1.1 Thinking

What does it mean to say that thinking (properly understood) is a dialectical movement? The dialectical method of thinking has to do with 1.1.2 contradictions and 1.1.2 negation.Footnote ³

1.2 Reality

What does it mean to say that reality is dialectically constituted? Hegel means this in (at least) two respects: that reality is full of contradictions and that these must undergo a dialectical movement. First, when we think about reality, we do so in contradictions. Second, reality is not static but a becoming in which opposites play an essential role.

In Section 1.1.1 on contradictions, I sometimes spoke in a way that left it unclear whether I was talking about reality or statements about it. Let’s assume that, so far, we have referred to statements: for example, I cannot simultaneously say that there is individual freedom and that there is general freedom. These statements are mutually exclusive or are in a relation of negation to each other. Since both are justified (according to Hegel), we must try to mediate between them. What about reality, then? Are there contradictions in reality?

Hegel seems to be saying this because he talks as if the contradictions are in real life. One can interpret this in different ways. First, this way of talking can be understood as being only metaphorical. Second, one can claim that Hegel talks like this because he wants to say that there are oppositions that must be expressed in thinking as contradictions. In this second sense, we can say that reality is contradictory – we mean by this that it is to be expressed in contradictions. Third, one can offer another theory of contradictions that justifies this talk of contradictions as being in reality. In what follows, I will argue for the second option: reality leads to contradictory statements about it. However, I also think Hegel has a new, special theory of contradictions (which might sometimes sound like the third option), and I think it is important to add that, for Hegel, reality is not independent of thinking. Because Hegel thinks that reality is structured essentially by thinking, it can also be said that the structure of thinking can be found in reality.Footnote ¹⁰

The most significant point about this option is that the contradictions here do not only concern concepts. This is clear from what I have said so far. I have said, for example, that one does not do justice to the concept of freedom if one does not think of the contradiction between individual freedoms. When we say something like that, we usually mean that things are that way: things are such that we have to think of them partly in terms of statements that contradict each other, and thus it is not just a matter of concepts.Footnote ¹¹ Otherwise, we could simply have a concept of freedom that contradicts itself and is therefore a useless concept that must be abandoned. For Hegel, however, this is not what is meant, for the concept of individual freedom cannot simply be abandoned. What needs to be clarified is how we resolve the contradictions that it causes in thinking.

For now, it is enough that we get a first hint as to why we can say that reality is dialectical: reality is a dynamic movement in which oppositions play a constitutive role that we can only grasp if we, in thinking, perform a movement in which, in a moment, we articulate the opposition as contradiction. This is what we do in dialectical thinking.

This is my first sketch of what dialectic is in Hegel. According to this sketch, dialectic is a movement of thought in which contradictory determinations are analysed in such a way that they are articulated clearly as contradictory and that it is recognised that they are to be taken into account. However, they can also be recognised as moments that together can form different moments of a more comprehensive movement. According to Hegel, one can also say more generally, and not only about thought, that dialectic is a movement of both thinking and reality in which contradictory elements are brought together in a development in which the changes of the elements are related to their standing in a relation of negation to each other. I will develop this sketch in the following sections.

2.1 Some Passages from the Logic

I will begin with the passage at the end of the ‘Logic of the Concept’ from Hegel’s Logic. It is about the method of logic (SL 741 [GW 12: 242]). The same is true of the passage in the introduction to the Logic that is the other important passage about dialectic in Hegel’s work (see later in this section). Therefore, it can surely be stated that, for Hegel, dialectic is most relevant for the method of thinking. As already indicated, I would go further and say that it can be identified with the scientific method of thinking because of its close connection and characteristics: Hegel’s ‘speculative’ and ‘scientific’ method can be called the ‘dialectical’ method. It should also be said that he considers this method the most adequate method of thinking and thinks it is the method of his Logic and his philosophy in general. Although I maintain the thesis that it is important to see that, for Hegel, dialectic is a method of thinking, I also think it is important to recognise that he does not consider it to be only applicable to thinking. Generally (and vaguely), I would say that, for Hegel, thinking is so deeply involved in what reality is that he would say the dialectical is never only an ‘external’ method we simply use to think reality.

The passage from the ‘Logic of the Concept’ contains (a) a brief historical excursus and (b) various explanations of what dialectic is. We find an explanation of key aspects such as opposition, negation, beginning, and form. In addition, Section 2.1.3 explains what dialectic means for philosophy as a system and a science.

2.2 A Prominent Passage from the Encyclopaedia

In one of the other most prominent passages that deal with the topic of dialectic, in the third edition of the Encyclopaedia (§§ 79–82),Footnote ²⁴ Hegel again speaks of dialectic as a moment of logic. At first read, it sounds here more as though dialectic is not the whole movement but only the second step of a three-step movement. Let us take a closer look at this.

Hegel writes: ‘In terms of form, the logical domain has three sides: (α) the abstract side or that of the understanding, (β) the dialectical or negatively rational side, (γ) the speculative or positively rational side’ (Enc. 125, § 79 [GW 20: 118]). Hegel talks of three moments of the logical. He does not identify these three moments with the three parts of the Logic. He explicitly notes: ‘These three sides do not constitute three parts of logic but are moments of every properly logical content [Momente jedes Logisch-Reellen], that is to say, of every concept or everything true in general’ (Enc. 125, § 79 [GW 20: 118]). What is meant is not the structure of the Logic as a book but the movement of logic or thought. Thus, the topic is the same as the one I discussed with respect to the Logic. But now it sounds (more explicitly) as though dialectic is only the second moment.

The claim here is that there is a dialectical moment of logical thinking, followed by a speculative moment that forms the third moment. We can think of two interpretative ideas here. One is that, for Hegel, dialectic is a part of a movement but not to be equated with the whole movement of logic or thought. A second is that we can distinguish two meanings of dialectic in Hegel: one in which we can describe the whole movement of thought (or other movements) as dialectical and a second in which a moment is singled out and described as dialectical. With this proposal, one would certainly not want to say that these are completely different meanings but rather assume a connection between them. In the narrower sense, the dialectical means the ‘passing through contradictions’; in the broader sense, it means the whole movement with contradictions, which, according to Hegel, should be the method of thinking.

The latter suggestion as to the two meanings seems to me to be appropriate. It can be supported by the fact that in other places – as in the passage from the Logic already discussed – Hegel stresses the unity of the movement of the different moments.

