#NEGATIVE DIALECTIC FULL#

Were Hegel a mere skeptic, we would expect that the negative dialectic would simply end with dissolution. But this concept is only a new beginning, its structure goes beyond it and brings consciousness into the relation of infinity to infinity. Infinity appears as a concept which achieves the unity of unity and difference, and which explains how unitary oneness manifests as plural appearances. From the failures of Force, we find a movement of cognition which reveals a structure of the kind which is sought as an answer. Under speculative analysis, however, Force and Expression find themselves to be empty of intelligibility as different concepts for they each are defined merely as a moment of movement towards the other-the one is many is one is many… If we attempt to articulate the terms as rigid differences with Force and Expression as a dualism of substances, however, there is then an unintelligible connection between Force and Expression: Why does Force manifest as its Expression? How can Force be the essence of Expression, the only truth, yet have Expression be definitely not Force itself but rather something separate that merely seems to be? Force itself is unable to provide an answer thus, its structure of concepts are discarded, but from its process there is a positive concept gleamed from its total activity. Force is posited as an absolute content and Expression as a mere relative form of this content. The content and form are not in harmony and one must be cancelled eventually.Īnother example: Force and its Expression are first posited by the Understanding as the answer to the problem arising from Perception: how can an object be understood to be one and many at the same time? Or: how is it intelligibly possible to conceive a unity of unity and difference? The answer to this problem is posed in the form of Force as an absolute universal principle underlying its differentiated Expression. What does this result in? It results in the dissolution of the master-slave social form as an answer to the problem it begins with in the struggle for recognition.

#NEGATIVE DIALECTIC FULL#

In such a relation, full recognition is impossible due to the inequalities of power as well as the self-undermining of the very possibility of recognition for each in their respective standpoint in the relation. To take the usual famous example: in the master-slave dialectic, the immanent content driving the relation, the desire and need for mutual recognition for self-consciousness, is in complete contradiction to the relational form of a master and slave. Negative dialectics are, for the most part, related concepts with content claims which are betrayed by their form and vice versa. The Phenomenology of Spirit is full of such dialectics they are the bricks that form the highway of despair which Spirit traverses in its search for knowledge. It must be stated: negative dialectics are not unique to Hegel-other philosophers, such as Plato and the Pyrrhonian skeptics use a similar method of drawing out inner contradictions. These types of dialectics are self-destructing-one could say they are ‘explosive’-and lead nowhere but to a skeptical state in knowledge, nullification of something, and if one wanted to talk of life they lead to death. Negative DialecticsĪs the name implies, negative dialectics negate their terms rather than sublate them. Negative dialectics are mainly to be found mentioned outside the system which Hegel builds in the Logic and beyond-in the Phenomenology of Spirit-while positive dialectics are to be found in the system itself. Hegel can be said to use dialectics in two modes: negative and positive. On the first issue I’ve already written a blog post about, and if general online searches and discussions show anything, it’s that someone has to bring to awareness the differences concerning the second.

People seem to have a confusion going on about dialectics, either in that they are not aware of what Hegel’s dialectics are about in general or because they’re confused as to which kind of Hegel’s dialectics are going on.