Browse — tag · dialectic

Tag: dialectic

Pages tagged with dialectic.

68 pages

• Allgemein / Besonderes / Einzelnes (Universal / Particular / Individual, Hegel)

  Allgemeinheit, Besonderheit, and Einzelheit — universality, particularity, individuality — are the three moments of the Concept in Hegel's Doctrine of the Concept (GW 12 pp. 32–52). Each moment is the whole Concept under one inflection — n…

• Ambiguïté vs Ambivalence (MP's distinction)

  Merleau-Ponty's philosophically technical distinction between two opposed modes of being-in-contradiction. Contrary to the received cliché of MP as "philosopher of ambiguity" in a weak, irenic sense, Saint Aubert's Ch I §§ 2-3 establishes…

• Aufheben (sublate)

  Aufheben is Hegel's signature dialectical operation: a single German verb that simultaneously means to cancel (tollere, negieren), to preserve (aufbewahren), and to lift up (emporheben). Hegel takes this triple lexical structure as evidenc…

• Aufhebung

  Hegel's term for negation-that-preserves-and-elevates — the structural operation by which the dialectic moves from one shape of consciousness to its successor without simple abolition. Pinkard's 2018 Cambridge translation renders consisten…

• Bedingung / Sache an sich (Condition / The Thing Itself, Hegel)

  Bedingung (condition) and Sache an sich (the thing itself) are the paired transitional categories that bridge Grund and Existenz in the Erster Abschnitt of the Doctrine of Essence (GW 11 raw 5180–5263). The cardinal formulation: "wenn alle…

• Bestimmte Negation (Determined Negation)

  Bestimmte Negation — determined negation — is Hegel's signature account of the engine of dialectical movement. Its locus classicus is the Einleitung to the Wissenschaft der Logik at GW 21 raw 898 ("das Negative eben so sehr positiv ist, od…

• Bestimmtheit / Bestimmung / Beschaffenheit / Grenze (Determinacy Quartet)

  Hegel's four-term vocabulary for the categorial structure of Daseyn: Bestimmtheit (determinacy in general), Bestimmung (the something's intrinsic determination), Beschaffenheit (its extrinsic constitution), and Grenze (the limit where Best…

• Blind vs. Manifested Necessity (Hegel)

  The distinction between blind and manifested necessity is Hegel's signature account of the necessity-passes-into-freedom doctrine, located in the closing pages of the Dritter Abschnitt of the Doctrine of Essence (GW 11 raw 6131–6168, with…

• Centralität (Centrality / Free Mechanism, Hegel)

  Centralität (or Centralkörper / freier Mechanismus) is the absolute moment of Mechanism in the Objectivität-section of the Doctrine of the Concept (GW 12 pp. 143–146, with the cardinal political application at p. 152). The multiplicity of…

• Collection and Division (Diairesis)

  Plato's mature dialectical method, defined in the Phaedrus and deployed throughout the Sophist: collection (synagōgē) — "seeing together things that are scattered about everywhere and collecting them into one kind" so as to define — and di…

• Consciousness of Life as Consciousness of Death

  Merleau-Ponty's compressed formula from "Hegel's Existentialism" (Chapter 5 of Sense and Non-Sense, Les Temps Modernes No. 7, April 1946): "consciousness of life, taken radically, is consciousness of death" (p. 66). For there to be a consc…

• Daseyn (Hegel)

  Hegel's Daseyn (modern German Dasein; English: "determinate being," "being-there," sometimes "existent being") is the second major category of the Doctrine of Being — Seyn mit einer Bestimmtheit (being with a determinacy). It is the result…

• der Begriff (the Concept, Hegel)

  Hegel's Begriff (capital C in English: "the Concept") is the central category of the Subjective Logic and the truth into which substance dialectically resolves itself. It is not what Kantian, Fregean, or ordinary-language usage calls a "co…

• Die absolute Idee (the absolute Idea)

