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Studies in the Hegelian Dialectic/9 Difficult to Explain Studies in the Hegelian Dialectic John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart Batoche Books Kitchener 1999 Second Edition (1922) Cambridge University Press. First edition was published in 1896. This edition printed in 2000 by Batoche Books, 52 Eby Street South, Kitchener, Ontario, N2G 3L1, Canada. email: [email protected] ISBN: 1-55273-033-6. To Miss Frances Power Cobbe with much gratitude Contents Preface ............................................................................................... 7 Chapter I: The General Nature of The Dialectic ................................ 8 Chapter II: Different Interpretations of the Dialectic ....................... 35 Chapter III: The Validity of The Dialectic ....................................... 72 Chapter IV: The Development of The Method ............................... 109 Chapter V: The Relation of The Dialectic to Time ........................ 142 Chapter VI: The Final Result of The Dialectic .............................. 178 Chapter VII: The Application of The Dialectic.............................. 203 Notes .............................................................................................. 226 Preface The first four chapters of this book are based on a dissertation submit- ted at the Fellowship Examination of Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1891. The fourth and fifth chapters, nearly in their present form, were published in Mind (New Series, Nos. 1, 2, 8, and 10). A part of the second chapter appeared in the Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale for November 1893. In quoting from the Smaller Logic and the Philosophy of Spirit, I have generally availed myself of Professor Wallace’s valuable transla- tions. I am most deeply indebted to Professor J. S. Mackenzie, of Univer- sity College, Cardiff, for his kindness in reading the proof-sheets of these Studies, and in assisting me with many most helpful suggestions and corrections. The changes in the second edition are not numerous. When they are more than verbal, I have called attention to them in notes. J. E. McT. December, 1921. Chapter I: The General Nature of The Dialectic 1. Hegel’s primary object in his dialectic is to establish the existence of a logical connection between the various categories which are involved in the constitution of experience. He teaches that this connection is of such a kind that any category, if scrutinised with sufficient care and attention, is found to lead on to another, and to involve it, in such a manner that an attempt to use the first of any subject while we refuse to use the second of the same subject results in a contradiction. The cat- egory thus reached leads on in a similar way to a third, and the process continues until at last we reach the goal of the dialectic in a category which betrays no instability. If we examine the process in more detail, we shall find that it ad- vances, not directly, but by moving from side to side, like a ship tacking against an un favourable wind. The simplest and best known form of this advance, as it is to be found in the earlier transitions of the logic, is as follows. The examination of a certain category leads us to the con- clusion that, if we predicate it of any subject, we are compelled by con- sistency to predicate of the same subject the contrary of that category. This brings us to an absurdity, since the predication of two contrary attributes of the same thing at the same time violates the law of contra- diction. On examining the two contrary predicates further, they are seen to be capable of reconciliation in a higher category, which combines the contents of both of them, not merely placed side by side; but absorbed into a wider idea, as moments or aspects of which they can exist without contradiction. This idea of the synthesis of opposites is perhaps the most charac- teristic in the whole of Hegel’s system. It is certainly one of the most Studies in the Hegelian Dialectic/9 difficult to explain. Indeed the only way of grasping what Hegel meant by it is to observe in detail how he uses it, and in what manner the lower categories are partly altered and partly preserved in the higher one, so that, while their opposition vanishes, the significance of both is never- theless to be found in the unity which follows. Since in this way, and in this way only so far as we can see, two contrary categories can be simultaneously true of a subject, and since we must hold these two to be simultaneously true, we arrive at the con- clusion that whenever we use the first category we shall be forced on to use the third, since by it alone can the contradictions be removed, in which we should otherwise be involved. This third category, however, when it in its turn is viewed as a single unity, similarly discloses that its predication involves that of its contrary, and the Thesis and Antithesis thus opposed have again to be resolved in a Synthesis. Nor can we rest anywhere in this alternate production and removal of contradictions until we reach the end of the ladder of categories. It begins with the category of Pure Being, the simplest idea of the human mind. It ends with the category which Hegel declares to be the highest— the Idea which recognises itself in all things. 2. It must be remarked that the type of transition, which we have just sketched, is one which is modified as the dialectic advances. It is only natural, in a system in which matter and form are so closely con- nected, that the gradual changes of the matter, which forms the content of the system, should react on the nature of the movement by which the changes take place. Even when we deal with physical action and reac- tion we find this true. All tools are affected, each time they are used, so as to change, more or less, their manner of working in the future. It is not surprising, therefore, that so delicate a tool as that which is used by thought should not remain unchanged among changing materials. “The abstract form of the continuation or advance” says Hegel “is, in Being, an other (or antithesis) and transition into another; in the Es- sence, showing or reflection in its opposite; in the Notion, the distinc- tion of the individual from the universality, which continues itself as such into, and is as an identity with, what is distinguished from it.”1 This indicates a gradual increase in the directness of the advance, and a diminished importance of the movement from contrary to contrary. But this point, which Hegel leaves undeveloped, will require further.2 3. The ground of the necessity which the dialectic process claims cannot, it is evident, lie merely in the category from which we start. For 10/John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart in that case the conclusion of the process could, if it were valid, have no greater content than was contained in the starting point. All that can be done with a single premise is to analyse it, and the mere analysis of an idea could never lead us necessarily onwards to any other idea incom- patible with it, and therefore could never lead us to its contrary. But the dialectic claims to proceed from the lower to the higher, and it claims to add to our knowledge, and not merely to expound it. At the same time it asserts that no premise other than the validity of the lower category is requisite to enable us to affirm the validity of the higher. The solution of this difficulty, which has been the ground of many attacks on Hegel, lies in the fact that the dialectic must be looked on as a process, not of construction, but of reconstruction. If the lower cat- egories lead on to the higher, and these to the highest, the reason is that the lower categories have no independent. existence, but are only ab- stractions from the highest. It is this alone which is independent and real. In it all one-sidedness has been destroyed by the successive recon- ciliation of opposites. It is thus the completely concrete, and for Hegel the real is always the concrete. Moreover, according to Hegel, the real is always the completely rational. (“The consummation of the infinite aim...consists merely in removing the illusion which makes it seem as yet unaccomplished.”3). Now no category except the highest can be com- pletely rational, since every lower one involves its contrary. The Abso- lute Idea is present to us in all reality, in all the phenomena of experi- ence, and in our own selves. Everywhere it is the soul of all reality. But although it is always present to us, it is not always explicitly present. In the content of consciousness it is present implicitly. But we do not al- ways attempt to unravel that content, nor are our attempts always suc- cessful. Very often all that is explicitly before our minds is some finite and incomplete category. When this is so, the dialectic process can be- gin, and indeed must begin, if we are sufficiently acute and attentive,— because the ideal which is latent in the nature of all experience, and of the mind itself, forbids us to rest content with the inadequate category. The incomplete reality before the mind is inevitably measured against the complete reality of the mind itself, and it is in this process that it betrays its incompleteness, and demands its contrary to supplement its one-sidedness. “Before the mind there is a single conception, but the whole mind itself, which does not appear, engages in the process, oper- ates on the datum, and produces the result.”4 4. The dialectic process is not a mere addition to the conception Studies in the Hegelian Dialectic/11 before us of one casually selected moment after another, but obeys a definite law.
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