Hegel’s Dialectics and Lao Tzu's Mysticism
The dialectics of Hegel is not
something completely new since it follows from the basics of logic. Also this thought
sprang from as early as the Greeks, especially Heraclitus. Heraclitus’ point
was that of pantheism, that God is the totality of everything, while Hegel’s
point also tends towards the Absolute. At the end point is the Absolute or the Total.
Heraclitus also stresses that God is fire which is the agent of change, similar
to Hegel where the Absolute is that towards which make everything tends.
Therefore the Absolute is an end that is pulling everything, the efficient
cause[1] in
the progress of everything. The process of the movement of everything towards
that end is dialectics. The points converge in the totality and the process is
the called dialectics. Since movement is change, change is for Heraclitus this
event where which opposites exist. If reality were one-sided, change would not
occur since there would be no passing from the is to the is not. Where
there is change, there is contradiction; but in a pantheistic view all changes
occur towards a unity. Heraclitus views the world as governed by God and motion
or change as due to contradictions.
“Heraclitus now grasps the absolute itself as this process of
contradiction. He grasps the Absolute, and not yet human consciousness as
dialectic itself.”[2]
He is stuck at a notion of the Absolute only in the process of contradiction. In
Hegel’s thought, that process of contradictions is not an entity outside of man,
as Heraclitus views it. For Hegel, contradictions are in the human
consciousness.
Heraclitus’
notion that the world has inherent contradictions was the early step in forming
the method of dialectics. Before dialectics, there was only the law of
contradiction as the principle of logic. Dialectics raises it a notch higher.
Heraclitus indeed is a pioneer since foe him “logic is dialectical (in the
broad sense) only because it implies a negative or a negating aspect, which is
called dialectical in the narrow sense.”[3]
Heraclitus emphasizes contradictions as actual and leading to their union.
Presupposing a union of everything at some point and raising a level of
consciousness is difficult. Heraclitus said, “[People] do not know how what is
at variance agrees with itself. It is an attunement of opposite tensions. . .”[4]
Raising a level of consciousness is the same as raising such consciousness to the
level of God. Change is something hard enough for a person to experience, “but
it is [really] not a haphazard movement, but a product of God’s universal
reason (logos)”.[5]
The emphasis of Reason, a developed one, capitalized in order to represent
God’s ownership which is within man’s reach is attainable on that level. Reason
for Heraclitus is the universal law, and later on Hegel stresses and even
utilizes the whole extent of this Reason which similar to that to Heraclitus. The
finality – Heraclitus’ God or Hegel’s Absolute - comprehends everything into
unity.[6]
Socrates
is also associated with dialectics; in fact, it is the method he uses
frequently in his discourses. This method “could approach a person claiming to
be an expert and ask him series of pointed questions to find flaws in his
argument to reveal his ignorance”.[7]
The method, which aims at gaining knowledge, is rigorous since it coaxes the
truth out of anyone. “Primarily, the method starts with the discussion of
obvious aspects in the discourse.”[8]
These obvious aspects are equivalent to familiarities or abstracts which are to
be further examined and deconstructed. Evaluation takes place with the use of
reason to decide the subject of discourse is true or is fallacious. The method
unravels the underlying contents of the subject, which is why in most of
Socrates’ dialogues, there is an unraveling of “new” thoughts about a subject.
These new thoughts are already there but one is not yet conscious of it because
of the familiarity. Hegel says, “Quite generally, the familiar, just because it
is familiar, is not cognitively understood. The commonest way in which we
deceive either ourselves or others about understanding is by assuming something
as familiar, and accepting it on that account. . .”[9]
Socrates’ dialectics is a further unraveling of things; it destroys the
familiarity of a subject and in the process, arrives at further questions.
Socrates makes use of the negative, and that is in the form of a question; the
question bombards the familiar. It is a negative since negates something and
therefore it opens that something and makes it an object for inquiry. This method
is also what permeates Hegel’s dialectic. The problem of the Ancients, such as
Heraclitus and Socrates, is that although they understand the importance of
contradiction, their negative is dull. They remain in the dichotomy but do not
transcend themselves. Hegel’s dialectics lays stress in the negative from which
arises something better.
Dialectics
in general has its foundations in logic. To tackle it is also to tackle logic.
As mentioned by the two ancient philosophers, there is the founding of the law
of non-contradiction and the highlight of the negative. Hegel jumpstarted his
thoughts from them since at his time it was also the fad to revitalize philosophy.
