“Dialectics” is a term used to describe a method ofphilosophical argument that involves some sort of contradictoryprocess between opposing sides. In what is perhaps the most classicversion of “dialectics”, the ancient Greek philosopher,Plato (see entry onPlato), for instance, presented his philosophical argument as aback-and-forth dialogue or debate, generally between the character ofSocrates, on one side, and some person or group of people to whomSocrates was talking (his interlocutors), on the other. In the courseof the dialogues, Socrates’ interlocutors propose definitions ofphilosophical concepts or express views that Socrates challenges oropposes. The back-and-forth debate between opposing sides produces akind of linear progression or evolution in philosophical views orpositions: as the dialogues go along, Socrates’ interlocutorschange or refine their views in response to Socrates’ challengesand come to adopt more sophisticated views. The back-and-forthdialectic between Socrates and his interlocutors thus becomesPlato’s way of arguing against the earlier, less sophisticatedviews or positions and for the more sophisticated ones later.

“Hegel’s dialectics” refers to the particulardialectical method of argument employed by the 19th Century Germanphilosopher, G.W.F. Hegel (see entry onHegel), which, like other “dialectical” methods, relies on acontradictory process between opposing sides. Whereas Plato’s“opposing sides” were people (Socrates and hisinterlocutors), however, what the “opposing sides” are inHegel’s work depends on the subject matter he discusses. In hiswork on logic, for instance, the “opposing sides” aredifferent definitions of logical concepts that are opposed to oneanother. In thePhenomenology of Spirit, which presentsHegel’s epistemology or philosophy of knowledge, the“opposing sides” are different definitions ofconsciousness and of the object that consciousness is aware of orclaims to know. As in Plato’s dialogues, a contradictory processbetween “opposing sides” in Hegel’s dialectics leadsto a linear evolution or development from less sophisticateddefinitions or views to more sophisticated ones later. The dialecticalprocess thus constitutes Hegel’s method for arguing against theearlier, less sophisticated definitions or views and for the moresophisticated ones later. Hegel regarded this dialectical method or“speculative mode of cognition” (PR §10) as thehallmark of his philosophy and used the same method in thePhenomenology of Spirit [PhG], as well as in all of themature works he published later—the entireEncyclopaedia ofPhilosophical Sciences (including, as its first part, the“Lesser Logic” or theEncyclopaedia Logic [EL]),theScience of Logic [SL], and thePhilosophy ofRight [PR].

Note that, although Hegel acknowledged that his dialectical method waspart of a philosophical tradition stretching back to Plato, hecriticized Plato’s version of dialectics. He argued thatPlato’s dialectics deals only with limited philosophical claimsand is unable to get beyond skepticism or nothingness (SL-M55–6; SL-dG 34–5; PR, Remark to §31). According tothe logic of a traditionalreductio ad absurdum argument, ifthe premises of an argument lead to a contradiction, we must concludethat the premises are false—which leaves us with no premises orwith nothing. We must then wait around for new premises to spring uparbitrarily from somewhere else, and then see whether those newpremises put us back into nothingness or emptiness once again, ifthey, too, lead to a contradiction. Because Hegel believed that reasonnecessarily generates contradictions, as we will see, he thought newpremises will indeed produce further contradictions. As he puts theargument, then,

the scepticism that ends up with the bare abstraction of nothingnessor emptiness cannot get any further from there, but must wait to seewhether something new comes along and what it is, in order to throw ittoo into the same empty abyss. (PhG-M §79)

Hegel argues that, because Plato’s dialectics cannot get beyondarbitrariness and skepticism, it generates only approximate truths,and falls short of being a genuine science (SL-M 55–6; SL-dG34–5; PR, Remark to §31; cf. EL Remark to §81). Thefollowing sections examine Hegel’s dialectics as well as theseissues in more detail.

• 1. Hegel’s description of his dialectical method
• 2. Applying Hegel’s dialectical method to his arguments
• 3. Why does Hegel use dialectics?
• 4. Is Hegel’s dialectical method logical?
• 5. Syntactic patterns and special terminology in Hegel’s dialectics
• Bibliography
  • English Translations of Key Texts by Hegel
  • English Translations of Other Primary Sources
  • Secondary Literature
• Academic Tools
• Other Internet Resources
• Related Entries

1. Hegel’s description of his dialectical method

Hegel provides the most extensive, general account of his dialecticalmethod in Part I of hisEncyclopaedia of PhilosophicalSciences, which is often called theEncyclopaedia Logic[EL]. The form or presentation of logic, he says, has three sides ormoments (EL §79). These sides are not parts of logic, but,rather, moments of “every concept”, as well as “ofeverything true in general” (EL Remark to §79; we will seewhy Hegel thought dialectics is in everything insection 3). The first moment—the moment of the understanding—is themoment of fixity, in which concepts or forms have a seemingly stabledefinition or determination (EL §80).

The second moment—the “dialectical” (EL§§79, 81) or “negatively rational” (EL§79) moment—is the moment of instability. In this moment, aone-sidedness or restrictedness (EL Remark to §81) in thedetermination from the moment of understanding comes to the fore, andthe determination that was fixed in the first moment passes into itsopposite (EL §81). Hegel describes this process as a process of“self-sublation” (EL §81). The English verb “tosublate” translates Hegel’s technical use of the Germanverbaufheben, which is a crucial concept in his dialecticalmethod. Hegel says thataufheben has a doubled meaning: itmeans both to cancel (or negate) and to preserve at the same time (PhG§113; SL-M 107; SL-dG 81–2; cf. EL the Addition to§95). The moment of understanding sublatesitselfbecause its own character or nature—its one-sidedness orrestrictedness—destabilizes its definition and leads it to passinto its opposite. The dialectical moment thus involves a process ofself-sublation, or a process in which the determination fromthe moment of understanding sublatesitself, or both cancelsand preservesitself, as it pushes on to or passes into itsopposite.

The third moment—the “speculative” or“positively rational” (EL §§79, 82)moment—grasps the unity of the opposition between the first twodeterminations, or is the positive result of the dissolution ortransition of those determinations (EL §82 and Remark to§82). Here, Hegel rejects the traditional,reductio adabsurdum argument, which says that when the premises of anargument lead to a contradiction, then the premises must be discardedaltogether, leaving nothing. As Hegel suggests in thePhenomenology, such an argument

is just the skepticism which only ever sees pure nothingness in itsresult and abstracts from the fact that this nothingness isspecifically the nothingness of thatfrom which it results.(PhG-M §79)

Although the speculative moment negates the contradiction, it is adeterminate or defined nothingness because it is the result of aspecific process. There is something particular about thedetermination in the moment of understanding—a specificweakness, or some specific aspect that was ignored in itsone-sidedness or restrictedness—that leads it to fall apart inthe dialectical moment. The speculative moment has a definition,determination or content because it grows out of and unifies theparticular character of those earlier determinations, or is “aunity of distinct determinations” (EL Remark to§82). The speculative moment is thus “truly notempty,abstract nothing, but the negation ofcertaindeterminations” (EL-GSH §82). When the result“is taken as the result of that from which it emerges”,Hegel says, then it is “in fact, the true result; in that caseit is itself adeterminate nothingness, one which has acontent” (PhG-M §79). As he also puts it, “the resultis conceived as it is in truth, namely, as adeterminatenegation [bestimmte Negation]; a new form has therebyimmediately arisen” (PhG-M §79). Or, as he says,“[b]ecause the result, the negation, is adeterminatenegation [bestimmteNegation], it has acontent” (SL-dG 33; cf. SL-M 54). Hegel’s claimin both thePhenomenology and theScience of Logicthat his philosophy relies on a process of “determinatenegation [bestimmte Negation]” has sometimes ledscholars to describe his dialectics as a method or doctrine of“determinate negation” (see entry onHegel, section onScience of Logic; cf. Rosen 1982: 30; Stewart 1996, 2000: 41–3; Winfield 1990:56).

There are several features of this account that Hegel thinks raise hisdialectical method above the arbitrariness of Plato’s dialecticsto the level of a genuine science. First, because the determinationsin the moment of understanding sublatethemselves,Hegel’s dialectics does not require some new idea to show uparbitrarily. Instead, the movement to new determinations is driven bythe nature of the earlier determinations and so “comes about onits own accord” (PhG-P §79). Indeed, for Hegel, themovement is drivenby necessity (see, e.g., EL Remarks to§§12, 42, 81, 87, 88; PhG §79). The natures of thedeterminations themselvesdrive or force them to pass intotheir opposites. This sense ofnecessity—the idea thatthe method involves being forced from earlier moments to laterones—leads Hegel to regard his dialectics as a kind oflogic. As he says in thePhenomenology, themethod’s “proper exposition belongs to logic” (PhG-M§48). Necessity—the sense of being driven or forced toconclusions—is the hallmark of “logic” in Westernphilosophy.

Second, because the form or determination that arises is theresult of the self-sublation of the determination from themoment of understanding, there is no need for some new idea to show upfrom the outside. Instead, the transition to the new determination orform is necessitated by earlier moments and hence grows out of theprocess itself. Unlike in Plato’s arbitrary dialectics,then—which must wait around until some other idea comes in fromthe outside—in Hegel’s dialectics “nothingextraneous is introduced”, as he says (SL-M 54; cf. SL-dG 33).His dialectics is driven by the nature, immanence or“inwardness” of its own content (SL-M 54; cf. SL-dG 33;cf. PR §31). As he puts it, dialectics is “the principlethrough which aloneimmanent coherence and necessity enterinto the content of science” (EL-GSH Remark to §81).

