hegel_dialectic_ch03_part1.mp3

Chapter 3: The Validity of the Dialectic

67. THE question now arises, whether the dialectic as sketched in the last two chapters, is a valid system of philosophy. The consideration of this question here must necessarily be extremely incomplete. Some seventy or eighty transitions from one category to another may be found in the Logic, and we should have to consider the correctness of each one of these, before we could pronounce the dialectic, in its present form at least, to be correct. For a chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and if a single transition is inconclusive, it must render all that comes beyond it uncertain. All we can do here is to consider whether the starting point and the general method of the dialectic are valid, without enquiring into its details. We shall have in the first place to justify the dialectical procedure – so different from that which the understanding uses in the affairs of every-day life. To do this we must show, first, that the ordinary use of the Understanding implies a demand for the complete explanation of the universe, and then that such an explanation cannot be given by the Understanding, and can be given by the Reason in its dialectical use, so that the Understanding itself postulates in this way the validity of dialectic thought. In the second place we must prove that the point from which the dialectic starts is one which it may legitimately take for granted, and that the nature of the advance and its relation to experience are such as will render the dialectic a valid theory of knowledge. In this connection the relation of the idea of Movement to the dialectic process must also be considered. And finally the question will arise whether we are justified in applying this theory of knowledge as also a theory of being, and in deducing the worlds of Nature and Spirit from the world of Logic.

68. It is to be noticed that both the first and second arguments are of a transcendental nature. We start respectively from the common thought of the Understanding, and from the idea of Being, and we endeavour to prove the validity of the speculative method and of the Absolute Idea, because they are assumed in, and postulated by, the propositions from which we started. Before going further, therefore, we ought to consider some general objections which have been made against transcendental arguments as such. They have been stated with great clearness by Mr Arthur Balfour in his Defence of Philosophic Doubt. “When a man,” he says, “is convinced by a transcendental argument, it must be . . . because he perceives that a certain relation or principle is necessary to constitute his admitted experience. This is to him a fact, the truth of which he is obliged to recognise. But another fact, which he may also find it hard to dispute, is that he himself, and, as it would appear, the majority of mankind, have habitually had this experience without ever thinking it under this relation; and this second fact is one which it does not seem easy to interpret in a manner which shall harmonise with the general theory. The transcendentalist would, no doubt, say at once that the relation in question had always been thought implicitly, even if it had not always come into clear consciousness; and having enunciated this dictum he would trouble himself no further about a matter which belonged merely to the ‘history of the individual.’ But if an implicit thought means in this connection what it means everywhere else, it is simply a thought which is logically bound up in some other thought, and which for that reason may always be called into existence by it. Now from this very definition, it is plain that so long as a thought is implicit it does not exist. It is a mere possibility, which may indeed at any moment become an actuality, and which, when once an actuality, may be indestructible; but which so long as it is a possibility can be said to have existence only by a figure of speech. “If, therefore, this meaning of the word ‘implicit’ be accepted, we find ourselves in a difficulty. Either an object can exist and be a reality to an intelligence which does not think of it under relations which, as I now see, are involved in it, i.e. without which I cannot now think of it as an object; or else I am in error, when I suppose myself and other people to have ignored these relations in past times.” The second of these alternatives, as Mr Balfour points out, cannot be adopted. It is certain that a large part of mankind have never embraced the transcendental philosophy, and that even those who accept it did not do so from their earliest childhood. It follows, he continues, that we must accept the first alternative, in which case the whole transcendental system “vanishes in smoke.”

69. The dilemma, however, as it seems to me, rests upon a confusion of the two different senses in which we may be said to be conscious of thought. We may be said, in the first place, to be conscious of it whenever we are conscious of a whole experience in which it is an element. In this sense we must be conscious of all thought which exists at all. We must agree with Mr Balfour that “if the consciousness vanishes, the thought must vanish too, since, except on some crude materialistic hypothesis, they are the same thing.” But in the second sense we are only conscious of a particular thought when we have singled it out from the mass of sensations and thoughts, into which experience may be analysed, when we have distinguished it from the other constituents of experience, and know it to be a thought, and know what thought it is. In this sense we may have thought without being conscious of it. And indeed we must always have it, before we can be conscious of it in this sense. For thought first comes before us as an element in the whole of experience, and it is not till we have analysed that whole, and separated thought from sensation, and one thought from another, that we know we have a particular thought. Till then we have the thought without being explicitly conscious that we have it. Now I submit that Mr Balfour’s argument depends on a paralogism. When he asserts that we must always be conscious of any relation which is necessary to constitute experience, he is using “to be conscious of” in the first sense. When he asserts that all people are not always conscious of all the ideas of the dialectic as necessary elements in experience, he is using “to be conscious of” in the second sense. And if we remove this ambiguity the difficulty vanishes. We are only conscious of thought as an element in experience. Of thought outside experience we could not be conscious in any sense of the word, for thought except as relating and mediating data cannot even be conceived. But thought of which we are not conscious at all is, as Mr Balfour remarks, a non- entity. And no thought does exist outside experience. Both thought and the immediate data which it mediates exist only as combined in the whole of experience, which is what comes first into consciousness. In this lie the various threads of thought and sensation, of which we may be said to be conscious, in so far as we are conscious of the whole of which they are indispensable elements. But we do not know how many, nor of what nature, the threads are, until we have analysed the whole in which they are first presented to us, nor, till then, do we clearly see that the whole is made up of separate elements. Even to know this involves some thinking about thought. There is no contradiction between declaring that certain relations must enter into all conscious thought, and admitting that those relations are known as such only to those who have endeavoured to divide the whole of experience into its constituent parts, and have succeeded in the attempt. The use of the word “implicit” to which Mr Balfour objects, can be explained in the same way. If it means only what he supposes, so that an implicit thought is nothing but one “which is logically bound up in some other thought, and which for that reason may always be called into existence by it” – then indeed to say that a thought is implicit is equivalent to saying that it does not exist. But if we use the word – and there seems no reason why we should not – in the sense suggested by its derivation, in which it means that which is wrapped up in something else, then it is clear that a thing may be implicit, and so not distinctly seen to be itself, while it nevertheless exists and is perceived as part of the whole in which it is involved.