One can even explain the different meanings. For one can say that they arise because Hegel always adopts different points of view, and now also does so on the subject of dialectic. The dialectical movement can be analysed separately in three (or more) steps. But it can also be seen as a movement of merging and encompassing each other, which would then itself be the dialectical way of looking at it. In this sense, Hegel himself says, in the Encyclopaedia: ‘They can all be brought under the first moment, i.e. that of the understanding, and thus separated and kept apart, but in this way they are not considered in their truth’ (Enc. 125, § 79 [GW 20: 118]). This means that ‘in truth’ we have to regard the dialectical as a moment of a movement in which the negative and the positive cannot be separated.Footnote ²⁵ This also means, I think, that das Verständige is not to be confused with an activity of understanding, for the rational consists precisely in grasping the Verständige in the end only as a moment,Footnote ²⁶ and, in this grasping it as a moment, Hegel distinguishes what we attribute to reason from what we attribute to the understanding that treats things and concepts as fixed entities.Footnote ²⁷ In short, the dialectical movement contains a negative moment, which is also called dialectical but is integrated into a movement that, as a whole, is a thought with positive content.

One interesting aspect of this interpretative situation is that often, in the history of reception, Hegel is criticised precisely because of the idea that Hegel understands dialectic to be only a moment of a movement. This criticism is more difficult to understand if one maintains the thesis that the whole movement is dialectical, although it is not excluded by this understanding of dialectic. Kierkegaard, Marx, Adorno, Theunissen, and others assume, in one way or another, that, for Hegel, dialectic is only a moment, and that speculation puts an end to dialectic, so that it results in a unity that is no longer in motion. Their criticism of Hegel starts here.Footnote ²⁸ Many, like me, do not see the end of dialectic in speculation, following the idea that the whole movement is dialectical. In this case, the way Kierkegaard, Adorno, and others criticised Hegel is not as easy to understand as if dialectic were understood only as a moment. Since the history of reception will be dealt with later, I would like to concentrate here on the issues that are connected with these different readings. The objection that has often been raised in a line of reception that sympathised with Hegel’s idea of dialectic, and which Adorno already alludes to in his title Negative Dialektik,Footnote ²⁹ is that, in his conception of dialectic, Hegel overemphasises the moment that is introduced in the Logic and the Encyclopaedia as a ‘third’. The general objection is that, for Hegel, all differences are ultimately resolved by the universal, which does not do justice to the differences or somehow does violence to them. In my opinion, this objection can go in (at least) three directions.Footnote ³⁰

This criticism can be levelled at the fact that Hegel, in the third moment, sets up a universal that is too overarching. This is the criticism of Adorno and also (in a different way) of Theunissen. Marx, too, makes a criticism that could be formulated in this way.

This criticism can also be directed at how, in Hegel, this third is to be achieved as the restoration of a unity of something, which, in its contradictoriness, no longer seemed capable of unity. According to my interpretation – this has already been hinted at and will be discussed later – this unity and resolution of contradictions is possible in Hegel primarily because the mediation is of a spiritual character.Footnote ³¹ Marx and Engels opposed this spiritual kind of mediation in their critique of Hegel’s dialectic.

Furthermore, this criticism can also be levelled at the fact that, for Hegel, the process and its third moment are necessary, transparent, and comprehensible. In contrast, one can, like Kierkegaard, and to some extent Horkheimer and Adorno, but also Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, assume more contingency and opacity and criticise Hegel accordingly.

Let us return to the passage in the Encyclopaedia: Hegel says here that dialectic ‘ends’ in speculation. If Hegel really were to claim this, it would suggest that what some people like to accuse him of is correct: that he is concerned with the universal and wants to subordinate the individual or the particular to it. The universal can then be the conceptual, the state, freedom as the common good, or anything. The situation is complicated. The context of this passage can be cited against this reading, as I have done in this section so far. To reject this reading, one can also refer to the passages of the Logic that have already been interpreted. It then seems clear that the dialectical as a moment cannot be separated from the movement. Even then, however, it is not clear what thirdness and unity mean here – and this is what Hegel is talking about in these passages – and it is also a matter of interpretation how this unity comes about.

Therefore, the criticism can still be justified, even if one does not interpret the passage to mean that the ‘third’ or the unity is separated from the movement.

Concerning these forms of criticism, one must distinguish between the two questions: whether they rightly attribute something to Hegel or whether one should criticise Hegel for what they attribute to him. As far as the question is concerned of whether something is rightly attributed to Hegel, the first assumption in the first criticism (that Hegel sets up a universal as overarching) does not seem to me to be applicable, even though some formulations of Hegel may suggest it and even though it is also indeed interesting to discuss it. The other two assumptions, namely that mediation is primarily spiritual and that it is necessary and can be made transparent, seem to me to be roughly correct, even if not in the sense that Hegel wanted to detach this third from the movement. This is why spiritual and comprehensible mediation has nothing closed or static in my eyes. Nevertheless, I would say that, for Hegel, there is indeed a possibility of mediation, and it is spiritual and transparent. For example, for Hegel, the modern state, whose structure is understood by the people who live in it, can be a state that enables freedom. Even within it, there are still tensions between individual freedoms and between individual and general freedom, but there is then a rational structure in which these tensions are resolved. So, although I would say that dialectic does not come to an end in speculation, I would agree that Hegel construes dialectic in such a way that a spiritually mediated reconciliation of tensions is linked to the realisation of this dialectic. In my opinion, ‘reconciliation’ should be understood dialectically: it does not come about through causal necessity or fate. Only the free insight of the individual into the general can represent a solution in which the individual is mediated with the general. It is precisely for this reason that, for Hegel, reconciliation is the necessary result of dialectic and, above all, of insight into it. But I shall return to this character of ‘the third’ in Section 5.