Third, because later determinations “sublate” earlierdeterminations, the earlier determinations are not completelycancelled or negated. On the contrary, the earlier determinations arepreserved in the sense that they remain in effect within thelater determinations. When Being-for-itself, for instance, isintroduced in the logic as the first concept of ideality oruniversality and is defined by embracing a set of“something-others”, Being-for-itself replaces thesomething-others as the new concept, but those something-others remainactive within the definition of the concept of Being-for-itself. Thesomething-others must continue to do the work of picking outindividual somethings before the concept of Being-for-itself can haveits own definition as the concept that gathers them up.Being-for-itself replaces the something-others, but it also preservesthem, because its definition still requires them to do their work ofpicking out individual somethings (EL §§95–6).

The concept of “apple”, for example, as aBeing-for-itself, would be defined by gathering up individual“somethings” that are the same as one another (as apples).Each individual apple can be what it is (as an apple) only in relationto an “other” that is the same “something”that it is (i.e., an apple). That is the one-sidedness orrestrictedness that leads each “something” to pass intoits “other” or opposite. The “somethings” arethus both “something-others”. Moreover, their definingprocesses lead to an endless process of passing back and forth intoone another: one “something” can be what it is (as anapple) only in relation to another “something” that is thesame as it is, which, in turn, can be what it is (an apple) only inrelation to the other “something” that is the same as itis, and so on, back and forth, endlessly (cf. EL §95). Theconcept of “apple”, as a Being-for-itself, stops thatendless, passing-over process by embracing or including the individualsomething-others (the apples) in its content. It grasps or capturestheir character or qualityas apples. But the“something-others” must do their work of picking out andseparating those individual items (the apples)before theconcept of “apple”—as the Being-for-itself—cangather them up for its own definition. We can picture the concept ofBeing-for-itself like this:

Figure 1

Later concepts thus replace, but also preserve, earlier concepts.

Fourth, later concepts both determine and also surpass the limits orfinitude of earlier concepts. Earlier determinations sublatethemselves—they pass into their others because of someweakness, one-sidedness or restrictedness in their own definitions.There are thus limitations in each of the determinations that leadthem to pass into their opposites. As Hegel says, “that is whateverything finite is: its own sublation” (EL-GSH Remark to§81). Later determinations define the finiteness of the earlierdeterminations. From the point of view of the concept ofBeing-for-itself, for instance, the concept of a“something-other” is limited or finite: although thesomething-others are supposed to be the same as one another, thecharacter of their sameness (e.g., as apples) is captured only fromabove, by the higher-level, more universal concept ofBeing-for-itself. Being-for-itself reveals the limitations of theconcept of a “something-other”. It also rises above thoselimitations, since it can do something that the concept of asomething-other cannot do. Dialectics thus allows us to get beyond thefinite to the universal. As Hegel puts it, “all genuine,nonexternal elevation above the finite is to be found in thisprinciple [of dialectics]” (EL-GSH Remark to §81).

Fifth, because the determination in the speculative moment grasps theunity of the first two moments, Hegel’s dialecticalmethod leads to concepts or forms that are increasingly comprehensiveand universal. As Hegel puts it, the result of the dialectical process

is a new concept but one higher and richer than thepreceding—richer because it negates or opposes the preceding andtherefore contains it, and it contains even more than that, for it isthe unity of itself and its opposite. (SL-dG 33; cf. SL-M 54)

Like Being-for-itself, later concepts are more universal because theyunify or are builtout of earlier determinations, and includethose earlier determinations as part of their definitions. Indeed,many other concepts or determinations can also be depicted asliterally surrounding earlier ones (cf. Maybee 2009: 73, 100, 112,156, 193, 214, 221, 235, 458).

Finally, because the dialectical process leads to increasingcomprehensiveness and universality, it ultimately produces a completeseries, or drives “to completion” (SL-dG 33; cf. SL-M 54;PhG §79). Dialectics drives to the “Absolute”, to useHegel’s term, which is the last, final, and completelyall-encompassing or unconditioned concept or form in the relevantsubject matter under discussion (logic, phenomenology, ethics/politicsand so on). The “Absolute” concept or form isunconditioned because its definition or determination contains all theother concepts or forms that were developed earlier in the dialecticalprocess for that subject matter. Moreover, because the processdevelops necessarily and comprehensively through each concept, form ordetermination, there are no determinations that are left out of theprocess. There are therefore no left-over concepts orforms—concepts or forms outside of the“Absolute”—that might “condition” ordefine it. The “Absolute” is thus unconditioned because itcontains all of the conditions in its content, and is not conditionedby anything else outside of it. This Absolute is the highest conceptor form of universality for that subject matter. It is the thought orconcept of the whole conceptual system for the relevant subjectmatter. We can picture the Absolute Idea (EL §236), forinstance—which is the “Absolute” for logic—asan oval that is filled up with and surrounds numerous, embedded ringsof smaller ovals and circles, which represent all of the earlier andless universal determinations from the logical development (cf. Maybee2009: 30, 600):

Figure 2

Since the “Absolute” concepts for each subject matter leadinto one another, when they are taken together, they constituteHegel’s entire philosophical system, which, as Hegel says,“presents itself therefore as a circle of circles” (EL-GSH§15). We can picture the entire system like this (cf. Maybee2009: 29):

Figure 3

Together, Hegel believes, these characteristics make his dialecticalmethod genuinely scientific. As he says, “the dialecticalconstitutes the moving soul of scientific progression” (EL-GSHRemark to §81). He acknowledges that a description of the methodcan be more or less complete and detailed, but because the method orprogression is driven only by the subject matter itself, thisdialectical method is the “only true method” (SL-M 54;SL-dG 33).

2. Applying Hegel’s dialectical method to his arguments

So far, we have seen how Hegel describes his dialectical method, butwe have yet to see how we might read this method into the arguments heoffers in his works. Scholars often use the first three stages of thelogic as the “textbook example” (Forster 1993: 133) toillustrate how Hegel’s dialectical method should be applied tohis arguments. The logic begins with the simple and immediate conceptof pure Being, which is said to illustrate the moment of theunderstanding. We can think of Being here as a concept of purepresence. It is not mediated by any other concept—or is notdefined in relation to any other concept—and so is undeterminedor has no further determination (EL §86; SL-M 82; SL-dG 59). Itasserts bare presence, but what that presence is like has no furtherdetermination. Because the thought of pure Being is undetermined andso is a pure abstraction, however, it is really no different from theassertion of pure negation or the absolutely negative (EL §87).It is therefore equally a Nothing (SL-M 82; SL-dG 59). Being’slack of determination thus leads it to sublate itself and pass intothe concept of Nothing (EL §87; SL-M 82; SL-dG 59), whichillustrates the dialectical moment.

But if we focus for a moment on the definitions of Being and Nothingthemselves, their definitions have the same content. Indeed, both areundetermined, so they have the same kind of undefined content. Theonly difference between them is “something merelymeant” (EL-GSH Remark to §87), namely, that Being isan undefined content, taken as or meant to be presence, while Nothingis an undefined content, taken as or meant to be absence. The thirdconcept of the logic—which is used to illustrate the speculativemoment—unifies the first two moments by capturing the positiveresult of—or the conclusion that we can draw from—theopposition between the first two moments. The concept of Becoming isthe thought of an undefined content, taken as presence (Being) andthen taken as absence (Nothing), or taken as absence (Nothing) andthen taken as presence (Being). To Become is to go from Being toNothing or from Nothing to Being, or is, as Hegel puts it, “theimmediate vanishing of the one in the other” (SL-M 83; cf. SL-dG60). The contradiction between Being and Nothing thus is not areductio ad absurdum, or does not lead to the rejection ofboth concepts and hence to nothingness—as Hegel had saidPlato’s dialectics does (SL-M 55–6; SL-dG34–5)—but leads to a positive result, namely, to theintroduction of a new concept—the synthesis—which unifiesthe two, earlier, opposed concepts.

We can also use the textbook Being-Nothing-Becoming example toillustrate Hegel’s concept ofaufheben (to sublate),which, as we saw, means to cancel (or negate) and to preserve at thesame time. Hegel says that the concept of Becoming sublates theconcepts of Being and Nothing (SL-M 105; SL-dG 80). Becoming cancelsor negates Being and Nothing because it is a new concept that replacesthe earlier concepts; but it also preserves Being and Nothing becauseit relies on those earlier concepts for its own definition. Indeed, itis the first concrete concept in the logic. Unlike Being and Nothing,which had no definition or determination as concepts themselves and sowere merely abstract (SL-M 82–3; SL-dG 59–60; cf. ELAddition to §88), Becoming is a “determinate unityin which thereis both Being and Nothing” (SL-M 105;cf. SL-dG 80). Becoming succeeds in having a definition ordetermination because it is defined by, or piggy-backs on, theconcepts of Being and Nothing.

This “textbook” Being-Nothing-Becoming example is closelyconnected to the traditional idea that Hegel’s dialecticsfollows a thesis-antithesis-synthesis pattern, which, when applied tothe logic, means that one concept is introduced as a“thesis” or positive concept, which then develops into asecond concept that negates or is opposed to the first or is its“antithesis”, which in turn leads to a third concept, the“synthesis”, that unifies the first two (see, e.g.,McTaggert 1964 [1910]: 3–4; Mure 1950: 302; Stace, 1955 [1924]:90–3, 125–6; Kosek 1972: 243; E. Harris 1983: 93–7;Singer 1983: 77–79). Versions of this interpretation ofHegel’s dialectics continue to have currency (e.g., Forster1993: 131; Stewart 2000: 39, 55; Fritzman 2014: 3–5). On thisreading, Being is the positive moment or thesis, Nothing is thenegative moment or antithesis, and Becoming is the moment ofaufheben or synthesis—the concept that cancels andpreserves, or unifies and combines, Being and Nothing.