70. In speaking of such an answer to his criticisms, Mr Balfour objects that it concedes more than transcendentalism can afford to allow. “If relations can exist otherwise than as they are thought, why should not sensations do the same? Why should not the ‘perpetual flux’ of unrelated objects – the metaphysical spectre which the modern transcendentalist la bours so hard to lay – why, I say, should this not have a real existence? We, indeed, cannot in our reflective moments think of it except under relations which give it a kind of unity; but once allow that an object may exist, but in such a manner as to make it nothing for us as thinking beings, and this incapacity may be simply due to the fact that thought is powerless to grasp the reality of things.” This, however, is not a fair statement of the position. The transcendentalist does not assert that an object can exist in such a manner as to be nothing for us as thinking beings, but only that it may exist, and be something for us as thinking beings, although we do not recognise the conditions on which its existence for us depends. Thus we are able to admit that thought exists even for those people who have never made the slightest reflection on its nature. And, in the same way, no doubt, we can be conscious of related sensations without seeing that they are related, for we may never have analysed experience as presented to us into its mutually dependent elements of sensation and thought. But it does not follow that sensations could exist unrelated. That would mean that something existed in consciousness (for sensations exist nowhere else), which not only is not perceived to comply with the laws of consciousness, but which actually does not comply with them. And this is quite a different proposition, and an impossible one.

71. Passing now to the peculiarities of the dialectic method, their justification must be one which will commend itself to the Understanding – that is to thought, when, as happens in ordinary life, it acts according to the laws of formal logic, and treats the various categories as stable and independent entities, which have no relation to one another, but that of exclusion. For if speculative thought, or Reason, cannot be justified before the Understanding, there will be an essential dualism in the nature of thought, incompatible with any satisfactory philosophy. And since mankind naturally, and until cause is shown to the contrary, takes up the position of the Understanding, it will be impossible that we can have any logical right to enter on the dialectic, unless we can justify it from that standpoint, from which we must set out when we first begin to investigate metaphysical questions. The first step towards this proof is the recognition that the Understanding necessarily demands an absolute and complete explanation of the universe. In dealing with this point, Hartmann identifies the longing for the Absolute, on which Hegel here relies, with the longing to “smuggle back” into our beliefs the God whom Kant had rejected from metaphysics. God, however, is an ideal whose reality may be demanded on the part either of theoretical or of practical reason. It is therefore not very easy to see whether Hartmann meant that the longing, as he calls it, after the Absolute, is indulged only in the interest of religion and ethics, or whether he admits that it is demanded, whether justifiably or not, by the nature of knowledge. The use of the term “longing,” (Sehnsucht), however, and the expressions “mystisch-religiöses Bedürfnis,” and “unverständliche Gefühle,” which he applies to it, seem rather to suggest the former alternative. In this case grave injustice is done to the Hegelian position. The philosopher does not believe in the Absolute merely because he desires it should exist. The postulate is not only an emotional or ethical one, nor is the Absolute itself by any means primarily a religious ideal, whatever it may subsequently become. If, for example, we take the definition given in the Smaller Logic, “der Begriff der Idee, dem die Idee als solche der Gegenstand, dem das Objekt sie ist,” it is manifest that what is here chiefly regarded is not a need of religion, but of cognition. Indeed the whole course of the Logic shows us that it is the desire for complete knowledge, and the impatience of knowledge which is seen to be unsatisfactory, which act as the motive power of the system. It is possible, no doubt, that Hegel’s object in devoting himself to philosophy at all was, as has often been the case with philosophers, mainly practical, and that his interest in the absolute was excited from the side of ethics and religion rather than of pure thought. But so long as he did not use this interest as an argument, it does not weaken his position. The ultimate aim which a philosopher has in his studies is irrelevant to our criticism of his results, if the latter are valid in themselves.

