The concept of dialectics was given new life at the start of the nineteenth century by
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, whose dialectical model of nature and of history made dialectics a fundamental aspect of reality, instead of regarding the contradictions into which dialectics leads as evidence of the limits of pure reason, as
Immanuel Kant had argued. Hegel was influenced by
Johann Gottlieb Fichte's conception of synthesis, although Hegel didn't adopt Fichte's thesis–antithesis–synthesis language except to describe Kant's philosophy: rather, Hegel argued that such language was "a lifeless schema" imposed on various contents, whereas he saw his own dialectic as flowing out of "the inner life and self-movement" of the content itself. In the mid-nineteenth century, Hegelian dialectic was appropriated by
Karl Marx and
Friedrich Engels and retooled in what they considered to be a nonidealistic manner. It would also become a crucial part of later representations of Marxism as a philosophy of
dialectical materialism. These representations often contrasted dramatically and led to vigorous debate among different Marxist groups.
Hegelian dialectic The
Hegelian dialectic describes changes in the forms of thought through their own internal contradictions into concrete forms
that overcome previous oppositions. This dialectic is sometimes presented in a threefold manner, as first stated by
Heinrich Moritz Chalybäus, as comprising three dialectical stages of development: a
thesis, giving rise to its reaction; an
antithesis, which contradicts or negates the thesis; and the tension between the two being resolved by means of a
synthesis. However, Hegel opposed these terms. By contrast, the terms
abstract,
negative, and
concrete suggest a flaw or an incompleteness in any initial thesis. For Hegel, the concrete must always pass through the phase of the negative, that is, mediation. This is the essence of what is popularly called Hegelian dialectics. To describe the activity of overcoming the negative, Hegel often used the term
Aufheben, variously translated into English as 'sublation' or 'overcoming', to conceive of the working of the dialectic. Roughly, the term indicates preserving the true portion of an idea, thing, society, and so forth, while moving beyond its limitations. What is sublated, on the one hand, is overcome, but, on the other hand, is preserved and maintained. As in the Socratic dialectic, Hegel claimed to proceed by making implicit contradictions explicit: each stage of the process is the product of contradictions inherent or implicit in the preceding stage. In his view, the purpose of dialectics is "to study things in their own being and movement and thus to demonstrate the finitude of the partial categories of understanding". For Hegel, even history can be reconstructed as a unified dialectic, the major stages of which chart a progression from self-alienation as
servitude to self-unification and realization as the rational
constitutional state of free and equal citizens.
Marxist dialectic Marxist dialectic is a form of Hegelian dialectic which applies to the study of
historical materialism. Marxist dialectic is thus a method by which one can examine social and economic behaviors. It is the foundation of the philosophy of
dialectical materialism, which forms the basis of historical materialism. In the Marxist tradition, "dialectic" refers to regular and mutual relationships, interactions, and processes in nature, society, and human thought. A dialectical relationship is a relationship in which two phenomena or ideas mutually impact each other, leading to development and negation. Development refers to the change and motion of phenomena and ideas from less advanced to more advanced or from less complete to more complete. Dialectical negation refers to a stage of development in which a contradiction between two previous subjects gives rise to a new subject. In the Marxist view, dialectical negation is never an endpoint, but instead creates new conditions for further development and negation. Marxist dialectics is exemplified in
Das Kapital. As Marx explained,
Class struggle is the primary contradiction to be resolved by Marxist dialectics because of its central role in the social and political lives of a society. Marx believed the struggle between the capitalist class (the purchasers of labor-power) and the working class (the sellers of labor-power) to be the primary contradiction of the capitalist mode of production, and that the working class must resolve this contradiction by seizing power in a revolution, to abolish class distinctions generally. Friedrich Engels further proposed that nature itself is dialectical, and that this is "a very simple process, which is taking place everywhere and every day". His dialectical "law of the transformation of quantity into quality and vice versa" corresponds, according to
Christian Fuchs, to the concept of
phase transition and anticipated the concept of
emergence "a hundred years ahead of his time". For
Vladimir Lenin, the primary feature of Marx's "dialectical materialism" (Lenin's term) is its application of materialist philosophy to history and social sciences. Lenin's main contribution to the philosophy of dialectical materialism is his theory of reflection, which presents human consciousness as a dynamic reflection of the objective material world that fully shapes its contents and structure. Later, Stalin's works on the subject established a rigid and formalistic division of
Marxist–Leninist theory into dialectical materialism and historical materialism. While the first was supposed to be the key method and theory of the philosophy of nature, the second was the Soviet version of the philosophy of history. Soviet
systems theory pioneer
Alexander Bogdanov viewed Hegelian and materialist dialectic as progressive, albeit inexact and diffuse, attempts at achieving what he called
tektology, or a universal science of organization.
Dialectical naturalism Dialectical naturalism is a term coined by American philosopher
Murray Bookchin to describe the philosophical underpinnings of the political program of
social ecology. Dialectical naturalism explores the complex interrelationship between social problems and the ecological consequences of human society. Bookchin offered dialectical naturalism as a contrast to what he saw as the "empyrean, basically antinaturalistic dialectical idealism" of Hegel, and "the wooden, often scientistic dialectical materialism of orthodox Marxists". == Theological dialectics ==