We must be careful, however, not to apply this textbook example toodogmatically to the rest of Hegel’s logic or to his dialecticalmethod more generally (for a classic criticism of thethesis-antithesis-synthesis reading of Hegel’s dialectics, seeMueller 1958). There are other places where this general pattern mightdescribe some of the transitions from stage to stage, but there aremany more places where the development does not seem to fit thispattern very well. One place where the pattern seems to hold, forinstance, is where the Measure (EL §107)—as the combinationof Quality and Quantity—transitions into the Measureless (EL§107), which is opposed to it, which then in turn transitionsinto Essence, which is the unity or combination of the two earliersides (EL §111). This series of transitions could be said tofollow the general pattern captured by the “textbookexample”: Measure would be the moment of the understanding orthesis, the Measureless would be the dialectical moment or antithesis,and Essence would be the speculative moment or synthesis that unifiesthe two earlier moments. However, before the transition to Essencetakes place, the Measureless itself is redefined as a Measure (EL§109)—undercutting a precise parallel with the textbookBeing-Nothing-Becoming example, since the transition from Measure toEssence would not follow a Measure-Measureless-Essence pattern, butrather a Measure-(Measureless?)-Measure-Essence pattern.

Other sections of Hegel’s philosophy do not fit the triadic,textbook example of Being-Nothing-Becoming at all, as eveninterpreters who have supported the traditional reading ofHegel’s dialectics have noted. After using theBeing-Nothing-Becoming example to argue that Hegel’s dialecticalmethod consists of “triads” whose members “arecalled the thesis, antithesis, synthesis” (Stace 1955 [1924]:93), W.T. Stace, for instance, goes on to warn us that Hegel does notsucceed in applying this pattern throughout the philosophical system.It is hard to see, Stace says, how the middle term of some ofHegel’s triads are the opposites or antitheses of the firstterm, “and there are even ‘triads’ which containfour terms!” (Stace 1955 [1924]: 97). As a matter of fact, onesection of Hegel’s logic—the section onCognition—violates the thesis-antithesis-synthesis patternbecause it has only two sub-divisions, rather than three. “Thetriad is incomplete”, Stace complains. “There is no third.Hegel here abandons the triadic method. Nor is any explanation of hishaving done so forthcoming” (Stace 1955 [1924]: 286; cf.McTaggart 1964 [1910]: 292).

Interpreters have offered various solutions to the complaint thatHegel’s dialectics sometimes seems to violate the triadic form.Some scholars apply the triadic form fairly loosely across severalstages (e.g. Burbidge 1981: 43–5; Taylor 1975: 229–30).Others have applied Hegel’s triadic method to whole sections ofhis philosophy, rather than to individual stages. For G.R.G. Mure, forinstance, the section on Cognition fits neatly into a triadic,thesis-antithesis-synthesis account of dialectics because the wholesection is itself the antithesis of the previous section ofHegel’s logic, the section on Life (Mure 1950: 270). Mure arguesthat Hegel’s triadic form is easier to discern the more broadlywe apply it. “The triadic form appears on many scales”, hesays, “and the larger the scale we consider the more obvious itis” (Mure 1950: 302).

Scholars who interpret Hegel’s description of dialectics on asmaller scale—as an account of how to get from stage tostage—have also tried to explain why some sections seem toviolate the triadic form. J.N. Findlay, for instance—who, likeStace, associates dialectics “with thetriad, or withtriplicity”—argues that stages can fit into thatform in “more than one sense” (Findlay 1962: 66). Thefirst sense of triplicity echoes the textbook, Being-Nothing-Becomingexample. In a second sense, however, Findlay says, the dialecticalmoment or “contradictory breakdown” is not itself aseparate stage, or “does not count as one of the stages”,but is a transition between opposed, “but complementary”,abstract stages that “are developed more or lessconcurrently” (Findlay 1962: 66). This second sort of triplicitycould involve any number of stages: it “could readily have beenexpanded into a quadruplicity, a quintuplicity and so forth”(Findlay 1962: 66). Still, like Stace, he goes on to complain thatmany of the transitions in Hegel’s philosophy do not seem to fitthe triadic pattern very well. In some triads, the second term is“the direct and obvious contrary of the first”—as inthe case of Being and Nothing. In other cases, however, the oppositionis, as Findlay puts it, “of a much less extreme character”(Findlay 1962: 69). In some triads, the third term obviously mediatesbetween the first two terms. In other cases, however, he says, thethird term is just one possible mediator or unity among other possibleones; and, in yet other cases, “the reconciling functions of thethird member are not at all obvious” (Findlay 1962: 70).

Let us look more closely at one place where the “textbookexample” of Being-Nothing-Becoming does not seem to describe thedialectical development of Hegel’s logic very well. In a laterstage of the logic, the concept of Purpose goes through severaliterations, from Abstract Purpose (EL §204), to Finite orImmediate Purpose (EL §205), and then through several stages of asyllogism (EL §206) to Realized Purpose (EL §210). AbstractPurpose is the thought of any kind of purposiveness, where the purposehas not been further determined or defined. It includes not just thekinds of purposes that occur in consciousness, such as needs ordrives, but also the “internal purposiveness” orteleological view proposed by the ancient Greek philosopher, Aristotle(see entry onAristotle; EL Remark to §204), according to which things in the world haveessences and aim to achieve (or have the purpose of living up to)their essences. Finite Purpose is the moment in which an AbstractPurpose begins to have a determination by fixing on some particularmaterial or content through which it will be realized (EL §205).The Finite Purpose then goes through a process in which it, as theUniversality, comes to realize itself as the Purpose over theparticular material or content (and hence becomes Realized Purpose) bypushing out into Particularity, then into Singularity (the syllogismU-P-S), and ultimately into ‘out-thereness,’ or intoindividual objects out there in the world (EL §210; cf. Maybee2009: 466–493).

Hegel’s description of the development of Purpose does not seemto fit the textbook Being-Nothing-Becoming example or thethesis-antithesis-synthesis model. According to the example and model,Abstract Purpose would be the moment of understanding or thesis,Finite Purpose would be the dialectical moment or antithesis, andRealized Purpose would be the speculative moment or synthesis.Although Finite Purpose has adifferent determination fromAbstract Purpose (it refines the definition of Abstract Purpose), itis hard to see how it would qualify as strictly “opposed”to or as the “antithesis” of Abstract Purpose in the waythat Nothing is opposed to or is the antithesis of Being.

There is an answer, however, to the criticism that many of thedeterminations are not “opposites” in a strict sense. TheGerman term that is translated as “opposite” inHegel’s description of the moments of dialectics (EL§§81, 82)—entgegensetzen—has three rootwords:setzen (“to posit or set”),gegen, (“against”), and the prefixent-,which indicates that something has entered into a new state. The verbentgegensetzen can therefore literally be translated as“to set over against”. The“engegengesetzte” into which determinations pass,then, do not need to be the strict “opposites” of thefirst, but can be determinations that are merely “setagainst” or are different from the first ones. And the prefixent-, which suggests that the first determinations are putinto a new state, can be explained by Hegel’s claim that thefinite determinations from the moment of understanding sublate (cancelbut also preserve) themselves (EL §81): later determinations putearlier determinations into a new state bypreservingthem.

At the same time, there is a technical sense in which a laterdetermination would still be the “opposite” of the earlierdetermination. Since the second determination is different from thefirst one, it is the logical negation of the first one, or isnot-the-first-determination. If the first determination is“e”, for instance, because the new determination isdifferent from that one, the new one is “not-e” (Kosek1972: 240). Since Finite Purpose, for instance, has a definition ordetermination that is different from the definition that AbstractPurpose has, it isnot-Abstract-Purpose, or is the negationor opposite of Abstract Purpose in that sense. There is therefore atechnical, logical sense in which the second concept or form is the“opposite” or negation of—or is“not”—the first one—though, again, it need notbe the “opposite” of the first one in a strict sense.

Other problems remain, however. Because the concept of RealizedPurpose is defined through a syllogistic process, it is itself theproduct of several stages of development (at least four, by my count,if Realized Purpose counts as a separate determination), which wouldseem to violate a triadic model. Moreover, the concept of RealizedPurpose does not, strictly speaking, seem to be the unity orcombination of Abstract Purpose and Finite Purpose. Realized Purposeis the result of (and so unifies) the syllogistic process of FinitePurpose, through which Finite Purpose focuses on and is realized in aparticular material or content. Realized Purpose thus seems to be adevelopment of Finite Purpose, rather than a unity or combination ofAbstract Purpose and Finite Purpose, in the way that Becoming can besaid to be the unity or combination of Being and Nothing.

These sorts of considerations have led some scholars to interpretHegel’s dialectics in a way that is implied by a more literalreading of his claim, in theEncyclopaedia Logic, that thethree “sides” of the form of logic—namely, themoment of understanding, the dialectical moment, and the speculativemoment—“aremoments of each [or every;jedes]logically-real, that is each [or every;jedes] concept” (EL Remark to §79; this is analternative translation). The quotation suggests thateachconcept goes through all three moments of the dialecticalprocess—a suggestion reinforced by Hegel’s claim, in thePhenomenology, that the result of the process of determinatenegation is that “a new form has thereby immediatelyarisen” (PhG-M §79). According to this interpretation, thethree “sides” are not three different concepts or formsthat are related to one another in a triad—as the textbookBeing-Nothing-Becoming example suggests—but rather differentmomentary sides or “determinations” in the life, so tospeak, ofeach concept or form as it transitions to the nextone. The three moments thus involve only two concepts or forms: theone that comes first, and the one that comes next (examples ofphilosophers who interpret Hegel’s dialectics in this second wayinclude Maybee 2009; Priest 1989: 402; Rosen 2014: 122, 132; andWinfield 1990: 56).