Regarding all these points of criticism concerning the end of the dialectical movement, it seems reasonable to also take into account the difference within Hegel’s concept of dialectic that I have highlighted in this section so far. As I pointed out in my interpretation of Hegel’s Logic, Hegel himself seems to make a distinction between the dialectic that prevails in the system and that which concerns other developments. One could say that dialectic describes a movement. It seems to be a particularly interesting concept for the interpretation of a complex, comprehensible development. Processes, whether historical, intellectual, or psychological, can therefore be dialectical. Now, some processes also show a development, in the sense that they arrive at some kind of result. At least this seems to be the case for Hegel. Developing a complex concept – for example, freedom or recognition – leads to a concept as a result and therefore to an end.Footnote ³² Admittedly, one could say that this result should not be something fixed either, that for Hegel concepts are ‘dynamic’ and always imply some kind of movement – but, even if one says this, one would want to distinguish the movement of the (rich and convincing) concepts as a result from the movement through which one has arrived at the concept as a result. If one does this, one will probably also assume a different dialectic for them. This question of a difference within Hegel’s conception of dialectic also concerns (as does the question in Section 2.2 of what this third is supposed to be) the question of whether and to what extent Hegel sees dialectic as something that must in some sense be ‘left behind’. It also concerns the question of the opacity of a dialectical process. We need to consider what this means in more detail. It would be too hasty to say that, for Hegel, the dialectic is only opaque as long as it is not understood. The transitions are complex, and the more one engages in the process (emotionally, factually, culturally), the less one can recognise what is really happening. Moreover, the transitions are not causal, so they cannot be predicted even if we are aware of the dialectic of the movements. Therefore, a certain surprise remains even if we have insight into the dialectic. As we can see, we have to make a lot of restrictions here regarding what is really transparent. Nevertheless, it seems true that Hegel assumes that, at least in retrospect or from a distance, a logically satisfying comprehension of dialectical movements is possible. And that is certainly more than many in the nineteenth century (and later) would want to say.

Looking back on my interpretation of the passages in the Encyclopaedia, I would say in summary that Hegel can understand dialectic to mean the entire process of the movement of thought but that this does not clarify the question of how and to what extent he conceives of a final unity in the dialectical process. Regarding this question of the unity as the result (or the ‘end’ or the ‘third’) of dialectic, I have already made some distinctions and raised some questions that I will develop further in the following sections.

The point about the two meanings or kinds of dialectic within Hegel’s idea of dialectic has to be considered when looking at the passages presented in the following. They will deal with the movement carried out in the Phenomenology of Spirit – the experiences of consciousness. The question of whether this movement is overcome at the end of the writing – or even within the writing – arises here in particular, since the Phenomenology is supposed to be the introduction to the system.

2.3 Passages from the Phenomenology

In the preface, the introduction, and the first part of the Phenomenology of Spirit, we find the expression ‘dialectical movement’. In the preface – and one of the passages in the Logic – the expression is used in connection with considerations about how to represent dialectical thinking. It is said that ‘the dialectical movement’ must also use sentences (PhG 41 [GW 9: 46]). Dialectical movement here means something like speculative thinking, which (as was mentioned earlier) is a form of thinking that is a complex and somehow circular and repetitive movement. Leaving aside the question of what can be said about the appropriate form of representation – whether there is a special kind of sentence,Footnote ³³ or a special way of dealing with judgements and sentences – the idea seems related to that of the Logic as interpreted earlier: if thinking is essentially a mode of moving, we must express this accordingly in our modes of representation, paying particular attention to the question of the proper form and expression of thinking.

The passage in the introduction in which the expression ‘dialectical movement’ is found is about the method of the Phenomenology. It is about the possibility of examining positions on what knowledge is without presupposing an external standard for this examination. Hegel claims that the positions to be examined ‘themselves provide’ the standard, as the distinction between knowledge and truth is made within the position. Here, ‘knowledge’ is understood as the epistemic state of the subject’s beliefs, and ‘truth’ as what the object represents independently of the subject. Cognition must be the correspondence between knowledge and object. In this way, the position sets the standard: it must be possible to distinguish knowledge and truth by its means, although (in the case of cognition) they must coincide. Thus, according to the idea, the nature of knowledge and truth/object is not externally predetermined; instead, the examination focuses only on whether the resources are provided to consider them distinct and identical. As in the Logic, Hegel ascribes to dialectic an important function in justifying something, since the dialectical is an internal process.Footnote ³⁴ It is a movement in which it is possible to justify its own standard of cognition.

One surprising thing about these methodological considerations is that the object is not immutable in the subject’s relation to the object either. Hegel comments on this as follows: ‘However, in knowing’s alteration, the object itself is, to consciousness, also in fact altered.’ He adds shortly afterwards, ‘This dialectical movement which consciousness practices in its own self (as well as in its knowing and in its object), insofar as, for consciousness, the new, true object arises out of this movement, is properly what is called experience’ (PhG 57 [GW 9: 60]). These remarks align with the remark in the Logic that the dialectical consists in the fact that the second moment of movement is synthetic because, in it, the object shows itself as changed by consciousness.

In the following, there are some additional specifications of this movement, and overall one can say: the movement is characterised by the fact that it is a movement of two elements in a relation in which changes occur. These changes can be uncovered as necessary, and this necessity is related to the interdependence of the elements. However, this necessity and its reason are not obvious. They only become apparent when observing the relation from the outside, not when one is part of it oneself. When one is part of this relation and this process, the changes seem different: haphazard, and as if they happened independently of the other elements.

The necessity of change can also be specified as being that the various objects that function on the side of truth have their differences through the mediation of the subject and are each the result of a negation of the preceding object. This negation is special because it does not simply negate or reject the preceding object because it is inadequate. Rather, the preceding object proves to be inadequate in a certain way: a way that is compensated for by the new object. What is obviously being described here is the movement that constitutes the Phenomenology, or at least the beginning of the Phenomenology: While various epistemological positions seem to be irreconcilably opposed to each other in Hegel’s time, he believes that one can see a necessary development in them, as each responds to the deficits of the others. Tracing this movement should lead us to answer the question they all ask: what cognition actually is. The correct answer here would be the end of the movement of examining positions.

But what exactly makes this movement dialectical? Hegel does not explain this in the passage. Characteristics that are associated with dialectic seem to play a role: that something is a movement or a ‘becoming’, that the changes in this development are necessary, that relations of negation exist between the elements, and that the changes – if they are not regarded as a dialectical movement – contain surprises because they were not intended. According to the parallel passage in the Logic, this movement is called dialectical above all because the spiritual takes on a mediating role here. Regarding this passage from the Phenomenology, one could say that certain relations only become comprehensible if they are understood as a complex movement of their elements in which spiritual mediations are constitutive – and this is a dialectical movement. One would then say (although this is not stated in the text) that the relation of cognition between subject and object dealt with in the Phenomenology may be uncovered as a dialectical relation because it is a relation in which two elements must be claimed to be different and identical at the same time. To think this is (only) possible if subject and object are seen as being in a movement in which their differences are no longer regarded as substantial and in which complex mediations between them occur that are at least partly because they are related by thinking.

