced an element of normative chaos into the natural sciences. Perhaps Western thinking must now learn to embrace opposed or parallel truths".
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-19093-8_16

*3. Note -- The Open Logic Project does include Many Valued Logic, which is one way to label Quantum Logic. But it misses the historical & scientific implications of those non-linear patterns of causation.

*4. "Dialectical logic is the system of laws of thought, developed within the Hegelian and Marxist traditions, which seeks to supplement or replace the laws of formal logic. The precise nature of the relation between dialectical and formal logic was hotly debated within the Soviet Union and China." ___Wikipedia

*5. "It is the “dialectics,” however, that is commonly found as the universal law in “quantum mechanics, Newtonian mechanics, the law of evolution of living organisms, the law of evolution of societies” and even “in the law of development of thought.” Therefore, it may be regarded as “the logic of nature.” In view of this fact, quantum mechanics, Newtonian mechanics, and indeed every science can be understood only by the logic of dialectics. The confusion brought about on the interpretation of quantum mechanics had its main origin in the fact that physicists did not have the logic of dialectics."
https://www.marxists.org/subject/japan/sakata/ch01.htm

Quoting Dermot Griffin

some people look past the text’s attempt to analyze consciousness and the meaning of geist there are harsh criticisms that the book has inspired fascism, communism, and overall totalitarianism. I

.

In reading the Phenomonolgy of Spirit, I understood his discussions of topical situations to be created as examples, to illustrate our tendency to want to think in dichotomies, and not a claim about the state of the world. I find this use of examples like Wittgenstein's--though not as self-aware, open to acknowledging his limitations, less humble--in Witt's investigation of our tendency to desire certainty. My understanding of the terms is that this focus is analytical (about us, our desire for simplicity) rather than continental (a comment on society, e.g., Arendt or Foucalt), but to discuss our concpts is to discuss the world, so maybe it's a matter of interest.

Quoting Gnomon

My post was intended to address your conditional assertion that The Dialectic is not logical*

But I've made no such claim.

I said Dialectic is not logic. That is quite different.

After Frege, logic came into it's own, developing rapidly in many and varied directions. That's the topic oft he book linked previously. Whatever Hegel is doing, it's not what is now called logic. As explained above I'd be more inclined to count it as rhetorical.

You are stretching a very long bow. I've set my case and am content.

Reply to Banno


Quoting Banno

I said Dialectic is not logic. That is quite different.

After Frege, logic came into it's own, developing rapidly in many and varied directions. That's the topic oft he book linked previously. Whatever Hegel is doing, it's not what is now called logic. As explained above I'd be more inclined to count it as rhetorical.

Deleuze referred to this way of thinking about logic as ‘the dogmatic image of thought’.

“Dialectic is the art of problems and questions, the combinatory or calculus of problems as such. However, dialectic loses its peculiar power when it remains content to trace problems from propositions: thus begins the history of the long perversion which places it under the power of the negative.” Deleuze, Difference and Repetition).

I agree with those philosophers who link post-Fregean notions of logic to metaphysical presuppositions which confuse as much as they enlighten.

Reply to Gnomon Reply to Joshs We're "here" engaging in dialectics due only to applications of modern logic – the practical difference it seems between semantic play (i.e. "rhetoric") and syntactical transformation (e.g. constructing algorithms), respectively.

Read (skim) both Hegel's System of Logic and Frege's The Foundations of Arithmetic for a comparison.

Quoting Banno

I said Dialectic is not logic. That is quite different.

I assume that by "logic" you mean a canonical form of reasoning, as defined by your preferred authority. By "logical" I meant merely any formal process of inferring truth from premises. That is "quite different : Authoritarian vs Liberal. I apologize for implying that you dismissed Dialectic as illogical. :smile:

Logical : characterized by or capable of clear, sound reasoning.

Reply to 180 Proof

Rhetoric implies form, not content. There is no clear boundary to what pure logic is except that it deals with symbols

Quoting Joshs

...this way of thinking

What way of thinking? Making use of logic?

Quoting Gnomon

I assume that by "logic" you mean a canonical form of reasoning...

No, I mean an explicit form of reasoning.

Discussions around Hegel, as this one, are for me both obtuse and opaque. His fans don't agree amongst themselves what the supposed "calculus" is. Rather I see a desire for dialectic to take on the vestments of "a canonical form of reasoning", expressed rhetorically by disparaging formal logic.

Again, it is clear that whatever dialectic is, it is not part of the field of research called "logic". Perhaps it could be. But that will not be achieved by waving hands, pointing at "fuzzy logic" or chanting "quantum".