For the concept of Being, for example, its moment of understanding isits moment of stability, in which it is asserted to be pure presence.This determination is one-sided or restricted however, because, as wesaw, it ignores another aspect of Being’s definition, namely,that Being has no content or determination, which is how Being isdefined in its dialectical moment. Being thus sublatesitselfbecause the one-sidedness of its moment of understanding underminesthat determination and leads to the definition it has in thedialectical moment. The speculative moment draws out the implicationsof these moments: it asserts that Being (as pure presence) impliesnothing. It is also the “unity of the determinations in theircomparison [Entgegensetzung]” (EL §82; alternativetranslation): since it captures a process from one to the other, itincludes Being’s moment of understanding (as pure presence) anddialectical moment (as nothing or undetermined), but alsocompares those two determinations, or sets (-setzen)them up against (-gegen) each other. It even puts Being intoa new state (as the prefixent- suggests) because the nextconcept, Nothing, willsublate (cancel and preserve)Being.

The concept of Nothing also has all three moments. When it is assertedto be the speculative result of the concept of Being, it has itsmoment of understanding or stability: it is Nothing, defined as pureabsence, as the absence of determination. But Nothing’s momentof understanding is also one-sided or restricted: like Being, Nothingis also an undefined content, which is its determination in itsdialectical moment. Nothing thus sublatesitself: since it isan undefinedcontent, it is not pure absence after all, buthas the samepresence that Being did. It ispresentas an undefinedcontent. Nothing thussublatesBeing: it replaces (cancels) Being, but also preserves Being insofaras it has the same definition (as an undefined content) and presencethat Being had. We can picture Being and Nothing like this (thecircles have dashed outlines to indicate that, as concepts, they areeach undefined; cf. Maybee 2009: 51):

Figure 4

In its speculative moment, then, Nothing implies presence or Being,which is the “unity of the determinations in their comparison[Entgegensetzung]” (EL §82; alternativetranslation), since it bothincludes but—as a processfrom one to the other—alsocompares the two earlierdeterminations of Nothing, first, as pure absence and, second, as justas much presence.

The dialectical process is driven to the next concept orform—Becoming—not by a triadic,thesis-antithesis-synthesis pattern, but by the one-sidedness ofNothing—which leads Nothing to sublate itself—and by theimplications of the process so far. Since Being and Nothing have eachbeen exhaustively analyzed as separate concepts, and since they arethe only concepts in play, there is only one way for the dialecticalprocess to move forward: whatever concept comes next will have to takeaccount of both Being and Nothing at the same time. Moreover, theprocess revealed that an undefined content taken to be presence (i.e.,Being) implies Nothing (or absence), and that an undefined contenttaken to be absence (i.e., Nothing) implies presence (i.e., Being).The next concept, then, takes Being and Nothing together and draws outthose implications—namely, that Being implies Nothing, and thatNothing implies Being. It is therefore Becoming, defined as twoseparate processes: one in which Being becomes Nothing, and one inwhich Nothing becomes Being. We can picture Becoming this way (cf.Maybee 2009: 53):

Figure 5

In a similar way, a one-sidedness or restrictedness in thedetermination of Finite Purpose together with the implications ofearlier stages leads to Realized Purpose. In its moment ofunderstanding, Finite Purpose particularizes into (or presents) itscontent as “something-presupposed” or as apre-given object (EL §205). I go to a restaurant for the purposeof having dinner, for instance, and order a salad. My purpose ofhaving dinner particularizes as a pre-given object—the salad.But this object or particularity—e.g. the salad—is“inwardly reflected” (EL §205): it has its owncontent—developed in earlier stages—which the definitionof Finite Purpose ignores. We can picture Finite Purpose this way:

Figure 6

In the dialectical moment, Finite Purpose is determined by thepreviously ignored content, or by that other content. Theone-sidedness of Finite Purpose requires the dialectical process tocontinue through a series of syllogisms that determines Finite Purposein relation to the ignored content. The first syllogism links theFinite Purpose to the first layer of content in the object: thePurpose or universality (e.g., dinner) goes through the particularity(e.g., the salad) to its content, the singularity (e.g., lettuce as atype of thing)—the syllogism U-P-S (EL §206). But theparticularity (e.g., the salad) is itself a universality or purpose,“which at the same time is a syllogism within itself [insich]” (EL Remark to §208; alternative translation),in relation to its own content. The salad is a universality/purposethat particularizes as lettuce (as a type of thing) and has itssingularity in this lettuce here—a second syllogism, U-P-S.Thus, the first singularity (e.g., “lettuce” as a type ofthing)—which, in this second syllogism, is the particularity orP—“judges” (EL §207) or assertsthat “U isS”: it says that“lettuce” as a universality (U) or type of thing isa singularity (S), or is “this lettuce here”, forinstance. This new singularity (e.g. “this lettuce here”)is itself a combination of subjectivity and objectivity (EL§207): it is an Inner or identifying concept(“lettuce”) that is in a mutually-defining relationship(the circular arrow) with an Outer or out-thereness (“thishere”) as its content. In the speculative moment, Finite Purposeis determined by the whole process of development from the moment ofunderstanding—when it is defined by particularizing into apre-given object with a content that it ignores—to itsdialectical moment—when it is also defined by the previouslyignored content. We can picture the speculative moment of FinitePurpose this way:

Figure 7

Finite Purpose’s speculative moment leads to Realized Purpose.As soon as Finite Purpose presents all the content, there is a returnprocess (a series of return arrows) that establishes each layer andredefines Finite Purpose as Realized Purpose. The presence of“this lettuce here” establishes the actuality of“lettuce” as a type of thing (an Actuality is a conceptthat captures a mutually-defining relationship between an Inner and anOuter [EL §142]), which establishes the “salad”,which establishes “dinner” as the Realized Purpose overthe whole process. We can picture Realized Purpose this way:

Figure 8

If Hegel’s account of dialectics is a general description of thelife of each concept or form, then any section can include as many oras few stages as the development requires. Instead of trying tosqueeze the stages into a triadic form (cf. Solomon 1983: 22)—atechnique Hegel himself rejects (PhG §50; cf.section 3)—we can see the process as driven by each determination on its ownaccount: what it succeeds in grasping (which allows it to be stable,for a moment of understanding), what it fails to grasp or capture (inits dialectical moment), and how it leads (in its speculative moment)to a new concept or form that tries to correct for the one-sidednessof the moment of understanding. This sort of process might reveal akind of argument that, as Hegel had promised, might produce acomprehensive and exhaustive exploration of every concept, form ordetermination in each subject matter, as well as raise dialecticsabove a haphazard analysis of various philosophical views to the levelof a genuine science.

3. Why does Hegel use dialectics?

We can begin to see why Hegel was motivated to use a dialecticalmethod by examining the project he set for himself, particularly inrelation to the work of David Hume and Immanuel Kant (see entries onHume andKant). Hume had argued against what we can think of as the naïve viewof how we come to have scientific knowledge. According to thenaïve view, we gain knowledge of the world by using our senses topull the world into our heads, so to speak. Although we may have touse careful observations and do experiments, our knowledge of theworld is basically a mirror or copy of what the world is like. Humeargued, however, that naïve science’s claim that ourknowledge corresponds to or copies what the world is like does notwork. Take the scientific concept of cause, for instance. According tothat concept of cause, to say that one event causes another is to saythat there is a necessary connection between the first event (thecause) and the second event (the effect), such that, when the firstevent happens, the second event must also happen. According tonaïve science, when we claim (or know) that some eventcauses some other event, our claim mirrors or copies what theworld is like. It follows that the necessary, causal connectionbetween the two events must itself be out there in the world. However,Hume argued, we never observe any such necessary causal connection inour experience of the world, nor can we infer that one exists based onour reasoning (see Hume’sA Treatise of Human Nature,Book I, Part III, Section II;Enquiry Concerning HumanUnderstanding, Section VII, Part I). There is nothing in theworld itself that our idea of cause mirrors or copies.

Kant thought Hume’s argument led to an unacceptable, skepticalconclusion, and he rejected Hume’s own solution to theskepticism (see Kant’sCritique of Pure Reason, B5,B19–20). Hume suggested that our idea of causal necessity isgrounded merely in custom or habit, since it is generated by our ownimaginations after repeated observations of one sort of eventfollowing another sort of event (see Hume’sA Treatise ofHuman Nature, Book I, Section VI; Hegel also rejectedHume’s solution, see EL §39). For Kant, science andknowledge should be grounded in reason, and he proposed a solutionthat aimed to reestablish the connection between reason and knowledgethat was broken by Hume’s skeptical argument. Kant’ssolution involved proposing a Copernican revolution in philosophy(Critique of Pure Reason, Bxvi). Nicholas Copernicus was thePolish astronomer who said that the earth revolves around the sun,rather than the other way around. Kant proposed a similar solution toHume’s skepticism. Naïve science assumes that our knowledgerevolves around what the world is like, but, Hume’s criticismargued, this view entails that we cannot then have knowledge ofscientific causes through reason. We can reestablish a connectionbetween reason and knowledge, however, Kant suggested, if wesay—not that knowledge revolves around what the world islike—but that knowledge revolves around whatwe arelike. For the purposes of our knowledge, Kant said, we do notrevolve around the world—the world revolves around us. Becausewe are rational creatures, we share a cognitive structure with oneanother that regularizes our experiences of the world. Thisintersubjectively shared structure of rationality—and not theworld itself—grounds our knowledge.

However, Kant’s solution to Hume’s skepticism led to askeptical conclusion of its own that Hegel rejected. While theintersubjectively shared structure of our reason might allow us tohave knowledge of the world from our perspective, so to speak, wecannot get outside of our mental, rational structures to see what theworld might be like in itself. As Kant had to admit, according to histheory, there is still a world in itself or“Thing-in-itself” (Ding an sich) about which wecan know nothing (see, e.g.,Critique of Pure Reason,Bxxv–xxvi). Hegel rejected Kant’s skeptical conclusionthat we can know nothing about the world- or Thing-in-itself, and heintended his own philosophy to be a response to this view (see, e.g.,EL §44 and the Remark to §44).

