(1770-1831)
Logic and the Dialectical Process
Hegel laid great stress upon logic. To be sure, he understood logic to mean virtually the same thing as metaphysics. This was because he believed that knowing and being coincide. It was Hegel’s view that we can know the essence of reality by moving logically step by step and avoiding all self-contradiction along the way.
Hegel argued that thought must follow the inner logic of reality itself. Because he had identified the rational with the actual he concluded that logic and logical connections must be discovered in the actual and not in some "empty rationalization." He argued that "since philosophy is the exploration of the rational…it is for that very reason the apprehension of the present and the actual, not the erection of a beyond, supposed to exist, God knows where…"
Logic, then, is the process by which we deduce, from our experience of the actual, the categories that describe the Absolute. This process of deduction is at the very heart of Hegel’s dialect philosophy. Hegel’s dialectic process exhibits a triadic movement. Usually this triadic structure of the dialectic process is described as a movement from thesis to antithesis and finally to a synthesis, after which the synthesis becomes a new thesis and this process continues until it ends in the Absolute Idea.
What Hegel emphasized in his dialectic logic was that thought moves and that contradictions, rather than bringing knowledge to an end, act as a positive moving force in human reasoning.
To illustrate Hegel’s dialectic method, we can take the first basic triad of his Logic, that is, the triad of Being, Nothing, and Becoming.
Being ---------- Becoming ---------- Nothing
Hegel said that the mind must always move from the more general and abstract to the specific and concrete. The most general concept we can form about things is that they are. Various things have specific and different qualities; they all have one thing in common, namely, their being. Being, then, is the most general concept the mind can formulate.
This is how God’s mind works:
I ---------- Family ---------- We
Family ---------- State ---------- Society
State ---------- Nation ----------State
(The Prussian State)
Nation ---------- Global ---------- Nation
(United Nations)
God
Karl Marx
(1818-1883)
Marxism (sketchy)
Capitalism – An economic system whereby goods and services are produced,
distributed, and exchanged by private parties for profit.
Opposite – Everything owned and operated by the State.
Marx: Capitalism is unfair. History is divided into the struggle between two classes, the haves and have nots. In modern times people can see who the enemy is. Capitalists hate other capitalists. All kinds of work are equal. The emphasis is on physical needs, but humans have other kinds of needs: spiritual, intellectual, aesthetic. Under capitalism all people can think about is ownership. Capitalists are like hogs in a trough; they can not get enough. But there is a limit to what riches can do or buy.
Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844
Marx talks about the plight of people in capitalist society and the production of one dimensional people. Commodity Form/Exchange Value of goods dominates existence of modern people. Capitalists see everything in an economic category. This alters the fundamental nature of human beings. All activities are subordinate to an economic category. The desire for money alienates the senses. Everything becomes a money making venture. What is it worth? More bucks is better!
"Particularized Individuals" under capitalist society primarily relate to one another in terms of the economic category. People become preoccupied with money, and people use one another as a means to an end. Thus, people become alienated from other people and humans are alienated from nature.
There are only buyers/sellers, employers/employees; this makes it hard for people to relate as human beings. The desire to consume has replaced our sensibilities to nature.
Historical Materialism/Idealism
Economic Determinism – Development of human history; everything is economically based.
Dialectical Materialism – Thesis/antithesis stems from class struggle/revolution/communism.
Hegel’s idealist philosophy – Mind comes before matter.
Marx’s materialist philosophy – Matter precedes mind. matter has always been here;
all institutions have an economic base.
Qualitative leap – Significant change in history.
Marx’s Class Structure
Proletariat – workers
Bourgeois – capitalists
Petit Bourgeois – small business
Intelligentsia
Lumpen Proletariat – the dregs of society (rag pickers)
Communism – pure economic and political democracy
All history is a struggle between the haves and the have nots.
The revolution need not be violent.
The role of communism is to pick up the pieces after capitalism falls.
| Last Updated: 10/19/22 |