So if you want to be impressive, fill your rhetoric in with some sound reasoning.

Perhaps an application of dialectic might help: Analytic philosophy began as critique of Hegelianism. So, what did Hegelians learn from that critique? Apart, perhaps, from being overtly defensive.

Reply to Banno Quoting Banno

Analytic philosophy began as critique of Hegelianism. So, what did Hegelians learn from that critique? Apart, perhaps, from being overtly defensive.

And it is being buried by its own progeny, who associate the beginning of its demise with the drawing realization that its adherents were not able to read Hegel, so simply ignored him and stuck with Kant or Hume. This is why Rorty, in questioning the value and legitimacy of formal
logic, referred to his camp as ‘we Hegelians’.

“Reading McDowell's daring and original book side-by-side with Brandom's helps one to grasp the present situation in anglophone philosophy of mind and language. One way of describing that situation is to say that whereas Sellars and Davidson use Kantian arguments to overcome the Humean dogmas retained by Russell and Ayer, Brandom and McDowell supplement Kantian arguments with Hegelian ones. Most anglophone philosophers still do not take Hegel seriously, but the rise of what Brandom and McDowell refer to as their "Pittsburgh School of neo-Hegelians" may force them to. For this school holds that analytic philosophy still must pass over from its Kantian to its Hegelian moment.”

Quoting Joshs

Most anglophone philosophers still do not take Hegel seriously,

Yep.

What did Hegelians learn from analytic philosophy? The comments here indicate that the ubiquitous sweeping generalisations remain fashionable in Hegelian circles.

I'll leave you to it. I don't see anything positive here.

"Metaphysics is the science that aspires to dispense with symbols" Henri Bergson, 1903

Quoting Banno

I assume that by "logic" you mean a canonical form of reasoning... — Gnomon
No, I mean an explicit form of reasoning.

I've never read Hegel, and I'm not a disciple of Marx, so I don't care what you think about their philosophy, which is usually characterized as a form Idealism. For the purposes of this thread, my interest is in the Dialectic dynamic as the logical process of competition, for weaning-out the unfit or untrue, which is more like brutal Realism . So, let's get real.

In the vector geometry of Physics, causal energy consists of both force-value and spatial direction. In Philosophical dialog, arguments have both truth-value (force) and ideological direction (e.g Idealism ; Realism ; Marxism). We make our dialectical arguments "explicit" by defining our terms. And if necessary, by numbering our premises & conclusions. And if challenged further, by abstracting the original thesis, the antithetical argument, and the logical conclusion in conventional symbols.

On this layman's forum though, we seldom get that explicit, and the format of argumentation typically strays from any officially-approved structure. However, you can't get much simpler than (a)Thesis > (b) Antithesis > (c) Synthesis, or (a) Premise > (b) Counter-premise > (c) Mutual Agreement. Is that too Ideal for you?

In Evolution, random mutation produces multiple novel combinations that are selected by the the life-or-death-dialog of striving to survive. The physical criteria for bare survival typically mean that the bigger, stronger, or faster get to reproduce. But the philosophical criteria for progress is to be smarter, or in some way more suitable, for whatever niche is available. Homo Sapiens didn't get to its dominant position by imposing its physical advantages, but by using its philosophical prowess.

In Quantum physics, Heisenberg, among others, compared the non-classical philosophical dilemmas & physical paradoxes as the result of a dialectic process of Potential becoming Actual. Of course, any reference to "dialectic" will be popular with Marxists, but I'm talking about physicists. And Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis is not inherently ideological, but essentially mathematical & physical (billiard balls). The concept can be expressed symbolically as an interaction between vectors with direction & value, as illustrated below. Is that explicit enough for you? :smile:

PS__I've enjoyed this dialectic dialog, but I don't expect to reach a mutual conclusion. Historically, in a less-than-ideal world, the Synthesis stage of a Dialectic process is usually immediately challenged by a new or mutated Antithesis. Philosophy never ends.

Dialectic :
also known as the dialectical method, is a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to establish the truth through reasoned argumentation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectic

The Quantum Dialectic :
The thesis will end with a conclusion of the quantum paradox by juxtaposing anti-materialist Martin Heidegger with quantum founder Werner Heisenberg. Our conclusion will be primarily a discussion of how we understand the world, and specifically how our understanding of the world creates potential for truth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectic

Formal Dialectical Approaches :
https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-90-481-9473-5_6


DIALECTICS OF BILLIARDS

Reply to Banno :up: :up:

Quoting Gnomon

I've never read Hegel ...

Proud D-K savant, of course you haven't.