How did Hegel respond to Kant’s skepticism—especiallysince Hegel accepted Kant’s Copernican revolution, orKant’s claim that we have knowledge of the world because of whatwe are like, because of our reason? How, for Hegel, can we get out ofour heads to see the world as it is in itself? Hegel’s answer isvery close to the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle’s responseto Plato. Plato argued that we have knowledge of the world onlythrough the Forms. The Forms are perfectly universal, rationalconcepts or ideas. Because the world is imperfect, however, Platoexiled the Forms to their own realm. Although things in the world gettheir definitions by participating in the Forms, those things are, atbest, imperfect copies of the universal Forms (see, e.g.,Parmenides 131–135a). The Forms are therefore not inthis world, but in a separate realm of their own. Aristotle argued,however, that the world is knowable not because things in the worldare imperfect copies of the Forms, but because the Forms are in thingsthemselves as the defining essences of those things (see, e.g.,DeAnima [On the Soul], Book I, Chapter 1[403a26–403b18];Metaphysics, Book VII, Chapter 6[1031b6–1032a5] and Chapter 8 [1033b20–1034a8]).

In a similar way, Hegel’s answer to Kant is that we can get outof our heads to see what the world is like in itself—and hencecan have knowledge of the world in itself—because the very samerationality or reason that is in our heads isin the worlditself. As Hegel apparently put it in a lecture, the oppositionor antithesis between the subjective and objective disappears bysaying, as the Ancients did,

thatnous governs the world, or by our own saying that thereis reason in the world, by which we mean that reason is the soul ofthe world, inhabits it, and is immanent in it, as it own, innermostnature, its universal. (EL-GSH Addition 1 to §24)

Hegel used an example familiar from Aristotle’s work toillustrate this view:

“to be an animal”, the kind considered as the universal,pertains to the determinate animal and constitutes its determinateessentiality. If we were to deprive a dog of its animality we couldnot say what it is. (EL-GSH Addition 1 to §24; cf. SL-dG16–17, SL-M 36-37)

Kant’s mistake, then, was that he regarded reason or rationalityas only in our heads, Hegel suggests (EL §§43–44),rather than in both us and the world itself (see also below in thissection andsection 4). We can use our reason to have knowledge of the world because the verysame reason that is in us, is in the world itself as it own definingprinciple. The rationality or reason in the world makes realityunderstandable, and that is why we can have knowledge of, or canunderstand, reality with our rationality. Dialectics—which isHegel’s account of reason—characterizes not only logic,but also “everything true in general” (EL Remark to§79).

But why does Hegel come to define reason in terms of dialectics, andhence adopt a dialectical method? We can begin to see what drove Hegelto adopt a dialectical method by returning once again to Plato’sphilosophy. Plato argued that we can have knowledge of the world onlyby grasping the Forms, which are perfectly universal, rationalconcepts or ideas. Because things in the world are so imperfect,however, Plato concluded that the Forms are not in this world, but ina realm of their own. After all, if a human being were perfectlybeautiful, for instance, then he or she would never becomenot-beautiful. But human beings change, get old, and die, and so canbe, at best, imperfect copies of the Form of beauty—though theyget whatever beauty they have by participating in that Form. Moreover,for Plato, things in the world are such imperfect copies that wecannot gain knowledge of the Forms by studying things in the world,but only through reason, that is, only by using our rationality toaccess the separate realm of the Forms (as Plato argued in thewell-known parable of the cave;Republic, Book 7,514–516b).

Notice, however, that Plato’s conclusion that the Forms cannotbe in this world and so must be exiled to a separate realm rests ontwo claims. First, it rests on the claim that the world is animperfect and messy place—a claim that is hard to deny. But italso rests on the assumption that the Forms—the universal,rational concepts or ideas of reason itself—are static andfixed, and so cannot grasp the messiness within the imperfect world.Hegel is able to link reason back to our messy world by changing thedefinition of reason. Instead of saying that reason consists of staticuniversals, concepts or ideas, Hegel says that the universal conceptsor forms are themselvesmessy. Against Plato, Hegel’sdialectical method allows him to argue that universal concepts can“overgrasp” (from the German verbübergreifen) the messy, dialectical nature of the worldbecause they, themselves, aredialectical. Moreover, becauselater concepts build on or sublate (cancel, but also preserve) earlierconcepts, the later, more universal concepts grasp the dialecticalprocesses of earlier concepts. As a result, higher-level concepts cangrasp not only the dialectical nature of earlier concepts or forms,but also the dialectical processes that make the world itself a messyplace. The highest definition of the concept of beauty, for instance,would not take beauty to be fixed and static, but would include withinit the dialectical nature or finiteness of beauty, the idea thatbeauty becomes, on its own account, not-beauty. This dialecticalunderstanding of the concept of beauty can then overgrasp thedialectical and finite nature of beauty in the world, and hence thetruth that, in the world, beautiful things themselves becomenot-beautiful, or might be beautiful in one respect and not another.Similarly, the highest determination of the concept of“tree” will include within its definition the dialecticalprocess of development and change from seed to sapling to tree. AsHegel says, dialectics is “the principle of all natural andspiritual life” (SL-M 56; SL-dG 35), or “the moving soulof scientific progression” (EL §81). Dialectics is whatdrives the development of both reason as well as of things in theworld. A dialectical reason can overgrasp a dialectical world.

Two further journeys into the history of philosophy will help to showwhy Hegel chose dialectics as his method of argument. As we saw, Hegelargues against Kant’s skepticism by suggesting that reason isnot only in our heads, but in the world itself. To show that reason isin the world itself, however, Hegel has to show that reason can bewhat it is without us human beings to help it. He has to show thatreason can develop on its own, and does not need us to do thedeveloping for it (at least for those things in the world that are nothuman-created). As we saw (cf.section 1), central to Hegel’s dialectics is the idea that concepts orforms develop on their own because they “self-sublate”, orsublate (cancel and preserve)themselves, and so pass intosubsequent concepts or forms on their own accounts, because of theirown, dialectical natures. Thus reason, as it were, drives itself, andhence does not need our heads to develop it. Hegel needs an account ofself-driving reason to get beyond Kant’s skepticism.

Ironically, Hegel derives the basic outlines of his account ofself-driving reason from Kant. Kant divided human rationality into twofaculties: the faculty of the understanding and the faculty of reason.The understanding uses concepts to organize and regularize ourexperiences of the world. Reason’s job is to coordinate theconcepts and categories of the understanding by developing acompletely unified, conceptual system, and it does this work, Kantthought, on its own, independently of how those concepts might applyto the world. Reason coordinates the concepts of the understanding byfollowing out necessary chains of syllogisms to produce concepts thatachieve higher and higher levels of conceptual unity. Indeed, thisprocess will lead reason to produce its own transcendental ideas, orconcepts that go beyond the world of experience. Kant calls thisnecessary, concept-creating reason “speculative” reason(cf.Critique of Pure Reason, Bxx–xxi, A327/B384).Reason creates its own concepts or ideas—it“speculates”—by generating new and increasinglycomprehensive concepts of its own, independently of the understanding.In the end, Kant thought, reason will follow out such chains ofsyllogisms until it develops completely comprehensive or unconditioneduniversals—universals that contain all of the conditions or allof the less-comprehensive concepts that help to define them. As we saw(cf.section 1), Hegel’s dialectics adopts Kant’s notion of a self-drivingand concept-creating “speculative” reason, as well asKant’s idea that reason aims toward unconditioned universalityor absolute concepts.

Ultimately, Kant thought, reasons’ necessary, self-drivingactivity will lead it to produce contradictions—what he calledthe “antinomies”, which consist of a thesis andantithesis. Once reason has generated the unconditioned concept of thewhole world, for instance, Kant argued, it can look at the world intwo, contradictory ways. In the first antinomy, reason can see theworld (1) as the whole totality or as the unconditioned, or (2) as theseries of syllogisms that led up to that totality. If reason sees theworld as the unconditioned or as a complete whole that is notconditioned by anything else, then it will see the world as having abeginning and end in terms of space and time, and so will conclude(the thesis) that the world has a beginning and end or limit. But ifreason sees the world as the series, in which each member of theseries is conditioned by the previous member, then the world willappear to be without a beginning and infinite, and reason willconclude (the antithesis) that the world does not have a limit interms of space and time (cf.Critique of Pure Reason,A417–18/B445–6). Reason thus leads to a contradiction: itholds both that the world has a limit and that it does not have alimit at the same time. Because reason’s own process ofself-development will lead it to develop contradictions or to bedialectical in this way, Kant thought that reason must be kept incheck by the understanding. Any conclusions that reason draws that donot fall within the purview of the understanding cannot be applied tothe world of experience, Kant said, and so cannot be consideredgenuine knowledge (Critique of Pure Reason, A506/B534).

Hegel adopts Kant’s dialectical conception of reason, but heliberates reason for knowledge from the tyranny of the understanding.Kant was right that reason speculatively generates concepts on itsown, and that this speculative process is driven by necessity andleads to concepts of increasing universality or comprehensiveness.Kant was even right to suggest—as he had shown in the discussionof the antinomies—that reason is dialectical, or necessarilyproduces contradictions on its own. Again, Kant’s mistake wasthat he fell short of saying that these contradictions are in theworld itself. He failed to apply the insights of his discussion of theantinomies to “things in themselves” (SL-M 56;SL-dG 35; see alsosection 4). Indeed, Kant’s own argument proves that the dialectical natureof reason can be applied to things themselves. The fact that reasondevelops those contradictionson its own, without our heads tohelp it, shows that those contradictions are not just in ourheads, but are objective, or in the world itself. Kant, however,failed to draw this conclusion, and continued to regard reason’sconclusions as illusions. Still, Kant’s philosophy vindicatedthe general idea that the contradictions he took to be illusions areboth objective—or out there in the world—and necessary. AsHegel puts it, Kant vindicates the general idea of “theobjectivity of the illusion and thenecessity of thecontradiction which belongs to the nature of thoughtdeterminations” (SL-M 56; cf. SL-dG 35), or to the nature ofconcepts themselves.