  The absolute Idee is the closing category of Hegel's Wissenschaft der Logik and the system's self-reflective closure — the chapter (GW 12 pp. 236–253) where Hegel reads the entire WdL retroactively as the unfolding of the speculative metho…

• die Idee (the Idea, Hegel)

  Die Idee — the Idea — is the third and culminating moment of the Doctrine of the Concept (GW 12 pp. 173–253), positioned after Subjectivität (Begriff / Urtheil / Schluß) and Objectivität (Mechanism / Chemism / Teleology). The Idea is the a…

• Entäußerung (Relinquishment / Kenosis)

  Entäußerung is Hegel's term for the self-relinquishing that IS the actuality of substance — not a defective state to be overcome, but the very form in which spirit gives itself any actuality at all. Pinkard's 2018 Cambridge translation ren…

• Erkennen (Cognition, Hegel)

  Erkennen — Cognition — is the second shape of die Idee in the Doctrine of the Concept (GW 12 pp. 192–243), positioned between Life and the absolute Idea. Cognition is the Idea split into the theoretical (subjective Idea seeking the Object)…

• Erscheinung (Appearance, Hegel)

  Erscheinung — appearance — is the second moment of the Zweyter Abschnitt of the Doctrine of Essence (GW 11 raw 5466–5635), positioned between Existenz (and the Ding-doctrine) and wesentliches Verhältnis. Hegel's cardinal thesis: "Das Wesen…

• Existenz (Existence, Hegel)

  Existenz — existence — is the first category of the Zweyter Abschnitt of the Doctrine of Essence (GW 11 raw 5266–5306). Existenz is mediated immediacy that has come forth from Grund: not a property of Wesen but Wesen's externalization, the…

• Freedom (Hegel)

  Freyheit — freedom — is the cardinal categorial achievement of the Concept in the Doctrine of the Concept (GW 12). The cardinal formulations:

• Freie Entlassung (free release into Nature)

  The freie Entlassung is the closing non-transition of Hegel's Wissenschaft der Logik (GW 12 p. 253): the absolute Idea "entläßt sich frey" into Nature. This is not a Werden or Uebergehen of the kind seen in the Doctrine of Being — Hegel ma…

• Fürsichseyn (Being-for-Self)

  Fürsichseyn — being-for-self — is the third and final chapter of the Bestimmtheit / Qualität section of the Doctrine of Being (GW 21 raw 2439–2842). It is the truth of Daseyn: a being-for-itself in which all otherness has been internalized…

• G. W. F. Hegel

  German philosopher (1770–1831). Author of the Phänomenologie des Geistes (1807; ingested as hegel-1807-phenomenology-spirit), the Wissenschaft der Logik (1812-16, with the Doctrine of Being revised 1831-32; all three volumes now ingested —…

• Gegensatz (Opposition, Hegel)

  Gegensatz — opposition (positive / negative) — is the third of the four Reflexionsbestimmungen in the Doctrine of Essence (GW 11 raw 4724 ff.). Gegensatz introduces positive and negative as moments that each contain the other: positive is…

• Gesetz der Erscheinung (Law of Appearance, Hegel)

  The Gesetz der Erscheinung — law of appearance — is a sub-doctrine of the Erscheinung-section of the Doctrine of Essence (GW 11 raw 5488–5544). Hegel's cardinal characterization: a Newtonian-style law (e.g., spaces traversed in fall as squ…

• Grund (Ground / Sufficient Reason, Hegel)

  Grund — ground, sufficient reason — is the third and closing chapter of the Erster Abschnitt of the Doctrine of Essence (GW 11 raw 4924–5263). Grund is what remains when the four Reflexionsbestimmungen (Identität → Verschiedenheit → Gegens…

• Hermeneutic Experience (Erfahrung)

  Gadamer argues that historically effected consciousness "has the structure of experience (Erfahrung)" — and that genuine experience is dialectical, negative, and finite. "Every experience worthy of the name thwarts an expectation"; experie…

• Identität (Identity, Hegel)

  Identität is the first of the four Reflexionsbestimmungen in the Doctrine of Essence (GW 11 raw 4574–4634). Hegel's cardinal thesis: "Die Identität ist also an ihr selbst absolute Nichtidentität" (raw 4598) — identity at itself is absolute…

• Is ambiguïté the sortie from ambivalence?