Dialectics or is logic has the
following aspects: “a) the abstract or understandable (Verstandige) aspect: b)
the dialectical or the negatively rational (Vernunftige) aspect: c) the
speculative or the positively rational aspect.”[10]
Firstly, the abstract or the understandable aspect is that what Hegel calls the
familiar, since it is that which is not cognitively understood. Here, man is
passive in the sense that the topic in discourse is already understood by him,
but actually, he just understands it in a purely abstract way, which is devoid
of content.“The True is the Whole. But the Whole is nothing other than the
essence consummating itself through its development.”[11] In
saying that “the True is the Whole”, Hegel is pointing out that the whole is primarily
essence. Since the familiar or the understandable is an essence only in passing,
but not the essence all throughout the development of it. The essence is thus only known on the surface level. It is
like what you think you know of before Socrates ever questions you, and when
the questioning commences there are a lot of which you discover to be mere
assumptions. The understanding of any such thought is only immediate, therefore
unexamined or unmediated. “The truth of Being is Essence”,[12] says
Hegel. Being, here is equivalent to anything, and anything has its Essence as
its truth. But that Essence which is also immediate is what makes the
understandable, understandable. The familiar is that whose being is its
essence, but as such it is a dead abstract, that is to say, devoid of content.
In contrast to it is an abstract that is thoroughly mediated. Being, whose truth as Essence is mediated has
undergone development through ratiocination; it is now an abstract idea with
grounds, reinforced already with argument. The understandable is only abstract
familiarity that is yet to be given its content. The abstract is the aim, but
an unmediated aim in which how it is to be understood from its immediate
conception, but still as an unmediated aim. “The aim is by itself a lifeless
universal.”[13]
The aim is what ought to be understood minus the process of understanding it.
It is therefore a lifeless universal, the dead abstraction which has no ground yet,
devoid of the mediated content which is known through the scrutiny of reason.
The negative is what accounts for
the process of dialectics. It is the impetus for the movement of thought. Hegel
describes philosophy as organic; it “moves essentially in the element of
universality which includes within itself the particular. . . the execution
being by contrast really the unessential factor”.[14] The
movement of universality that includes the particulars is what dialectics is
about, so that the universal is not empty or, as mentioned above abstract or
understandable. The unraveling of the particularities is made by the negative.
The negative is that which opens the universal, “the execution of being by
contrast”. That moment occurs by contrast means of and the negative is what
makes the contrast by negating it. It is through negation that an entity becomes
non-identical with itself; i.e. by mediating the truth of its essence through
reason. As reason uncovers the truth through the development of the essence of
a certain being, the results of the raveling are non-identical to the
immediately conceived proposition. The negative opens the abstract, draws out
more than what is immediately thought of. The negative is what Hegel calls the
anti-thesis, that in turn is anti-thetical to a thesis. “A thesis is opposed to
an anti-thesis, which, by the way the thesis generally provokes. They confront
each other, correct one another mutually – that is, destroy each other. . .”[15] The
anti-thesis, the negative is the provocation of any thesis, the existence of
which makes for a collision, a “fight” in which the passivity of the thesis
will be challenged by the anti-thesis. The anti-thesis is the evaluator of the
thesis. Like in conventional discourses, “the author himself discusses his
thesis and demonstrates their veracity be refuting possible objections or
anti-thesis”.[16]
This the same as Socrates’ method that starts by questioning in order to find
the truth of a proposition. In so doing, all possible fallacies or errors have
to be exposed, therefore the negative has to arise in order for reason to
elevate judgments to the level of discourse. The negative bombards the thesis
by opening it to what it might be or what it is not. “Refutation[s] would
therefore properly consist in the further development of the principle.”[17]
Refutations is a form of the negative that has a constructive end, if not looked
at as being only negative but as a negative that opens up a way to something
better. An example is argument. If one takes the refutation as something only
negative, one ceases to argue and therefore leaves the argument hanging,
without resolution. If one takes the negative as something constructive, then
the refutation becomes a means for refining or building even better arguments.
But such a refutation is not outside of what is refuted. “If the refutation is
thorough, it is derived and developed from the principle itself, not
accomplished by counter-assertions and random thoughts outside.”[18]
The negative is not something outside but is inherent in a thesis; the
anti-thesis is already in the thesis. For example, Hegel makes mention of the
bud, which eventually becomes a flower, a plant, then finally a fruit. The process goes on as the former is always
being refuted by the latter. A new form negates the older form. “These forms
are not just distinguishable from another, they also supplant one another as
mutually incompatible.”[19]
The previous compared to the new is different, yet what is not anymore a bud is
now a flower; the negation of the bud is but the supplanting of it by the
flower. The negative is the engine of development. It is the series of
contradictions which causes motion. The different forms are what evolve into a unity;
i.e. the plant in general. “Their fluid nature makes them moments of an organic
unity in which they not only do not conflict, but in which each is as necessary
as the other.”[20]
Each moment is an identity and the nature of such an identity is as follows
“identity of identity and non-identity or the bond that holds together
opposites in the very activity of opposing them or holding them apart”.[21]
The bud which has evolved the different forms is thus the negative that in
contradiction and opposition to the bud holds an organic unity.