The work of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (see entry onFichte) showed Hegel how dialectics can get beyond Kant—beyond thecontradictions that, as Kant had shown, reason (necessarily) developson its own, beyond thereductio ad absurdum argument (which,as we saw above, holds that a contradiction leads to nothingness), andbeyond Kant’s skepticism, or Kant’s claim thatreason’s contradictions must be reined in by the understandingand cannot count as knowledge. Fichte argued that the task ofdiscovering the foundation of all human knowledge leads to acontradiction or opposition between the self and the not-self (it isnot important, for our purposes, why Fichte held this view). The kindof reasoning that leads to this contradiction, Fichte said, is theanalytical or antithetical method of reasoning, which involves drawingout an opposition between elements (in this case, the self andnot-self) that are being compared to, or equated with, one another.While the traditionalreductio ad absurdum argument wouldlead us to reject both sides of the contradiction and start fromscratch, Fichte argued that the contradiction or opposition betweenthe self and not-self can be resolved. In particular, thecontradiction is resolved by positing a third concept—theconcept of divisibility—which unites the two sides (TheScience of Knowledge, I: 110–11; Fichte 1982:108–110). The concept of divisibility is produced by a syntheticprocedure of reasoning, which involves “discovering in oppositesthe respect in which they arealike” (The Scienceof Knowledge, I: 112–13; Fichte 1982: 111). Indeed, Fichteargued, not only is the move to resolve contradictions with syntheticconcepts or judgments possible, it isnecessary. As he saysof the move from the contradiction between self and not-self to thesynthetic concept of divisibility,

there can be no further question as to the possibility of this[synthesis], nor can any ground for it be given; it is absolutelypossible, and we are entitled to it without further grounds of anykind. (The Science of Knowledge, I: 114; Fichte 1982: 112)

Since the analytical method leads to oppositions or contradictions, heargued, if we use only analytic judgments, “we not only do notget very far, asKant says; we do not get anywhere atall” (The Science of Knowledge, I: 113; Fichte 1982:112). Without the synthetic concepts or judgments, we are left, as theclassicreductio ad absurdum argument suggests, with nothingat all. The synthetic concepts or judgments are thus necessary to getbeyond contradiction without leaving us with nothing.

Fichte’s account of the synthetic method provides Hegel with thekey to moving beyond Kant. Fichte suggested that a synthetic conceptthat unifies the results of a dialectically-generated contradictiondoes not completely cancel the contradictory sides, but only limitsthem. As he said, in general, “[t]olimit something isto abolish its reality, notwholly, but inpartonly” (The Science of Knowledge, I: 108; Fichte 1982:108). Instead of concluding, as areductio ad absurdumrequires, that the two sides of a contradiction must be dismissedaltogether, the synthetic concept or judgment retroactively justifiesthe opposing sides by demonstrating their limit, by showing which partof reality they attach to and which they do not (The Science ofKnowledge, I: 108–10; Fichte 1982: 108–9), or bydetermining in what respect and to what degree they are each true. ForHegel, as we saw (cf.section 1), later concepts and forms sublate—both cancel andpreserve—earlier concepts and forms in the sense thatthey include earlier concepts and forms in their own definitions. Fromthe point of view of the later concepts or forms, the earlier onesstill have some validity, that is, they have a limited validity ortruth defined by the higher-level concept or form.

Dialectically generated contradictions are therefore not a defect tobe reigned in by the understanding, as Kant had said, but invitationsfor reason to “speculate”, that is, for reason to generateprecisely the sort of increasingly comprehensive and universalconcepts and forms that Kant had said reason aims to develop.Ultimately, Hegel thought, as we saw (cf.section 1), the dialectical process leads to a completely unconditioned conceptor form for each subject matter—the Absolute Idea (logic),Absolute Spirit (phenomenology), Absolute Idea of right and law(Philosophy of Right), and so on—which, taken together,form the “circle of circles” (EL §15) thatconstitutes the whole philosophical system or “Idea” (EL§15) that both overgrasps the world andmakes itunderstandable (for us).

Note that, while Hegel was clearly influenced by Fichte’s work,he never adopted Fichte’s triadic“thesis—antithesis—synthesis” language in hisdescriptions of his own philosophy (Mueller 1958: 411–2; Solomon1983: 23), though he did apparently use it in his lectures to describeKant’s philosophy (LHP III: 477). Indeed, Hegel criticizedformalistic uses of the method of “triplicity[Triplizität]” (PhG-P §50) inspired by Kant—acriticism that could well have been aimed at Fichte. Hegel argued thatKantian-inspired uses of triadic form had been reduced to “alifeless schema” and “an actual semblance[eigentlichen Scheinen]” (PhG §50; alternativetranslation) that, like a formula in mathematics, was simply imposedon top of subject matters. Instead, a properly scientific use ofKant’s “triplicity” should flow—as he said hisown dialectical method did (seesection 1)—out of “the inner life and self-movement” (PhG §51) ofthe content.

4. Is Hegel’s dialectical method logical?

Scholars have often questioned whether Hegel’s dialecticalmethod is logical. Some of their skepticism grows out of the role thatcontradiction plays in his thought and argument. While many of theoppositions embedded in the dialectical development and thedefinitions of concepts or forms are not contradictions in the strictsense, as we saw (section 2, above), scholars such as Graham Priest have suggested that some ofthem arguably are (Priest 1989: 391). Hegel even holds, against Kant(cf.section 3 above), that there are contradictions, not only in thought, but alsoin the world. Motion, for instance, Hegel says, is an“existent contradiction”. As he describes it:

Something moves, not because now it is here and there at another now,but because in one and the same now it is here and not here, becausein this here, it is and is not at the same time. (SL-dG 382; cf. SL-M440)

Kant’s sorts of antinomies (cf.section 3 above) or contradictions more generally are therefore, as Hegel putsit in one place, “inall objects of all kinds, inall representations, concepts and ideas” (EL-GSH Remarkto §48). Hegel thus seems to reject, as he himself explicitlyclaims (SL-M 439–40; SL-dG 381–82), the law ofnon-contradiction, which is a fundamental principle of formallogic—the classical, Aristotelian logic (see entries onAristotle’s Logic andContradiction) that dominated during Hegel’s lifetime as well as the dominantsystems of symbolic logic today (cf. Priest 1989: 391; Düsing2010: 97–103). According to the law of non-contradiction,something cannot be both true and false at the same time or, putanother way, “x” and “not-x” cannot both betrue at the same time.

Hegel’s apparent rejection of the law of non-contradiction hasled some interpreters to regard his dialectics as illogical, even“absurd” (Popper 1940: 420; 1962: 330; 2002: 443). Karl R.Popper, for instance, argued that accepting Hegel’s and otherdialecticians’ rejection of the law of non-contradiction as partof both a logical theory and a general theory of the world“would mean a complete breakdown of science” (Popper 1940:408; 1962: 317; 2002: 426). Since, according to today’s systemsof symbolic logic, he suggested, the truth of a contradiction leadslogically to any claim (any claim can logically be inferred from twocontradictory claims), if we allow contradictory claims to be valid ortrue together, then we would have no reason to rule out any claimwhatsoever (Popper 1940: 408–410; 1962: 317–319; 2002:426–429).

Popper was notoriously hostile toward Hegel’s work (cf. Popper2013: 242–289; for a scathing criticism of Popper’sanalysis see Kaufmann 1976 [1972]), but, as Priest has noted (Priest1989: 389–91), even some sympathetic interpreters have beeninspired by today’s dominant systems of symbolic logic to holdthat the kind of contradiction that is embedded in Hegel’sdialectics cannot be genuine contradiction in the strict sense. WhileDieter Wandschneider, for instance, grants that his sympathetic theoryof dialectic “is not presented as a faithful interpretation ofthe Hegelian text” (Wandschneider 2010: 32), he uses the samelogical argument that Popper offered in defense of the claim that“dialectical contradiction is not a ‘normal’contradiction, but one that is actually only anapparentcontradiction” (Wandschneider 2010: 37). The suggestion (by thetraditional, triadic account of Hegel’s dialectics, cf.section 2, above) that Being and Nothing (or non-being) is a contradiction, forinstance, he says, rests on an ambiguity. Being is an undefinedcontent, taken to mean being or presence, while Nothing is anundefined content, taken to mean nothing or absence (section 2, above; cf. Wandschneider 2010: 34–35). Beingis Nothing(or non-being) with respect to theproperty they have asconcepts, namely, that they both have an undefined content. But Beingis not Nothing (or non-being) with respect to theirmeaning (Wandschneider 2010: 34–38). The supposedcontradiction between them, then, Wandschneider suggests, takes place“indifferent respects”. It is therefore only anapparent contradiction. “Rightly understood”, heconcludes, “there can be no talk ofcontradiction”(Wandschneider 2010: 38).