  Saint Aubert (E&C II Ch I §§ 2–3) defends a novel philological thesis: contrary to the received cliché of Merleau-Ponty as "philosopher of ambiguity" in a weak, irenic sense, ambiguïté and ambivalence are not synonyms but technical opposit…

• Knotenlinie (Nodal Line of Measure-Relations)

  The Knotenlinie von Maßverhältnissen — nodal line of measure-relations — is Hegel's signature claim in the Maß-section of the Doctrine of Being (GW 21 raw ~5150–5300): quantitative changes accumulate continuously up to a node, at which a q…

• Leben (Life, Hegel — logical category)

  Das Leben — Life — is the first concrete shape of die Idee in the Doctrine of the Concept (GW 12 pp. 179–198). Crucially: Hegel insists that the logical concept of Life is to be distinguished from Naturleben (the life of nature, treated in…

• List der Vernunft (cunning of reason)

  The List der Vernunft — cunning of reason — is the formal-logical structure by which a finite end realizes itself by interposing an object as means between itself and the world, exposing the means to mechanical and chemical wear while the…

• Maieutics (Socratic Midwifery)

  Socrates' image of his own philosophical method, given its one explicit statement in the Theaetetus (148e–151d): the art of the midwife (technē maieutikē). Socrates is himself "barren of wisdom" and "God forbids me to procreate"; his art i…

• Modal Triad (Wirklichkeit / Möglichkeit / Notwendigkeit, Hegel)

  The modal triad — Wirklichkeit (actuality), Möglichkeit (possibility), Notwendigkeit (necessity) — structures the central chapter of the Dritter Abschnitt of the Doctrine of Essence (GW 11 raw 5851–6131). Each term is a categorial moment,…

• Objectivität (Objectivity, Hegel)

  Objectivität — objectivity — is the second moment of the Doctrine of the Concept (GW 12 pp. 127–172), positioned between Subjectivität (Begriff / Urtheil / Schluß) and die Idee. Objectivität is "the Concept fallen into objectivity" — and i…

• Parmenides Plato, c. 4th c. BCE

  Author: Plato · Year: c. 4th c. BCE (trans. Mary Louise Gill and Paul Ryan, Hackett 1997) · Type: dialogue

• Phaedrus Plato, c. 4th c. BCE

  Author: Plato · Year: c. 4th c. BCE (trans. Alexander Nehamas & Paul Woodruff, Hackett 1997) · Type: dialogue

• Phenomenology of Spirit Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, 2018

  Author(s): Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) Year: 1807 (original); 2018 (Pinkard trans., Cambridge Hegel Translations) Type: book (Hegel's first published system; originally subtitled System der Wissenschaft. Erster Theil. Die Phä…

• Play as Political Virtue

  Chouraqui 2025's name for the existential-attitudinal form of Merleau-Ponty's ethics: the practical virtue corresponding to hermeneutic freedom. Play is not the absence of seriousness; it is the higher seriousness that takes responsibility…

• Reflexion (Hegel)

  Hegel's Reflexion — the engine of the entire Doctrine of Essence — is not a subjective comparison-and-generalization activity (Kantian reflection) nor introspection (Cartesian-Lockean). It is an ontological structure of Wesen itself: "abso…

• Reflexionsbestimmungen (Reflection-Determinations)

  The four Reflexionsbestimmungen of difference — Identität, Verschiedenheit, Gegensatz, Widerspruch — form a single graded sequence in which difference deepens until it becomes contradiction, and contradiction dissolves into Grund. Located…

