{"id":34556,"date":"2023-04-20T08:00:57","date_gmt":"2023-04-20T07:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.redpepper.org.uk\/?p=34556"},"modified":"2023-09-22T17:39:51","modified_gmt":"2023-09-22T16:39:51","slug":"key-words-dialectics-karl-marx-georg-hegel-dialectical-materialism-philosophy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.redpepper.org.uk\/key-words\/key-words-dialectics-karl-marx-georg-hegel-dialectical-materialism-philosophy\/","title":{"rendered":"Key words: Dialectics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The word \u2018dialectics\u2019 comes from the Greek dialektik\u1e17<\/em> \u2013 a discussion through question and answer. For Aristotle, dialectics allows us to clearly formulate arguments based on commonly-held opinion: to think critically, we might now say, about common sense. Dialectics is grounded in the world as we find it but refuses to see any part of this world as immediately and obviously solid, or fixed: it refuses to take anything for granted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One way of thinking of how Hegel sets up his Science of Logic<\/em><\/a> is to consider Descartes\u2019 attempt to doubt everything at the start of his Meditations and think about how that would have looked if he\u2019d done it properly. Instead of moving from Descartes\u2019 \u2018I think\u2019 to \u2018therefore I am\u2019, Hegel notes that even in doubting, there is thinking going on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This means that there is something \u2013 there is Being. But what is Being? We can only understand that there is \u2018something\u2019 if we contrast this \u2018something\u2019 with its opposite: \u2018Nothing\u2019. So Being implies Nothing. If we think about Being and Nothing together, we get a movement: from existence to non-existence, like a light being turned on and off. This movement is Becoming. So the movement from Being to Nothing gets us Becoming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This, for Hegel, is a dialectical process. It starts with some \u2018abstract\u2019 moment: Being, which we can\u2019t understand on its own. This abstract moment implies its own \u2018negation\u2019: Nothing. In order to think the abstract and the negative together, we need the \u2018concrete\u2019: Becoming. Becoming is then supposed to dialectically imply Existence \u2013 and so on; the entire world built back up through thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even a socialist society will need philosophical gadflies<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hegel was an idealist but his dialectics was more than just about metaphysics. For him, a dialectical process could be discovered at work throughout history \u2013 although his way of unpacking this was often couched in bizarre colonialist assumptions (Africa exists outside of history, apparently), as well as implying that all the contradictions in human history had been resolved in the Prussian state of his day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nonetheless, this idea inspired Marx \u2013 although he also challenged it. For Hegel, the contradictions driving human history existed in the realm of ideas. For Marx, by contrast, history is driven by conflicts between \u2018real, active\u2019 human animals, who in the first instance need things like food, shelter, and sex. Marx\u2019s \u2018dialectical materialism\u2019 can be read as an attempt to demystify Hegel, bringing his idealism back down to earth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ultimately, these conflicts take the form of class struggle, which is supposed to resolve with the advent of a classless, communist state: human society finally finding a sustainable, lasting, concrete form. This is the essence of Marx\u2019s dialectical materialism: through dialectics, the working class will be the first class to abolish itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Both Marx and Hegel\u2019s dialectics might be criticised for not being thoroughgoing enough: for suggesting there is always supposed to come a point where dialectics leaves off. This was what Adorno, who insisted on a \u2018negative\u2019 dialectic<\/a>, denied: that some final, positive resolution is ever supposed to be the point of history, humanity or thought. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If dialectics is the refusal to take anything at all for granted, then surely the dialectician should never allow themselves to be fobbed off with an answer: even a socialist society will need philosophical gadflies. The dialectician who never stops, is the most dialectical of all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article first appeared in issue #239, Spring 2023, Flight, Fight, Remain.<\/em> Subscribe<\/a> today to get your magazine delivered hot off the press!<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tom Whyman explains Marx\u2019s influential theory of \u2018dialectical materialism\u2019 which has its roots in Hegel and takes history to be driven by conflict<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":37724,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[103,1977,2353,2529],"tags":[2588],"class_list":["post-34556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-history","category-key-words","category-socialism","tag-tom-whyman"],"yoast_head":"\nKey words: Dialectics - Red Pepper<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/rpdev2023.redpepper.org.uk\/key-words\/key-words-dialectics-karl-marx-georg-hegel-dialectical-materialism-philosophy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Key words: Dialectics - 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