Inoue Kazumi also argues that dialectical contradiction in theHegelian sense does not violate the law of non-contradiction (Inoue2014: 121–123), and he rejects Popper’s claim thatHegel’s dialectical method is incompatible with good science. Adialectical contradiction, Inoue says, is a contradiction that ariseswhen the same topic is considered from different vantage points, buteach vantage point by itself does not violate the law ofnon-contradiction (Inoue 2014: 120). The understanding leads tocontradictions, as Hegel said (cf.section 3 above), because it examines a topic from a fixed point of view;reason embraces contradictions because it examines a topic frommultiple points of view (Inoue 2014: 121). The geocentric theory thatthe sun revolves around the Earth and the heliocentric theory that theEarth revolves around the sun, for instance, Inoue suggests, are bothcorrect from certain points of view. We live our everyday lives from avantage point in which the sun makes a periodic rotation around theEarth roughly every 24 hours. Astronomers make their observations froma geocentric point of view and then translate those observations intoa heliocentric one. From these points of view, the geocentric accountis not incorrect. But physics, particularly in its concepts of massand force, requires the heliocentric account. For science—whichtakes all these points of view into consideration—both theoriesare valid: they are dialectically contradictory, though neithertheory, by itself, violates the law of non-contradiction (Inoue 2014:126–127). To insist that the Earthreally revolves aroundthe sun is merely an irrational, reductive prejudice, theoreticallyand practically (Inoue 2014: 126). Dialectical contradictions, Inouesays, are, as Hegel said, constructive: they lead to concepts orpoints of view that grasp the world from ever wider and moreencompassing perspectives, culminating ultimately in the“Absolute” (Inoue 2014: 121; cf.section 1, above). Hegel’s claim that motion violates the law ofnon-contradiction, Inoue suggests, is an expression of the idea thatcontradictory claims can be true when motion is described from morethan one point of view (Inoue 2014: 123). (For a similar reading ofHegel’s conception of dialectical contradiction, whichinfluenced Inoue’s account [Inoue 2014: 121], see Düsing2010: 102–103.)

Other interpreters, however, have been inspired by Hegel’sdialectics to develop alternative systems of logic that do notsubscribe to the law of non-contradiction. Priest, for instance, hasdefended Hegel’s rejection of the law of non-contradiction (cf.Priest 1989; 1997 [2006: 4]). The acceptance ofsomecontradictions, he has suggested, does not require the acceptance ofall contradictions (Priest 1989: 392). Popper’s logicalargument is also unconvincing. Contradictions lead logically to anyclaim whatsoever, as Popper said, only if wepresuppose thatnothing can be both true and false at the same time (i.e. only if wepresuppose that the law of non-contradiction is correct), which isjust what Hegel denies. Popper’s logical argument thus assumeswhat it is supposed to prove or begs the question (Priest 1989: 392;1997 [2006: 5–6]), and so is not convincing. Moreover,consistency (not allowing contradictions), Priest suggests, isactually “a very weak constraint” (Priest 1997 [2006:104]) on what counts as a rational inference. Other principles orcriteria—such as being strongly disproved (or supported) by thedata—are more important for determining whether a claim orinference is rational (Priest 1997 [2006: 105]). And, as Hegel pointedout, Priest says, the data—namely, “the worldas itappears” (as Hegel puts it in EL) or “ordinaryexperience itself” (as Hegel puts it in SL)—suggest thatthere are indeed contradictions (EL Remark to §48; SL-dG 382; cf.SL-M 440; Priest 1989: 389, 399–400). Hegel is right, forinstance, Priest argues, that change, and motion in particular, areexamples of real or existing contradictions (Priest 1985; 1989:396–97; 1997 [2006: 172–181, 213–15]). Whatdistinguishes motion, as a process, from a situation in whichsomething is simply here at one time and then some other place at someother time is the embodiment of contradiction: that, in a process ofmotion, there is one (span of) time in which something is both hereand not here at the same time (in that span of time) (Priest 1985:340–341; 1997 [2006: 172–175, 213–214]). A system oflogic, Priest suggests, is always just atheory about what goodreasoning should be like (Priest 1989: 392). A dialectical logic thatadmits that there are “dialetheia” or true contradictions(Priest 1989: 388), he says, is a broader theory or version of logicthan traditional, formal logics that subscribe to the law ofnon-contradiction. Those traditional logics apply only to topics ordomains that are consistent, primarily domains that are “staticand changeless” (Priest 1989: 391; cf. 395);dialectical/dialetheic logic handles consistent domains, but alsoapplies to domains in which there are dialetheia. Thus Priest,extending Hegel’s own concept ofaufheben (“tosublate”; cf.section 1, above), suggests that traditional “formal logic is perfectlyvalid in its domain, but dialectical (dialetheic) logic is moregeneral” (Priest 1989: 395). (For an earlier example of alogical system that allows contradiction and was inspired in part byHegel [and Marx], see Jaśkowski 1999: 36 [1969: 143] [cf. Inoue2014: 128–129]. For more on dialetheic logic generally, see theentry onDialetheism.)

Worries that Hegel’s arguments fail to fit his account ofdialectics (seesection 2, above) have led some interpreters to conclude that his method isarbitrary or that his works have no single dialectical method at all(Findlay 1962: 93; Solomon 1983: 21). These interpreters reject theidea that there is anylogical necessity to the moves fromstage to stage. “[T]he important point to make here, and againand again”, Robert C. Solomon writes, for instance,

is that the transition from the first form to the second, or thetransition from the first form of thePhenomenology all theway to the last, is not in any way a deductive necessity. Theconnections are anything but entailments, and thePhenomenology couldalways take another route andother starting points. (Solomon 1983: 230)

In a footnote to this passage, Solomon adds “that aformalization of Hegel’s logic, however ingenious, isimpossible” (Solomon 1983: 230).

Some scholars have argued that Hegel’s necessity is not intendedto be logical necessity. Walter Kaufmann suggested, for instance, thatthe necessity at work in Hegel’s dialectic is a kind of organicnecessity. The moves in thePhenomenology, he said, followone another “in the way in which, to use a Hegelian image fromthe preface, bud, blossom and fruit succeed each other”(Kaufmann 1965: 148; 1966: 132). Findlay argued that later stagesprovide what he called a “higher-order comment”on earlier stages, even if later stages do not follow from earlierones in a trivial way (Findlay 1966: 367). Solomon suggested that thenecessity that Hegel wants is not “‘necessity’ inthe modern sense of ‘logical necessity,’” (Solomon1983: 209), but a kind of progression (Solomon 1983: 207), or a“necessity within a contextfor some purpose”(Solomon 1983: 209). John Burbidge defines Hegel’s necessity interms of three senses of the relationship between actuality andpossibility, only the last of which is logical necessity (Burbidge1981: 195–6).

Other scholars have defined the necessity of Hegel’s dialecticsin terms of a transcendental argument. A transcendental argumentbegins with uncontroversial facts of experience and tries to show thatother conditions must be present—or are necessary—forthose facts to be possible. Jon Stewart argues, for instance, that“Hegel’s dialectic in thePhenomenology is atranscendental account” in this sense, and thus has thenecessity of that form of argument (Stewart 2000: 23; cf. Taylor 1975:97, 226–7; for a critique of this view, see Pinkard 1988: 7,15).

Some scholars have avoided these debates by interpreting Hegel’sdialectics in a literary way. In his examination of theepistemological theory of thePhenomenology, for instance,Kenneth R. Westphal offers “a literary model” ofHegel’s dialectics based on the story of Sophocles’ playAntigone (Westphal 2003: 14, 16). Ermanno Bencivenga offersan interpretation that combines a narrative approach with a concept ofnecessity. For him, the necessity of Hegel’s dialectical logiccan be captured by the notion of telling a good story—where“good” implies that the story is both creative and correctat the same time (Bencivenga 2000: 43–65).

Debate over whether Hegel’s dialectical logic is logical mayalso be fueled in part by discomfort with his particular brand oflogic. Unlike today’s symbolic logics, Hegel’s logic isnot only syntactic, but also semantic (cf. Berto 2007; Maybee 2009:xx–xxv; Margolis 2010: 193–94). Hegel’s interest insemantics appears, for instance, in the very first stages of hislogic, where the difference between Being and Nothing is“something merelymeant” (EL-GSH Remark to§87; cf.section 2 above). While some of the moves from stage to stage are driven bysyntactic necessity, other moves are driven by themeaningsof the concepts in play. Indeed, Hegel rejected what he regarded asthe overly formalistic logics that dominated the field during his day(EL Remark to §162; SL-M 43–44; SL-dG 24). A logic thatdeals only with the forms of logical arguments and not the meanings ofthe concepts used in those argument forms will do no better in termsof preserving truth than the old joke about computer programssuggests: garbage in, garbage out. In those logics, if we (usingtoday’s versions of formal, symbolic logic) plug in somethingfor theP orQ (in the proposition “ifPthenQ” or “P →Q”, forinstance) or for the “F”, “G”,or “x” (in the proposition “ifF isx, thenG isx” or “Fx→Gx”, for instance) that means somethingtrue, then the syntax of formal logics will preserve that truth. Butif we plug in something for those terms that is untrue or meaningless(garbage in), then the syntax of formal logic will lead to an untrueor meaningless conclusion (garbage out). Today’s versions ofprepositional logic also assume that we know what the meaning of“is” is. Against these sorts of logics, Hegel wanted todevelop a logic that not only preserved truth, but also determined howto construct truthful claims in the first place. A logic that definesconcepts (semantics) as well as their relationships with one another(syntax) will show, Hegel thought, how concepts can be combined intomeaningful forms. Because interpreters are familiar with modern logicsfocused on syntax, however, they may regard Hegel’s syntacticand semantic logic as not really logical (cf. Maybee 2009:xvii–xxv).

In Hegel’s other works, the moves from stage to stage are oftendriven, not only by syntax and semantics—that is, by logic(given his account of logic)—but also by considerations thatgrow out of the relevant subject matter. In thePhenomenology, for instance, the moves are driven by syntax,semantics, and byphenomenological factors. Sometimes a movefrom one stage to the next is driven by asyntacticneed—the need to stop an endless, back-and-forth process, forinstance, or to take a new path after all the current options havebeen exhausted (cf.section 5). Sometimes, a move is driven by themeaning of a concept,such as the concept of a “This” or “Thing”.And sometimes a move is driven by aphenomenological need ornecessity—by requirements ofconsciousness, or by thefact that thePhenomenology is about aconsciousnessthat claims to be aware of (or to know) something. The logic of thePhenomenology is thus aphenomeno-logic, or a logicdriven by logic—syntax and semantics—and byphenomenological considerations. Still, interpreters such as QuentinLauer have suggested that, for Hegel,

phenomeno-logy is a logic of appearing, a logic of implication, likeany other logic, even though not of the formal entailment with whichlogicians and mathematicians are familiar. (Lauer 1976: 3)

Lauer warns us against dismissing the idea that there is anyimplication or necessity in Hegel’s method at all (Lauer 1976:3). (Other scholars who also believe there is a logical necessity tothe dialectics of thePhenomenology include Hyppolite 1974:78–9 and H.S. Harris 1997: xii.)