• Schein (Semblance / Show, Hegel)

  Schein — semblance, show, illusion — is the second category of the Doctrine of Essence (GW 11 raw 4344–4378), positioned between Wesen-as-such and Reflexion. Hegel's cardinal thesis: "Der Schein ist das eigene Setzen des Wesens" (raw 4308…

• Schlechte vs. wahre Unendlichkeit (Bad vs. True Infinity)

  Hegel's distinction between the schlechte (bad / spurious) and wahre (true / affirmative) infinity is the signature thesis of the Unendlichkeit-chapter of the Doctrine of Being (GW 21 raw ~2270–2438). The locus classicus: "die Hauptsache i…

• Schluß (Syllogism, Hegel)

  Der Schluß — the syllogism — is the third moment of Subjectivität in the Doctrine of the Concept (GW 12 pp. 90–125). Hegel's cardinal thesis: the syllogism is "the truth of judgment" — and in its developed form, "everything rational is a s…

• Schmerz als Vorrecht des Lebendigen (Pain as Privilege of the Living, Hegel)

  Schmerz als Vorrecht des Lebendigen — pain as privilege of the living — is Hegel's cardinal formulation in the Life chapter of the Doctrine of the Concept (GW 12 p. 194). The full sentence: "Der Schmerz ist daher das Vorrecht lebendiger Na…

• Sein, Nichts, Werden (Being, Nothing, Becoming)

  The opening triad of Hegel's Wissenschaft der Logik — pure Sein (Being), pure Nichts (Nothing), and Werden (Becoming) as their truth. Pure Being and pure Nothing are the same: equally featureless, equally indeterminate, equally empty. Thei…

• Setzen / Voraussetzen (Positing / Presupposing, Hegel)

  The paired terms Setzen (positing) and Voraussetzen (presupposing) are the engine of Reflexion in the Doctrine of Essence (GW 11 raw 4400–4516). Hegel's cardinal claim: "die setzende Reflexion ist von Anfang an auch voraussetzend" — the po…

• Sophist Plato, c. 4th c. BCE

  Author: Plato · Year: c. 4th c. BCE — one of the stylometrically secure "late" dialogues (Cooper, Intro §II) — (trans. Nicholas P. White, Hackett 1997) · Type: dialogue

• Statesman Plato, c. 4th c. BCE

  Author: Plato · Year: c. 4th c. BCE (trans. C. J. Rowe, Hackett 1997) · Type: dialogue

• Substanz (Substance, Hegel)

  Substanz — substance — is the first moment of the Dritter Abschnitt (Wirklichkeit) of the Doctrine of Essence (GW 11 raw 6181–6206, with the cardinal Spinoza-Anmerkung at raw 5951–5989). Substance is Spinoza's principle taken with utmost s…

• Teleology (Hegel)

  Teleologie is the third and culminating sub-moment of Objectivität in the Doctrine of the Concept (GW 12 pp. 154–172). For Hegel, teleology is not a regulative maxim of reflective judgment (Kant's restriction in the Critique of Judgment) a…

• The Antithetic Critique of Sartre

  Merleau-Ponty's diagnostic that Sartre's L'Être et le néant (1943) "remains too exclusively antithetic" — that Sartre presents the for-itself / in-itself and the for-myself / for-others relations as alternatives rather than as "the living…

• The Two Hegels (1807 vs. 1827)

  Merleau-Ponty's structural distinction between the Hegel of 1807 (the Phänomenologie des Geistes) and the Hegel of 1827 (the Encyclopädie + Philosophy of Right). Developed in the 1946 essay "Hegel's Existentialism" (Chapter 5 of Sense and…

• Third Man Argument

  The most famous objection to the Theory of Forms, pressed by the aged Parmenides against young Socrates in Plato's Parmenides (132a–133a): positing one Form over many instances generates an unlimited regress of Forms. If many large things…

