Editing Dialectic (section)

== Modern philosophy ==
<!--'Historical dialectic' and 'Historical Dialectic' redirect here-->
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.<ref>{{cite book |last=Nicholson |first=J. A. |date=1950 |title=Philosophy of religion |location=New York |publisher=Ronald |page=108}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Kant |first1=I. |author1-link=Immanuel Kant |last2=Guyer |first2=P. |last3=Wood |first3=A. W. |date=2003 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7bRychF0y0EC |title=Critique of pure reason |location=Cambridge, UK; New York |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |page=495 |isbn=978-0-7583-3901-0}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Maybee |first=Julie E. |date=Winter 2020 |title=Hegel's Dialectics |at=§&nbsp;3. Why does Hegel use dialectics? |encyclopedia=[[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]] |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N. |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2020/entries/hegel-dialectics/#WhyDoesHegeUseDial}}</ref>

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.{{efn-num|[[Henri Lefebvre]]'s "humanist" dialectical materialism expressed in ''Dialectical Materialism'' (1940) was composed to directly challenge [[Joseph Stalin]]'s own dogmatic text on dialectical materialism.}}

=== Hegelian dialectic ===
<!-- 'Hegelian dialectic', 'Hegelian Dialectic', 'Hegelian dialectics', 'Hegelian Dialectics', and 'Hegelian dialectical' redirect here -->
{{redirect|Hegelian dialectic|the Prodigy album|Hegelian Dialectic (The Book of Revelation)}}
{{See also|Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel#Dialectics, speculation, idealism}}
The '''Hegelian dialectic'''<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA--> describes changes in the forms of thought through their own internal contradictions into concrete forms [[unity of opposites|that overcome previous oppositions]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Hegel |first1=Georg Wilhelm Friedrich |author1-link=Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel |title=The Science of Logic |series=Cambridge Hegel Translations |location=Cambridge, UK; New York |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |date=2010 |doi=10.1017/9780511780240 |isbn=978-0-511-78978-6 |oclc=664571199 |pages=34–35 |quote=the necessity of the connectedness and the immanent emergence of distinctions must be found in the treatment of the fact itself, for it falls within the concept's own progressive determination. What propels the concept onward is the already mentioned negative which it possesses in itself; it is this that constitutes the truly dialectical factor. ... It is in this dialectic as understood here, and hence in grasping opposites in their unity, or the positive in the negative, that the speculative consists.}}</ref>

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''.<ref>{{cite book |title=Historische Entwicklung der spekulativen Philosophie von Kant bis Hegel |trans-title=Historical development of speculative philosophy from Kant to Hegel |language=de |location=Dresden-Leipzig |orig-date=1837 |page=367 |edition=4th |date=1848}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Fox |first=Michael Allen |date=2005 |title=The Accessible Hegel |location=Amherst, NY |publisher=Humanity Books |page=43 |isbn=1591022584}} Also see Hegel's preface to the ''[[Phenomenology of Spirit]]'', trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford: Clarendon, 1977), §50–51, pp. 29–30.</ref> Although, Hegel opposed these terms.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Adorno |first=Theodor |title=Lectures on Negative Dialectics: Fragments of a Lecture Course 1965/1966 |date=2008 |location=Cambridge, UK |publisher=[[Polity (publisher)|Polity]] |isbn=978-0-7456-3510-1 |page=6}}</ref>

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.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Maybee |first=Julie E. |date=Winter 2020 |title=Hegel's Dialectics |encyclopedia=[[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]] |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N. |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2020/entries/hegel-dialectics/ |access-date=2024-02-11 |edition=Winter 2020 |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University}}</ref>

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.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hegel |first=Georg Wilhelm Friedrich |author-link=Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel |date=1812 |title=Hegel's Science of Logic |location=London |publisher=[[Allen & Unwin]] |at=§&nbsp;185}}</ref>

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".<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Hegel |first=Georg Wilhelm Friedrich |author-link=Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel |date=1874 |title=The Logic |encyclopedia=Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences |edition=2nd |location=London |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |at=Note to §&nbsp;81}}</ref>

For Hegel, even history can be reconstructed as a unified dialectic, the major stages of which chart a progression from self-alienation as [[Master–slave dialectic|servitude]] to self-unification and realization as the rational [[constitutional state]] of free and equal citizens.