We should also be careful not to exaggerate the“necessity” of formal, symbolic logics. Even in theselogics, there can often be more than one path from some premises tothe same conclusion, logical operators can be dealt with in differentorders, and different sets of operations can be used to reach the sameconclusions. There is therefore often no strict, necessary“entailment” from one step to the next, even though theconclusion might be entailed by the whole series of steps, takentogether. As in today’s logics, then, whether Hegel’sdialectics counts as logical depends on the degree to which he showsthat we are forced—necessarily—from earlier stages orseries of stages to later stages (see alsosection 5).

5. Syntactic patterns and special terminology in Hegel’s dialectics

Although Hegel’s dialectics is driven by syntax, semantics andconsiderations specific to the different subject matters (section 4 above), several important syntactic patterns appear repeatedlythroughout his works. In many places, the dialectical process isdriven by a syntactic necessity that is really a kind of exhaustion:when the current strategy has been exhausted, the process is forced,necessarily, to employ a new strategy. As we saw (section 2), once the strategy of treating Being and Nothing as separate conceptsis exhausted, the dialectical process must, necessarily, adopt adifferent strategy, namely, one that takes the two concepts together.The concept of Becoming captures the first way in which Being andNothing are taken together. In the stages of Quantum through Number,the concepts of One and Many take turns defining the whole quantity aswell as the quantitative bits inside that make it up: first, the Oneis the whole, while the Many are the bits; then the whole and the bitsare all Ones; then the Many is the whole, while the bits are each aOne; and finally the whole and the bits are all a Many. We can picturethe development like this (cf. Maybee 2009, xviii–xix):

Figure 9

Since One and Many have been exhausted, the next stage, Ratio, must,necessarily, employ a different strategy to grasp the elements inplay. Just as Being-for-itself is a concept of universality forQuality and captures the character of a set of something-others in itscontent (seesection 1), so Ratio (the whole rectangle with rounded corners) is a concept ofuniversality for Quantity and captures the character of a set ofquantities in its content (EL §105–6; cf. Maybee 2009,xviii–xix, 95–7). In another version of syntacticnecessity driven by exhaustion, the dialectical development will takeaccount of every aspect or layer, so to speak, of a concept orform—as we saw in the stages of Purpose outlined above, forinstance (section 2). Once all the aspects or layers of a concept or form have been takenaccount of and so exhausted, the dialectical development must also,necessarily, employ a different strategy in the next stage to graspthe elements in play.

In a second, common syntactic pattern, the dialectical developmentleads to an endless, back-and-forth process—a “bad”(EL-BD §94) or “spurious” (EL-GSH §94)infinity—between two concepts or forms. Hegel’s dialecticscannot rest with spurious infinities. So long as the dialecticalprocess is passing endlessly back and forth between two elements, itis never finished, and the concept or form in play cannot bedetermined. Spurious infinities must therefore be resolved or stopped,and they are always resolved by a higher-level, more universalconcept. In some cases, a new, higher-level concept is introduced thatstops the spurious infinity by grasping the whole, back-and-forthprocess. Being-for-itself (cf.section 1), for instance, is introduced as a new, more universal concept thatembraces—and hence stops—the whole, back-and-forth processbetween “something-others”. However, if the back-and-forthprocess takes place between a concept and its own content—inwhich case the concept already embraces the content—then thatembracing concept is redefined in a new way that grasps the whole,back-and-forth process. The new definition raises the embracingconcept to a higher level of universality—as a totality (an“all”) or as a complete and completed concept. Examplesfrom logic include the redefinition of Appearance as the whole Worldof Appearance (EL §132; cf. SL-M 505–7, SL-dG 443–4),the move in which the endless, back-and-forth process of RealPossibility redefines the Condition as a totality (EL §147; cf.SL-M 547, SL-dG 483), and the move in which a back-and-forth processcreated by finite Cognition and finite Willing redefines theSubjective Idea as Absolute Idea (EL §§234–5; cf. SL-M822–3, SL-dG 733–4).

Some of the most famous terms in Hegel’s works—“initself [an sich]”, “for itself [fürsich]” and “in and for itself [an und fürsich]”—capture other, common, syntactic patterns. Aconcept or form is “in itself” when it has a determinationthat it gets by being definedagainst its “other”(cf. Being-in-itself, EL §91). A concept or form is “foritself” when it is defined only in relation to its own content,so that, while it is technically defined in relation to an“other”, the “other” is not really an“other” for it. As a result, it is really defined only inrelation to itself. Unlike an “in itself” concept or form,then, a “for itself” concept or form seems to have itsdefinition on its own, or does not need a genuine “other”to be defined (like other concepts or forms, however, “foritself” concepts or forms turn out to be dialectical too, andhence push on to new concepts or forms). In the logic,Being-for-itself (cf.section 1), which is defined by embracing the “something others” inits content, is the first, “for itself” concept orform.

A concept or form is “in and for itself” when it is doubly“for itself”, or “for itself” not only interms ofcontent—insofar as it embraces itscontent—but also in terms ofform or presentation,insofar as it also has the activity ofpresenting itscontent. It is “for itself” (embraces its content)foritself (through its own activity), or not only embraces itscontent (the “for itself” of content) but alsopresents its content through its own activity (the “foritself” of form). The second “for itself” of formprovides the concept with a logical activity (i.e., presenting itscontent) and hence a definition that goes beyond—and so isseparate from—the definition that its content has. Since it hasa definition of its own that is separate from the definition of itscontent, it comes to be defined—in the “in itself”sense—against its content, which has become its“other”. Because this “other” is still its owncontent, however, the concept or form is both “in itself”but also still “for itself” at the same time, or is“in and for itself” (EL §§148–9; cf.Maybee 2009: 244–6). The “in and for itself”relationship is the hallmark of a genuine Concept (EL §160), andcaptures the idea that a genuine concept is defined not only from thebottom up by its content, but also from the top down through its ownactivity of presenting its content. The genuine concept of animal, forinstance, is not only defined by embracing its content (namely, allanimals) from the bottom up, but also has a definition of its own,separate from that content, that leads it to determine (and sopresent), from the top down, what counts as an animal.

Other technical, syntactic terms includeaufheben (“tosublate”), which we already saw (section 1), and “abstract”. To say that a concept or form is“abstract” is to say that it is only a partial definition.Hegel describes the moment of understanding, for instance, as abstract(EL §§79, 80) because it is a one-sided or restricteddefinition or determination (section 1). Conversely, a concept or form is “concrete” in the mostbasic sense when it has a content or definition that it gets frombeing built out of other concepts or forms. As we saw (section 2), Hegel regarded Becoming as the first concrete concept in thelogic.

Although Hegel’s writing and his use of technical terms can makehis philosophy notoriously difficult, his work can also be veryrewarding. In spite of—or perhaps because of—thedifficulty, there are a surprising number of fresh ideas in his workthat have not yet been fully explored in philosophy.

Bibliography

English Translations of Key Texts by Hegel

• [EL],The Encyclopedia Logic [Enzyklopädie derphilosophischen Wissenschaften I]. Because the translations of ELlisted below use the same section numbers as well as sub-paragraphs(“Remarks”) and sub-sub-paragraphs(“Additions”), citations simply to “EL” referto either translation. If the phrasing in English is unique to aspecific translation, the translators’ initials are added.
• [EL-BD],Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in BasicOutline Part I: Science of Logic [Enzyklopädie derphilosophischen Wissenschaften I], translated by Klaus Brinkmannand Daniel O. Dahlstrom, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,2010.
• [EL-GSH],The Encyclopedia Logic: Part 1 of the Encyclopaediaof Philosophical Sciences [Enzyklopädie der philosophischenWissenschaften I], translated by T.F. Geraets, W.A. Suchting, andH.S. Harris, Indianapolis: Hackett, 1991.
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• [PhG],Phenomenology of Spirit [Phänomenologie desGeistes]. Because the translations of PhG listed below use thesame section numbers, citations simply to “PhG” refer toeither translation. If the phrasing in English is unique to a specifictranslation, the translator’s initial is added.
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• [PR],Elements of the Philosophy of Right [Philosophie desRechts], edited by Allen W. Wood and translated by H.B. Nisbet,Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
• [SL-dG],Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: The Science of Logic[Wissenschaft der Logik], translated by George di Giovanni, NewYork: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
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English Translations of Other Primary Sources

• Aristotle, 1954,The Complete Works of Aristotle: The RevisedOxford Translation (in two volumes), edited by Jonathan Barnes.Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Citations to Aristotle’stext use the Bekker numbers, which appear in the margins of manytranslations of Aristotle’s works.)
• Fichte, J.G., 1982 [1794/95],The Science of Knowledge,translated by Peter Heath and John Lachs, Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press. (Citations to Fichte’s work include referencesto the volume and page number in the German edition of Fichte’scollected works edited by I.H Fichte, which are used in the margins ofmany translations of Fichte’s works.)
• Kant, Immanuel, 1999 [1781],Critique of Pure Reason,translated and edited by Paul Guyer and Allen Wood. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press. (Citations to Kant’s text use the“Ak.” numbers, which appear in the margins of manytranslations of Kant’s works.)
• Plato, 1961,The Collected Dialogues of Plato: Including theLetters, edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns.Princeton: Princeton University Press. (Citations to Plato’stext use the Stephanus numbers, which appear in the margins of manytranslations of Plato’s works.)

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