To understand dialectic, I would then say: a relation is dialectical if its elements are in a complex relation to each other whereby they must be understood as both identical and distinct. According to Hegel, this is only possible if one assumes a particular kind of movement or development of the relation in which spiritual mediation plays a role. This fits with what I have said about the Logic. In the Phenomenology, however, one could also assume that this process or its true principles are hidden, at least at first, or can only be revealed externally. This hiddenness often seems to be constitutive of dialectic.Footnote ³⁵ However, this form – as actually constitutive of dialectic – would contradict the Logic. Consequently, I suggest the following: there are two ways of being dialectical. One is a process of becoming transparent – a process in which the process itself becomes transparent, although it is not clear from the outset that this is also part of the project – the other is (only) a process of following the process retrospectively and comprehensively. In the latter case (which corresponds to the project of the Logic), the project and its implications are clear – at least in principle – from the beginning. I have made a similar distinction between two types of dialectic in the context of the Logic. Here, in the context of the Phenomenology, it sounds as if the difference between the two ways of being dialectical is primarily a difference in knowledge of what will happen in the movement. We need to come back to this and ask how we can describe this difference more precisely.

In the first part of the Phenomenology, Hegel speaks again of a ‘dialectical movement’. In one passage, the course of the Phenomenology is addressed (PhG 77 [GW 9: 79f.]). In another passage, at the beginning of the chapter on ‘Force and the Understanding’ (PhG 79 [GW 9: 82]), he says retrospectively, ‘In the dialectic of sensuous-certainty, hearing and seeing are bygones for consciousness, and, as perceiving, consciousness has arrived at thoughts.’ Here, it seems at first that the expression ‘dialectic’ is not strictly reserved for Hegel’s own method but is also used less specifically for the reversal of one opinion or position into another. However, there is a remark before this passage that fits with the passage in the Logic that states that we must find a correct way of dealing with contradictions and that this is the dialectical method. This is what it says at the end of the chapter on perception (PhG 79 [GW 9: 81]): ‘to push it [the understanding] to bring together the thoughts of these non-essences and thereby to sublate them. In contrast, the understanding strives to avoid this by basing its support on the Insofar.’ Based on this passage, we can say that at the beginning of the chapter on ‘Force and Understanding’, ‘dialectic’ means there are contradictions at work, and one opinion changes into the opposite opinion (all this is dialectical) but that these changes are not yet understood as dialectical. This means the expression ‘dialectic’ is not used non-specifically to refer to a reversal of opinions but has the strict Hegelian meaning. The passage only says that the strict dialectical movement looks at the moment for the ‘consciousness’, as if these changes were only accidental.Footnote ³⁶

Another passage in which the term ‘the dialectical’ is mentioned in the Phenomenology is in the context of scepticism (PhG 121 [GW 9: 119f.]).Footnote ³⁷ It says:

Firstly, it is interesting to note here that, according to Hegel, the sceptic adopts dialectic to actively argue for their scepticism. Here, one could again translate dialectic as a succession of contradictory (reasoned) opinions. The sceptic shows that contradictory – yet rational – things can be said. They want to show by this that no position or knowledge is justified. Secondly, it is interesting to note that, according to Hegel, dialectic thus becomes an increasingly conscious procedure in the dialectical process of the Phenomenology itself – the sceptic actively does what has previously merely happened to consciousness. In this way, the dialectical process of the Phenomenology also leads to a dialectical understanding of what we do in the Phenomenology – and thus of dialectic. Thirdly, this dialectical process is also clearly characterised here in such a way that one moment of its determination is that it is merely negative – this is why scepticism is a moment in the Phenomenology – but that this determination of dialectic is overcome in the course of the dialectical determination of dialectic. As in the Logic, here dialectic is a method that can function in procedures of justification, and it is particularly suitable in some contexts because it proceeds internally. It is an internal development in which the activity of thinking, on the one hand, and the necessity in the development process, on the other, play a decisive role. In this development, differences and identities are to be realised, and one of the particular theses is that this only succeeds if one works with contradictions and negations. Unlike in the Logic, the process is considered to be hidden. I have already said something about this in this section, but it bears repeating that the transparency of a dialectical process is probably always different from that of a calculable, predictable process. Nevertheless, the hiddenness of the principles of the process in the Phenomenology is of a different kind, at least initially. It is more of a change than a transition, so it is surprising and possibly painful. The kind of hiddenness found in the Phenomenology can be attributed to some processes, even though, as dialectical processes, they have an inherent tendency to become transparent to themselves in the process. Hiddenness is thus due to a lack of self-transparency. However, this is itself not only epistemically motivated but also, for example, psychologically motivated. In this context, we might think of Sartre’s ideas on self-deception as a contribution to the hiddenness of dialectic.Footnote ³⁸ Analyses of social processes that are supposed to represent a dialectical movement have become particularly influential.Footnote ³⁹ Here, Hegel’s dialectic seems to imply that the oppressed gain in the end epistemic superiority. This is surprising and thus another example of the hidden nature of dialectical processes. I will not go into detail here about how the thesis of epistemic asymmetry is supposed to arise. From my thesis on dialectic as a productive method for thinking through contradictions, one could say that both mutually exclusive parties (‘master’ and ‘slave’, for example) must represent perspectives that cannot be reduced to the other.

What is also striking in the Phenomenology in comparison with the Logic, and once again prompts questions, is the reference of the dialectical movement to a relation. Is a dialectical movement always a movement of elements of a relation for Hegel? It is clear that the Phenomenology aims to expose the relation in cognition as dialectical but is there always a relation in dialectic? The answer here seems evident but nonetheless remarkable: dialectical movements can be based on just one concept or several, but, since the aim is to somehow bring difference and unity into a proper relation, it must also be possible to express every concept as a relation (and every relation as only one concept). The concept of cognition dealt with in the Phenomenology consists in the relation between subject and object or (in other words) between concept and thing – which are paradigmatic dialectical relations. According to Hegel, to understand ‘cognition’, one must enter a dialectical movement and, for cognition, this movement must become self-transparent.

Regarding the Phenomenology, it is also clear that, while it says relatively little about dialectic directly, it also contributes to this subject through the fact that its procedure is considered to be dialectical. At the very beginning of the Phenomenology, we can see the meaning of an object showing itself as a determinate negation of the previous object. But it is precisely here that a particularly interesting question arises as to how this transition is paradigmatic for the dialectical movement as a whole.Footnote ⁴⁰ Hegel’s Phenomenology sometimes presents it as if it is the form of examination (in which one also tests a standard) that makes it dialectical.Footnote ⁴¹ In contrast, I would like to stress that it seems more appropriate to say that the dialectical method is suitable for this kind of examination. This is because dialectic is an internal, self-referential procedure. Thinking can also be dialectical without an explicit project of examining the standard. The Logic also implies the justification of its own standard. But that is clear from the beginning and it is explicitly covered in the process. In the Phenomenology, this is not clear from the start. The examination of the standard turns out to be dialectical. After all, we can say that it is part of the dialectic as a method of thinking that reflects its own standard – and because of the interconnection with reality, one can also say that the dialectical movements in reality tend to reflect themselves – that they tend to achieve clarity in thinking.