=== Marxist dialectic ===
<!-- 'Marxist dialectic', 'Marxist Dialectic', 'Marxist dialectics' and 'Marxist Dialectics' redirect here -->
'''Marxist dialectic'''<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA--> 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.<ref name="Ministry of Education and Training (Vietnam)-2023">{{Cite book |last=Ministry of Education and Training (Vietnam) |title=Curriculum of the Basic Principles of Marxism-Leninism |publisher=Banyan House |year=2023 |isbn=9798987931608 |volume=1 |translator-last=Nguyen |translator-first=Luna}}</ref>{{Rp|page=257}}

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.<ref name="Ministry of Education and Training (Vietnam)-2023" />{{Rp|page=257}}

[[Karl Marx]] and [[Friedrich Engels]], writing several decades after Hegel's death, proposed that Hegel's dialectic is too abstract.<ref name="Capital-Afterword-1873"/> Against this, Marx presented his own dialectic method, which he claimed to be "direct opposite" of Hegel's method.<ref name="Capital-Afterword-1873">{{cite book |last1=Marx |first1=Karl |author1-link=Karl Marx |date=1887 |chapter=Afterword to the second German edition, 1873 |title=Das Kapital |trans-title=Capital |title-link=Das Kapital |volume=1 |edition=1st English |chapter-url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/p3.htm |access-date=28 December 2014 |translator1-first=Samuel |translator1-last=Moore |translator2-first=Edward |translator2-last=Aveling |via=[[Marxists Internet Archive]]}}</ref>

Marxist dialectics is exemplified in ''[[Das Kapital]]''. As Marx explained,
{{blockquote|it includes in its comprehension an affirmative recognition of the existing state of things, at the same time, also, the recognition of the negation of that state, of its inevitable breaking up; because it regards every historically developed social form as in fluid movement, and therefore takes into account its transient nature not less than its momentary existence; because it lets nothing impose upon it, and is in its essence critical and revolutionary.<ref name="Capital-Afterword-1873"/>}}

[[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. Nonetheless, Marx and Marxists developed the concept of class struggle to comprehend the dialectical contradictions between mental and manual labor and between town and country. Hence, philosophic contradiction is central to the development of dialectics: the progress from quantity to quality, the acceleration of gradual social change; the negation of the initial development of the status quo; the negation of that negation; and the high-level recurrence of features of the original status quo.

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".<ref>Engels, Frederick, (1877) ''Anti-Dühring,'' [https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch11.htm Part I: Philosophy, XIII. Dialectics. Negation of the Negation].</ref> His dialectical "law of the transformation of quantity into quality and vice versa"<ref>{{Cite web |last=Engels |first=Friedrich |date=1883 |title=Dialectics of Nature, chapter 3 |url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1883/don/ch02.htm |access-date=2024-08-25 |via=Marxists Internet Archive}}</ref> corresponds, according to [[Christian Fuchs (sociologist)|Christian Fuchs]], to the concept of [[phase transition]] and anticipated the concept of [[emergence]] "a hundred years ahead of his time".<ref name="Wan-2013" /> Stalin and Mao interpreted the transformation of quantity into quality not as a separate law, but as a special instance of the unity and struggle of opposites.<ref name=":23">{{Cite book |title=Mao's Little Red Book: A Global History |date=2013 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |isbn=978-1-107-05722-7 |editor-last=Cook |editor-first=Alexander C. |location=Cambridge |pages= |chapter=Introduction}}</ref>{{Rp|page=6}}

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.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Bogdanov |first=Alexander A. |title=Bogdanov's Tektology. Book 1. |date=1996 |location=Hull, UK |publisher=Centre for Systems Studies Press |isbn=0-85958-876-9 |oclc=36991138 |pages=x, 62–63}}</ref>

=== 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 (theory)|social ecology]]. Dialectical naturalism explores the complex interrelationship between social problems, and the direct consequences they have on the ecological impact 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".<ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Biehl |editor-first=Janet |editor-link=Janet Biehl |date=1997 |title=The Murray Bookchin reader |location=London |publisher=Cassell |page=209 |isbn=0-304-33873-7 |oclc=36477047}}</ref>