• Unendliches Urtheil (Infinite Judgment, Hegel)

  The unendliches Urtheil — infinite judgment — is a sub-doctrine of the Urtheil des Daseyns in the Doctrine of the Concept (GW 12 pp. 76–77). The infinite judgment is a judgment in which subject and predicate share no common sphere: "the sp…

• Ur-Theilung (Original Parting, Hegel)

  Ur-Theilung (or Ur-Teilung) is Hegel's etymological-philosophical move on the German Urtheil (judgment) in the Doctrine of the Concept (GW 12 pp. 60–66). The compound Ur-theilen reads Urtheil as the original (Ur) parting (Theilung) — judgm…

• Urtheil (Judgment, Hegel)

  Urtheil — judgment — is the second moment of Subjectivität in the Doctrine of the Concept (GW 12 pp. 53–89). Hegel's cardinal thesis: judgment is not the connection of two pre-existing concepts but the original Theilung — the Ur-Theilung —…

• Verkehrte Welt (Inverted World, Hegel)

  The verkehrte Welt — inverted world — is one of Hegel's signature dialectical figures, attested in both the Phenomenology of Spirit (p. 96) and the 1813 Wissenschaft der Logik (GW 11 raw 5619 ff.). The cardinal philological feature: the Wd…

• Verschiedenheit (Diversity / Difference, Hegel)

  Verschiedenheit — diversity, difference (external) — is the second of the four Reflexionsbestimmungen in the Doctrine of Essence (GW 11 raw 4660 ff.). Verschiedenheit is difference held externally — two terms held apart by a third (the "In…

• Wahre Widerlegung (True Refutation, Hegel)

  Die wahre Widerlegung — true refutation — is Hegel's methodological doctrine that a philosophical system cannot be refuted from outside: it must be entered, recognized as a necessary standpoint, and shown to drive itself past itself. Locat…

• Wechselwirkung (Reciprocal Action, Hegel)

  Wechselwirkung — reciprocal action — is the closing category of the Doctrine of Essence (GW 11 raw 6377–6397). Hegel's signature claim: Wechselwirkung is not the truth — it is the dissolution of the Causalitätsverhältnis but not itself the…

• Wesen (Essence, Hegel)

  Hegel's Wesen — Essence — is the middle book of the Wissenschaft der Logik and the only section Hegel never revised. Wesen is not a hidden substrate behind Sein but Sein's own zeitlos vergangene recoil into itself: knowledge that wants the…

• Wesentliches Verhältnis (Essential Relation, Hegel)

  The wesentliche Verhältniß — essential relation — is the closing triadic structure of the Erscheinung-section of the Doctrine of Essence (GW 11 raw 5637–5848). Three stages, each formally incomplete because identity and difference of the r…

• Widerspruch (Hegel)

  Hegel's Widerspruch — contradiction — is the most famous and most contested doctrine in his Logic: that contradiction is the positive root of all motion, life, and drive, not a defect to be avoided. The locus classicus is the Anmerkung to…

• Wirklichkeit (Actuality, Hegel)

  Wirklichkeit — actuality — is the central category of the Dritter Abschnitt of the Doctrine of Essence (GW 11 raw 5851 ff.). Wirklichkeit is higher than both Existenz and Sein; it is the manifested unity of inner and outer. Hegel's cardina…

• Wissenschaft der Logik, Erster Band: Die Objective Logik (1812/1813) Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, 1813

  Author: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel · Year: 1812/1813 · Type: book

• Wissenschaft der Logik, Erster Theil: Die Lehre vom Sein (1832 revision) Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, 1832

  Author: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel · Year: 1832 · Type: book

• Wissenschaft der Logik, Zweiter Band: Die Subjective Logik oder Lehre vom Begriff (1816) Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, 1816

  Author: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel · Year: 1816 · Type: book