72. The need of the Absolute is thus a need of cognition. We must ask, then, whether the Understanding, in its attempts to solve particular problems, demands a complete explanation of the universe, and the attainment of the ideal of knowledge? This question must be answered in the affirmative. For although we start with particular problems, the answer to each of these will raise fresh questions, which must be solved before the original difficulty can be held to be really answered, and this process goes on indefinitely, till we find that the whole universe is involved in a complete answer to even the slightest question. As was pointed out above any explanation of anything by means of the surrounding circumstances, of an antecedent cause, or of its constituent parts, must necessarily raise fresh questions as to the surroundings of those surroundings, the causes of those causes, or the parts of those parts, and such series of questions, if once started, cannot stop until they reach the knowledge of the whole surrounding universe, of the whole of past time, or of the ultimate atoms, which it is impossible to subdivide further. In fact, to state the matter generally, any question which the Understanding puts to itself must be either, What is the meaning of the universe? or, What is the meaning of some part of the universe? The first is obviously only to be answered by attaining the absolute ideal of knowledge. The second again can only be answered by answering the first. For if a thing is part of a whole it must stand in some relation to the other parts. The other parts must therefore have some influence on it, and part of the explanation of its nature must lie in these other parts. From the mere fact that they are parts of the same universe, they must all be connected, directly or indirectly.

73. The Understanding, then, demands the ideal of knowledge, and postulates it whenever it asks a question. Can it, we must now enquire, attain, by its own exertions, to the ideal which it postulates? It has before it the same categories as the Reason, but it differs from the Reason in not seeing that the higher categories are the inevitable result of the lower, and in believing that the lower are stable and independent. “Thought, as Understanding, sticks to fixity of characters, and their distinctness from one another: every such limited abstract it treats as having a subsistence and being of its own.” It can use the higher categories, then, but it has no proof of their validity, which can only be demonstrated, as was explained in Chap. I., by showing that they are involved in the lower ones, and finally in the simplest of all. Nor does it see that an explanation by a higher category relieves us from the necessity of finding a consistent explanation by a lower one. For it does not know, as the Reason does, that the lower categories are abstractions from the higher, and are unfit to be used for the ultimate explanation of anything, except in so far as they are moments in a higher unity. It is this last defect which prevents the Understanding from ever attaining a complete explanation of the universe. There is, as we have said, nothing to prevent the Understanding from using the highest category, that of the Absolute Idea. It contains indeed a synthesis of contradictions, which the Understanding is bound to regard as a mark of error, but so does every category above Being and Not-Being, and the Understanding nevertheless uses these categories, not perceiving that they violate the law of contradiction, as conceived by formal logic. It might therefore use the Absolute Idea as a means of explaining the universe, if it happened to come across it (for the perception of the necessary development of that idea from the lower categories belongs only to the Reason) but it would not see that it summed up all other categories. And this would prevent the explanation from being completely satisfactory. For the only way in which contradictions caused by the use of the lower categories can be removed by the employment of the Absolute Idea lies in the synthesis, by the Absolute Idea, of those lower categories. They must be seen to be abstractions from it, to have truth only in so far as they are moments in it, and to have no right to claim existence or validity as independent. This can only be known by means of the Reason. For the Understanding each category is independent and ultimate. And therefore any contradictions in which the Understanding may be involved through the use of the lower categories can have no solution for the Understanding itself. Till we can rise above the lower categories, by seeing that they express only inadequate and imperfect points of view, the contradictions into which they lead us must remain to deface our system of knowledge. And for this deliverance we must wait for the Reason.

74. If the lower categories do produce contradictions, then, we can only extricate ourselves from our difficulty by aid of the Reason. But are such contradictions produced, in fact, when we treat those categories as ultimate and endeavour to completely explain anything by them? This question would be most fitly answered by pointing out the actual contradictions in each case, which is what Hegel undertakes throughout the Logic. To examine the correctness of his argument in each separate case would be beyond the scope of this work. We may however point out that this doctrine did not originate with Hegel. In the early Greek philosophy we have demonstrations of the contradictions inherent in the idea of Motion, and traces of a dialectic process are found by Hegel in Plato. Kant, also, has shown in his Antinomies that the attempt to use the lower categories as complete explanations of existence leads with equal necessity to directly contradictory conclusions. And we may say on general grounds that any category which involves an infinite regress must lead to contradictions. Such are, for example, the category of Force, which explains things as manifestations of a force, the nature of which must be determined by previous manifestations, and the category of Causality, which traces things to their causes, which causes again are effects and must have other causes found for them. Such an infinite regress can never be finished. And an unfinished regress, which we admit ought to be continued, explains nothing, while to impose an arbitrary limit on it is clearly unjustifiable. Again, all categories having no ground of self-differentiation in themselves may be pronounced to be in the long run unsatisfactory. For thought demands an explanation which shall unify the data to be explained, and these data are in themselves various. If the explanation, therefore, is to be complete, and not to leave something unaccounted for, it must show that there is a necessary connection between the unity of the principle and the plurality of the manifestation. Now many of the lower categories do involve an infinite regress, and are wanting in any principle of self-differentiation. They cannot, therefore, escape falling into contradictions, and as the Understanding cannot, as the Reason can, remove the difficulties by regarding these categories as sides of a higher truth in which the contradiction vanishes, the contradictions remain permanent, and prevent the Understanding from reaching that ideal of knowledge at which it aims.