Notes on the Basics of Hegel Part 3: The Law of Non-Contradiction And The Dialectic

 

 

         It should be made clear that Hegel is not against the law of non-contradiction nor is any sane person (but perhaps philosophers are insane). Hegel’s dialectical process is about the tension between two opposing ideas or concepts and overcoming these tensions to become something new. In this tension of the dialectical process these two concepts are in an intermediate state where it is neither itself and is itself at the same time. Perhaps the more accurate concept that arises from the dialectical process is absolute reality. The dialectic is the solution to the arising contradiction between the two concepts. Dialectics is not formal logic but material logic. It is an investigation into the ideal development of ideas along with all their conceptual content through contradictions of said ideas. In Hegelian dialectics, the concept contains its own negation and by overcoming it can become more concrete. For example, the concept of “Being” alone is devoid of any content and determination. Through its negation within itself we have developed the idea of “Nothing”. Being and Nothing are contradictory concepts in formal logic but having developed the concept of nothingness gives a more concrete determination of what Being means. Perhaps then the dialectical process presumes that concepts are inherently incomplete such that contradictions arise to develop it further. The last state of the dialectical process is known as the Absolute and the process begins at the moment of self-realization in the human consciousness that is known through its negation of “otherness” (for more on this, the Master-Slave dialectic, read my previous post on Hegel). On the other hand, formal logic is devoid of the semantic content and is purely abstract. Hegel states in his, “The Phenomenology of Spirit” the following,

“The true is the whole. But the whole is only the essence completing itself through its development. Of the absolute it must be said that it is essentially result, that only in the end is it what it is in truth; and precisely in this consists its nature: to be actual, subject, or becoming-its-own-self. Though it may seem contradictory that the absolute is to be conceived essentially as result, a brief consideration clears up this semblance of contradiction. The beginning, the principle, or the absolute, as it is initially and immediately expressed, is only the universal. If I say 'all animals', these words cannot amount to a zoology; it is equally obvious that such words as the divine, the absolute, the eternal, etc., do not express what is contained in them;-and only such words do, in fact, express the intuition as the immediate. Whatever is more than such a word, even just the transition to a proposition, contains a becoming-other that must be taken back, is a mediation. But it is mediation that inspires abhorrence, as if absolute cognition were abandoned when one makes more of mediation than just this: that it is nothing absolute and has no place in the absolute.'

 

But this abhorrence in fact stems from unfamiliarity with the nature of mediation and of absolute cognition itself. For mediation is nothing other than self-moving equality-to-itself, or it is reflection into itself, the moment of the I that is for itself, pure negativity or, reduced to its pure abstraction, simple becoming. Because of its simplicity, the I or becoming in general, this mediating, is precisely immediacy in the course of becoming, and the immediate itself.-It is therefore a misunderstanding of reason when reflection is excluded from the true, and is not conceived as a positive moment of the absolute. It is reflection that makes the true a result, but also sublates this opposition to its becoming; for this becoming is equally simple, and therefore does not differ from the form of the true, which consists in showing itself as simple in the result; it is rather just this having-returned into simplicity.-Though the embryo is indeed human in itself, it is not human for itself; it is human for itself only as cultivated reason, which has made itself into what it is in itself. Only this is its actuality. But this result is itself simple immediacy, for it is self-conscious freedom, which is at rest within itself and has not put opposition aside to leave it lying there, but is reconciled with it. What has been said can also be expressed by saying that reason is purposive activity.” (pg. 11-12 (paragraph 20-22)