2.4 Passages from Realphilosophie (Philosophy of Right)

Apart from the explanations of dialectic in those passages of Hegel’s writings that deal with what thinking is, there are also repeated remarks on dialectic in relation to other topics. A passage from the Philosophy of Right (PR 60, § 31 [GW 14,1: 47]) states that dialectic is called the moving principle of the concept, in which the determination is understood not only as a limit and opposite but also as positive content and result. What Hegel means here is that, if we follow his logic (outlined in the Logic) in the sciences (here, the science of philosophy of right), then we also know our method. Thus, we understand that, in the sciences, we do not give up opinions but instead have a process of complex enrichment of judgements and concepts.Footnote ⁴² We see the continuity and the positive results in developing different positions. One might think that this passage also refers to the above-mentioned difference in the concept of dialectic, thus proving the thesis that these two meanings exist. But this is not the case. The distinction between it and a negative dialectic clearly relates to Plato’s ‘negative’ dialectic. It is not that Hegel makes a distinction with respect to his own concept of dialectic but that he wants to distance himself from Plato in taking a positive result from dialectic when he thinks Plato uses dialectic only negatively, to show what cannot be claimed. The distinction between a hidden dialectic and a transparent dialectic is not explained here by Hegel – and little else is, either. Nevertheless, it seems clear that Hegel thinks that dialectic is different when it is not transparent. That there are different kinds of dialectic must be relevant for Realphilosophie.Footnote ⁴³

There are also repeated passages in Hegel’s Realphilosophie that do not seem to refer to the Logic but assert dialectic or contradictions in reality. For example, § 246 (PR 267f. [GW 14,1: 195]) of the Philosophy of Right speaks of the dialectic of civil society as its contradictoriness, which it (civil society) ‘drives beyond itself’. We can react to these passages in different ways. If one assumes that the structure of reality is revealed in the Logic, then these passages ultimately refer to the Logic. However, we can also assume that reality shows the dialectic we can comprehend by thinking, as is explained in the Logic. In the first case, we tend to say that reality is an expression of logic; in the latter case, we can at least say, too, that thinking can also learn dialectic from reality. In both cases, we can speak of dialectic in thinking and in reality, which is undoubtedly what Hegel wants to do.Footnote ⁴⁴

2.5 Fundamental Interpretative Questions

Obviously, when it comes to dialectic, one can discuss small and large questions of almost infinite scope. However, three groups of questions seem particularly obvious and central to me. I shall mention these at the end of this section (as before, I will continue to add other questions of interpretation throughout the entire Element).

5.1 A Kind of Definition

One can say that someone wants to think dialectically if they believe that contradictions will take us further in thinking. This goes hand in hand with the claim that contradictions are essential and cannot be avoided, and/or that one should adopt an affirmative attitude towards them. It is also still very general (and compatible with the affirmative attitude towards contradictions) to say that someone describes relations as dialectical when they claim that a reversal occurs in them in which the opposite of what it first looked like arises or has arisen.Footnote ¹¹⁴ This can easily have or be a psychological explanation, which then amounts to the diagnosis of a kind of dominance of the repressed.

It is a little more in the tradition of Hegel to speak of ‘dialectical’, when one believes that to think dialectically implies that the contradictions contribute positively to the determination of what one wants to think.

One is even closer to Hegel when one believes that to think of something as having a dialectic implies that there is a movement in which the contradictory determinations are still inherent in what emerges in the movement (e.g. the Enlightenment is inherent in the myth and the myth in the Enlightenment). Not only are there two elements or moments but they also are, or become, somehow mediated by each other.

These definitions of dialectic could (I think) still be accepted by many of those who want to refer to this concept positively. As has been shown so far, Hegel’s conception of dialectic goes beyond these in at least two specific respects: it is primarily a method of thinking and contradictions are ‘resolved’ in this thinking.

For Hegel, dialectic is primarily a method of thinking. Alternatively, one could say that it is a method of dialogue. Another alternative would be to say that it is a movement of real relations. Hegel would also say both those things, but, for him, these qualifications are subordinate to determining dialectic as a method of thinking.Footnote ¹¹⁵ What does this mean? A method of dialogue could be merely didactic. Assuming that it is not, but that it is conceived so that solutions are only possible through dialogue – as a process of counter-talk – what is the difference from Hegel’s method of thinking? In this case, the difference is no longer so clear. However, Hegel wants to emphasise that certain principles of thinking guide this dialogue – for example, the principles that guide the process of negation – and that the result is not coincidental but may claim a kind of necessity. Of course, it depends on what necessity means here. If one considers Hegel’s logic to claim a priori necessity, then one will regard this difference as very strong. If, alternatively, one assumes that Hegel ultimately thinks of (this kind of) necessity as an obligation to spiritual operations that must also be practised socially, then it fits better with an understanding of dialogical dialectic – much therefore depends on the interpretation of Hegel’s logical principles.

With dialectic, one might also assume that relations could occur independently of thought. This is not possible with Hegel. For Hegel, the change in movement takes place through consciousness and reflection. The assertion that dialectic is essentially something spiritual yet must be attributed to reality is important for my interpretation, so I will elaborate on this further.

The question of the dialectic of nature once again becomes relevant here. If it is the case that consciousness and reflection are always needed for dialectic, is it not also the case that Hegel categorically cannot regard natural processes as dialectical? Or is there perhaps the possibility that the movement of dialectic can only become conscious ‘late’ in the process? What is ‘reflection’ here? Does a structure of presenting and turning back labelled as ‘reflection’ perhaps not have to be defined as thinking at all but could also be interpreted as another kind of ‘turning back’ or ‘self-relation’?

Repetition is a good candidate for asking these questions. Something repeats itself.Footnote ¹¹⁶ Let’s take an event. In a way, we can say that it happens again – ‘again’ because it is the same, it repeats – and, at the same time, it happens anew – ‘anew’ because it is not precisely the same. Firstly, it has another time-space location and is probably different in some respects. Secondly, it is also different because it repeats. That it repeats (often) changes what it is. For example, it is (no longer) a single event – the (possible) property of being part of a sequence depends on the fact that it repeats. Obviously, this is a good candidate for dialectic.Footnote ¹¹⁷ Here we can also say: the repetition is already a kind of reflection – what repeats reflects itself in that it repeats itself. This speech can be understood metaphorically if we think that reflection requires thinking. But it can also be understood more technically, in analogy to a mirror. For Hegel to say that repetition is a kind of reflection is neither (simply) metaphorical nor technical. According to Hegel, all these relations are not only material but also relations in which thinking plays a role. There would be no repetition and no reflection without thinking. One could object that, whether or not we think it, there is something that repeats. I think Hegel does not mean to say that all is made up by us: he means to say that, when we say something repeats, there is already a great deal of mediation. Already, spiritual aspects play a role here: something has to be represented (for sameness); something has to be aware (for it to change by repeating); something has to be recognised (for us to be able to talk of repeating).

Therefore, it can be said that, for Hegel, dialectic is characterised by self-reference. Self-reference here means that something relates to itself in a way that is constitutive of what it is. For Hegel, self-reference occurs not only in primarily spiritual relations but also in structured things, paradigmatically in organisms. What I find important is that, for Hegel, dialectic as a whole movement is not possible without thinking as something spiritual, because the simultaneity of a past and a present, as assumed here in the repetition, can only be thought if one assumes a spiritual mediation. The laws and causality of nature also presuppose – and here Hegel shows himself to be a Kantian – spiritual mediation, since they are not a given, and identity or sameness does not even occur in an (independent) nature. Changes and repetitions are already spiritually mediated insofar as the old and the new must be represented together for something to be seen as a change or a repetition. I would impute this representation to an organism but undoubtedly also to someone who recognises the structure of an organism. Reflection, repetition, mirroring, representation, and recognition are structures in which the spiritual is already involved without our being able to say that they are not about what really exists.

To say that, for Hegel, dialectic is a method of thinking is not to say that he does not also see it as a way of conducting dialogue and as a principle of changing ‘outer’ real relations (such as social or economic things, and natural things). It is only to say that, for him, the character of the movements called dialectical is primarily and essentially thinking and spiritual, and that it is necessary because of this. Moreover, it is for this reason that the dialectical movement has the potential to mediate opposites. This will be explained further in Section 5.2.

For Hegel, dialectic is not only working with contradictions but also resolving or sublimating these contradictions. It has to be a matter of showing and developing the interrelations and even the mediation between the contradictory elements/moments. However, a crucial question of interpretation is what is meant by sublimating contradictions. Another question is whether one can still agree with this concept of sublation in any philosophy after Hegel. There is no doubt that the idea of sublation comes closest to what post-Hegelian philosophy wanted to say goodbye to – but at the same time what it still likes to resurrect today: the idea of an end, of reconciliation, and the idea that it is through human rationality that this can be achieved. In Section 5.2, let us concentrate on the question of interpretation: what is meant by the sublation of contradictions?

As a kind of definition of Hegel’s ‘dialectic’, we can state: dialectic is a method of thinking in which thinking is understood as a movement. This movement of thinking determines what something is. In this process, the articulation and sublimation of contradictions play a constitutive role. The sublimation shows how the contradictory elements/moments are mediated with each other. Since Hegel assumes that thinking and reality are mutually determined and thus interdependent, it is also assumed that the movement of thought can be found in reality, too.

5.2 The ‘Third’

The question of what Hegel sees as ‘the third’ in the dialectical movement has been raised many times in this Element. By now, it should be clear that the third means a sublation of contradictions. Furthermore, I have emphasised (especially in the interpretation of the Encyclopaedia) that the third is not something detached from the movement. In the following, I will try to put this as simply as possible and address the questions of contradiction, negation, and necessity.

According to Hegel, determining something leads to a contradiction. If we determine something and still have a relatively simple idea of it, we have to describe it with contradictory statements. Something is not blue in all circumstances. There will be some light conditions where it is not blue. Something is blue and not blue, free and not free, good and not good, and so on. If we continue to determine and proceed dialectically, we are trying to consider these determinations and relate them to each other. I have already given many examples of this: an object can be blue and not blue if I consider the lighting conditions, but these are not simply given either: physical and social aspects play a decisive role here. What is essential is that when we make determinations we have to relate the thing to other objects, the concepts of determining, and the activity of determining.

According to my reading, Hegel’s assertion is not that something is contradictory but that thinking about something involves first formulating a contradiction and only thereafter resolving it. Now, you could say: if all this can be clarified so well in the end, it wasn’t a contradictionFootnote ¹¹⁸ – Hegel would have been better off not talking about contradictions. I would like to respond by saying that the statement that contradictions occur is justified and indispensable. In what follows, I will try to explain why, drawing on many ideas that have already come up and putting them together into a picture of what dialectic means.Footnote ¹¹⁹

The basic metaphysical idea can be explained by two claims: (1) Nothing is actually simple; however, its simple appearance cannot be overlooked or denied. Perhaps it would be better to say, ‘Its simple way of being cannot be denied’ because the point is that it is part of its essence and not just an appearance of it. We would all, not only philosophers, say that the table is not simply presented as a blue table, and that an action cannot simply be good. But even philosophers do not see the world as one in which light conditions determine the properties of objects, and actions are determined differently in moral and legal terms: they, too, move in a simple world that directly affects them.Footnote ¹²⁰

This means that the fact that something presents itself as simple, and is seen by us as simple, has to be considered philosophically. The assumption of simplicity corresponds to the determinacy of the world: there are blue tables. Moreover, determination itself is an activity that entails simplicity; as a dialectical activity, it is non-linear; nevertheless, it must begin immediately and with something simple. It is only non-linear because it is a taking-up and a return. But simplicity and immediacy are part of the process of determination.Footnote ¹²¹

(2) However, looking at things directly and in a simple way leads to contradictory statements about them. This corresponds at least in part to our human experience. We can have mutually exclusive feelings, and this can ‘tear us apart’. When characterising something, one often wants to say, ‘on the one hand; on the other’. Many of our everyday assumptions are based on the fact that we accept contradictions (that we are free and that we are determined (in the sense of not free), for example). We often ascribe contradictory predicates to things without caring, especially being the same as something else and not being the same (me in the mirror; two leaves that look very similar; two things that are red). According to Hegel, this situation asks for philosophy: in their simplicity, contradictory statements are made about things but, when their complexity is considered, they no longer appear mutually exclusive.

I maintain that Hegel wants to say, on the one hand, that things are complex, mediated, and their determinations are context-sensitive. On the other hand, part of this complexity is that they are also simple and immediate. This can only be seen if one also recognises the role of spiritual activity in determining the world. The activity explains how something simple can also be complex. And vice versa: if you want to avoid and deny the assertion that there are contradictions, you cannot understand the activity of determining. This is the case even if one does not want to deny them but, like Kant, wants to locate them only in reason.

Thus, according to Hegel, we cannot say that there are no contradictions or that we must avoid them. What we can say is that they are contradictions that will prove to be resolvable and that, in this sense, but only in this sense, they are merely apparent. But this is different from saying that there are no contradictions. Regarding Hegel’s text, one would have to examine the ‘Logic of Essence’ and try to understand what is meant by ‘the ground’ into which the contradictory things are supposed to go.Footnote ¹²² For reasons of space, I must concentrate on the basic idea here: that we must resolve contradictions by uncovering different respects in which various determinations apply to things and by keeping in mind the activity of determining.

One could object here that I am not thinking about the contradictions radically enough when I say that they can be resolved.Footnote ¹²³ However, it seems clear that Hegel abolishes contradictions and that this happens in his work through different views and perspectives. One must bear in mind that these perspectives involve different levels and moments in a process, and that both sides change in this process. For example, I believe Hegel wants to say that the beginning of the Logic is absolute insofar as the development of logic follows an internal method, and that it is not absolute because logic is not yet developed at this point. So these views and differentiations clearly enable both statements to be made (that the beginning is absolute and that it is not absolute). We are not contradicting the principle of non-contradiction here, because we are differentiating views. However, these views are not simple: they do not make one statement true and the other false but lead to more complex assertions. Dialectic can open up the perspectives, and it does so convincingly because it involves thinking in terms of activity and development. The ‘third’ means that we can go through the determinations spiritually and understand that they are moments of a movement. Because this is only possible spiritually, this mediation is necessarily spiritual. Note that, regarding nature, we can thus speak of a unity, but this can only be grasped as a unity by thinking it through – that is, spiritually. Therefore, for Hegel, nature must be viewed dialectically. In contrast, the spiritual not only is to be considered dialectically but also refers to itself in this dialectic. In this sense, dialectic takes on a different character.

It may sometimes look in this section as if the third is only a unity in that we have this movement of moments. One could then say that, with a dynamic understanding of concepts, one could take into account various aspects of something that would appear contradictory if one looked at them in a simple way. One could say, for example, that we need a dynamic concept of perception. By considering the dynamics of perceiving, one can understand what the reference to the object is and to what extent what is perceived consists of more than just sensory data, and so on. These features can lead to contradictory statements but they can also be explained with a dynamic concept.

However, as has already become clear in Section 5.1, and as the examples (of the beginning of the Logic as well as that of the blue table) suggest, this is not enough for Hegelian dialectic. After everything I have explained in this Element, the task is to not think of the third as something static and to take movement seriously,Footnote ¹²⁴ while still making it clear how Hegel understands unity to mean more than thinking of moments as moments of a movement. We need to go further than claiming that there is a movement of moments, and this can best be explained by focusing on negation and necessity. Why does this process lead to negation, and why is that important? To what extent is this process necessary?

In a nutshell, Hegel’s idea is not that there is merely a thinking of a movement of different (contradictory) moments but that there is a thinking of a movement of different (contradictory) moments in which the different (contradictory) moments attain a specific order and build unity through this order. Various kinds of negation are essential to this process, and they are responsible for why we can claim that there is a necessary link and order to the moments.

Regarding negation, it must be emphasised that, for Hegel, there are (at least) two types of negation: exclusive and inclusive (called bestimmte Negation). I have already described inclusive negation: something that presents itself as contradictory makes sense because the contradictory elements can be understood as parts or moments of a whole. Blue and non-blue as moments of colour determination under different light conditions, my freedom and that of others as moments of a common freedom, and so on. The point is that Hegel wants to show that we can only think this way if we abandon the traditional patterns and develop a different conception of negation, part-whole, and more. Hegel thinks that the relation of the whole and the parts should again be thought of as a relation of negation, but as one in which the negation includes its opposite. Perhaps we can say here that the relation of whole and part (or, analogously, universal and particular) should be dialectical. That is, we can say that the individual is the whole and is not the whole. This is not mutually exclusive because the whole can be understood as a complex unity in which different perspectives may be adopted. These perspectives are not taken ad hoc but emerge within a coherent train of thought – for example, I first define myself as an individual, then as a person, and finally as a human being.

The complex structure also presents itself linguistically as a unit – in the combination of sentences in conclusions, for example.Footnote ¹²⁵ It is created by relating something individual to its universal: for example, blue to colours and colour properties, or the individual human being to the human species.

Concerning necessity, the following must be emphasised: what emerges as a complex structure – on a small scale and with regard to the totality of determinations – should be necessary, not arbitrary. Firstly, the process of determination does not happen now and then but with all things and always. Secondly, the moments of the process are not arbitrary but necessarily ordered. The relation between civil society and the family is not coincidental: the relevant determinations are necessary. However, Hegel’s conception of necessity is also peculiar to him. He recognises different kinds of necessity, of which physical necessity is only one. It must be said that the necessity that is relevant here is compatible with the fact that we, as spiritual beings – our spiritual determinations – are decisively involved in how things are necessarily, and that necessity does not exclude freedom. This is how I see it: that the process always takes place is related to the fact that it is always about determined things, and that the process of determination follows conditions and rules. In determining, according to Hegel, we need something immediate, and contradictions play a role in this (and, as we must also remember, determination is not a process that is different from the way things are: the world is a ‘determined’ one). The order of moments is necessary because this order is produced in a process, is justified in this process of production (through logical reflections and experience), and is confirmed in this role by us as thinking beings. The fact that the table is blue and appears to be a different colour is the product of a physical, social, and cultural process. It is not purely physical. But it is therefore not accidental. It cannot be asserted otherwise within this process. It is not an individual opinion. It would not be true without a social and cultural framework. However, this social and cultural framework is not set ad hoc but has been legitimised and evaluated in various contexts. The necessity lies in its cognitive adoption, which somehow overcomes the randomness of events within itself by adopting them.

All this says that the determination process has a necessary order and cannot be characterised merely by the fact that it is a movement. However, we can distinguish between different kinds of determination, which allows us to speak in different ways about something being necessarily the way it is. In the concept of ‘object’, ‘identity’, and so on, the structure of determination itself is found quasi purely – although here too logical and social processes of reflection and recognition must take place. In the concept of this blue table, on the other hand, social and physical rules play a more direct role. And socially based rules can also be differentiated. In contrast to the blue table, the definition of civil society as a social entity has become more self-reflective.

It is particularly important to bear in mind that the unity that is to be established in the dialectical is not causal. Nor is it fated. That and how unity comes about does not have this kind of necessity/necessities. The claim that this is necessary does not mean that there is a strict and linear sequence. The necessity that Hegel looks for is also not a kind that enables us to predict things with rules we know. That it is necessary comes only after things have developed as they have. Necessity (in the sense Hegel intends here) comes about through a cognitive appropriation of a development that has taken place. The logical, historical, cultural, physical, and other aspects that lead to something being as it is are not only formed and accepted in practice. They are also ultimately accepted in cognition. In cognition, it has to be accepted that it is as it is (even if in some sense it is made by us) and cannot be seen otherwise. In this way, what is asserted becomes confirmed by the acceptance. Here we can speak of self-reference and cognitive transparency: the process of determination is ultimately only robust if recognised and accepted as it is – this is even the case regarding the logical structure. It is precisely for this reason that the third or the unity is the necessary result of the dynamic structure and, above all, of the insight into it. Concerning freedom, for example, we must say: only the free insight of all individuals into the general can represent a solution in which the individual is mediated with the general.

Let’s return to the role of contradictions. One might ask critically: is it not the case that contradictory statements can arise, and that they do not have to come about as Hegel seems to claim? The reason for this universality is that the same basic patterns are present in determining all things: reference is made directly to something in which the complexity is only implicitly given. The fact that it is an activity already plays a role in this reference. This changes what is accessed, the activity, and the subject that accesses it. From the outset, we have aspects here that will prove to be activity and passivity, spiritual and nature, future and past in their unfolding. Because of its structure, the activity of determining is always connected with the fact that contradictory statements are made when it is carried out (of course, one can neglect this and see only one side, but that is a case of looking away).

For example, Hegel writes, ‘[E]very beginning must be made with the absolute …. But because the absolute exists at first only implicitly, in itself, it equally is not the absolute’ (SL 740 [GW1 12: 241]). Let us note this as a contradiction. Shortly afterwards, Hegel says, ‘Only in its consummation is it the absolute’ (SL 740 [GW 12: 241]). At first, this may sound like a reiteration of the assertion that the beginning cannot be the absolute. However, the assertion combines both claims (and not only that the beginning is absolute): the sentence means to say that the absolute lies in the completion of a beginning. The contradiction is thus still implicit in the fact that we have to take what is in the process of becoming complete as something that is the same throughout the process. It plays with identity and difference: something is the same and not the same at the beginning and the end. However, we can explain further here that there is something in the beginning that must unfold, and that we can say of what has to unfold both that it is already there and that it is not yet there, depending on whether we speak of it as a beginning or as completion. In doing so, we are not only playing with statements but also confirming what we say by doing what we say, which is to continue to determine the beginning. In this way, the process of determination, with its different (contradictory) moments, leads to a unity that is not only complex but also intersubjectively confirmed as it is. Also, for this reason, it is not merely coincidental.

I believe Hegel’s radicalism lies in the fact that he wants to rethink the fundamental patterns: necessity, negation, contradiction, and so on, and give them a new role in the concept of determination. This reading of Hegel is metaphysical. It understands Hegel’s project to say something about our logical categories, such as necessity and causality, and to make ontological claims. It does not see metaphysics as a separate part, because the question of what there is is closely related to what thinking is. I will touch on this briefly in Section 5.3.

5.3 The Relation between Concepts and Reality as a Dialectical Relation

Although I regard dialectic as a method of thinking, I want to make clear that, because of some of Hegel’s other theses, it is also about reality.Footnote ¹²⁶ Hegel’s point is that the mediation of the spiritual and the non-spiritual is so complex and begins so early that most other models miss it. We cannot claim (as some – perhaps Kant – do) that there is something (realist) but that certain or all properties depend on thought (idealist). This is too simplistic in two ways: (1) There is not simply something: there is something as an indeterminate something, something as a thing, something as a thing with properties, and so on, each of which has different levels of mediation with thinking. Thus, in each case, there are other levels of mediation with the spiritual. We must therefore also differentiate with respect to the realistic ‘something’. (2) There are no concepts, schemata, languages, or spiritual determinations with which we refer to this something. These concepts, for example, are what they are, also depending on what is given. To say that what exists depends on the conceptual apparatus that we have is therefore too little. We must also say that this conceptual apparatus depends on what there is. However, these claims can only be assumed together if we think of the world and our relation to it as a movement. In this sense, the relation between concept and reality is itself dialectical.

As a dialectical movement of thought about dialectic, the relation between thought and reality would perhaps look like this. First, we say (like Kant): reality is dependent on thinking (if not, we could have no necessary knowledge about it). Then we say: reality is not dependent on thinking (if it were, we could not cognise anything as it really is but only construct things according to our rules (which is why Kant talked about appearances)). We can only solve this contradiction when we think of reality and thinking – dialectically – as two moments of a common movement.

Thus, with respect to the question of why thinking and reality have the same dialectical structure, we cannot only say: (1) As a method of thinking, dialectic is appropriate to the structure of reality. This could be justified as follows: only if we think dialectically can we grasp reality conceptually. On the one hand, reality itself is not a static collection of facts but a moving, multifaceted becoming. On the other hand, despite this movement, it can be conceptualised and logically grasped. If this is so, we can already say that the movement is found in thinking and reality, and that not only is thinking dialectical (if grasped properly) but reality is also dialectical. This is correct (according to Hegel), but it is still about a correspondence relation in which we take thinking and reality as two different sides of a relation. We must therefore add a second step: (2) The movements of thought and the movement of reality are not independent but constitute a single movement and are related in a ‘dialectical’ way. Only if we also grasp this will we have the appropriate concept of dialectical thinking.

So, when we say that, in our determination of something, we have to present it as contradictory, this cannot be separated from how reality is: reality presents itself as a contradiction, and this is part of its determination.Footnote ¹²⁷ At the same time, reality is not conceived here as static but as a process. Because thinking and being are complexly intertwined, neither one nor the other can be considered completely separately. However, this does not mean that we can simply say that reality is (always equally) conceptual – because what there is can be more or less conceptually determined, and also the concepts can be more or less developed.