The negative here is the highlight of
dialectics since movement cannot be possible without it. “The vast power of
negation which fascinated Hegel is the originator of ever new thought.”[22]
The negative opens and irritates the familiar, or the abstract. It is the
anti-thesis, refutation, negation, non-identity. Its being consists in the Whole,
for the True is the Whole. “Truth thus includes the negative, that is to say that
which it negates”.[23] Truth
therefore includes the negative also, what would be called the false.”[24]
In all cases, the negative or the false is inherent in any entity.
Lastly, the speculative or the
positively rational aspect is the outcome of the labor of the negative. It is
the product of the collision of the thesis and anti-thesis. Moreover, what has
been done is an analysis. “The analysis[25]
of an idea, as it used to be carried out, was in fact nothing else than ridding
it of the form in which it had become familiar.”[26]
The positive rational or the new truth will then be subject to the continuous
process of dialectics. This is a new entity that is traceable to its inherent
negative.
Dialectics is triadic according to
Hegel’s the Phenomenology of Spirit. Spirit is translated into the vital
impetus or the force behind everything in its movements towards the Absolute.
The Phenomenology is “the concept of how that which is being negated in the
dialectical process is at once superseded and preserved”.[27] The
phenomenon of Spirit is put into language by the description of the dialectics.
The Absolute is that which encompasses already everything or the end of
everything. The Phenomenology is the account in which everything goes towards
the Absolute.
Questions then asked as to where the
negative has come from. Thought is already in the entity which it presides but
it cannot be so thought of without the thinker. “The tremendous power of the
negative, it is the energy of thought, of the pure ‘I’.”[28]
The role of the subject is highlighted and is the source of the negative. In
ordinary language, the subject is passing and what is said is of the negative which
is already there in the object. It is already there in the object but the
object cannot itself be transformed without a consciousness which is conscious
of it. Intentionality is therefore the underlying principle of the dialectics
since it depends heavily on the action of consciousness. “Anyone looking at
Hegel’s work from a psychological standpoint may well feel that this is a vain
pretense, and that Hegel carries subjectivism to an extreme by proclaiming the
most subjective to be the most objective.”[29]
The act of the subject has become the objective since there is this assumption
of the Absolute that unites everything in it, and that the experience of the I
is the subject with respect to itself but in a greater view is something
‘outside’ of it. Another case is what happens in the dialectics of thought, where
the movement within the ‘I’, the subjectivity of it, is translated outside of
itself. The objective realm is the subjectivity carried through and this is
what makes the object.
Dialectics is also logic. It
reinforces the thought which is the work of the subject. Logic cannot be
without thought. Logic bears the principle of non-contradiction which is a step
towards dialectics. Logic does the ‘analysis’ and dialectics produces the
process that gives new knowledge. “In logic. . . progress occurs thanks to the
‘force of the negative’. The effort to remain at a preliminary, more abstract
level cannot be sustained and transformed itself, by a negation of internal
criticism, into the next level.”[30]
Logic still has in it an assumption, and that is that the subject or “logizer”
is the source of the negative.
The dialectic is prevalent in
nature, since it is observable as the scrutiny of the subject; it flows from
nature as its governing principle. Hegel’s example of the development of the
bud into a fruit clearly shows that dialectics is at work and in the process
gives rise to a new and better species. But definitely nature too has this task
of overcoming negatives. “If nature
happens to commit an error (the malformation of an animal for example), it
eliminates it immediately (the animal dies or does not propagate).”[31]
Nature has its own ordeal with dialectics and so does man. Man has the power to bring dialectics to a
higher level that of nature, because of language. “Only the errors committed by man
endure indefinitely and are propagated at a distance, thanks to language. But
this preservation of errors in the real is possible. It is because error can be
corrected that it is not pure nothingness.”[32]
Man then has been given a central role and the power to make things positive
out of the negative. An image and likeness of God, man creates something out of
nothing, or error is made. The dream of man that everything will be good
emphasizes his dialectical nature. Man has an optimistic attitude; he breaks
and then creates, destroys in order to build. The force of the negative is
driven by man into a constructive power, or else man is stuck in history and he
fails to progress. But being dialectical, man continuously grows and develops
through the effort of the negative and through his own effort to overcome it.
“Man succeeds in preserving error in the very heart of reality.”[33]
He preserves the error by building something out of it, making error substratum
for the new things. Such is the dialectics; it is the movement of man and he
continues in this movement until everything unites in the Absolute.
Lao
Tzu following also the use of contradictions, is also in himself advocating
dialectics, but his is not as elaborate as Hegel’s but he had his way in
explaining that tends to make reason so stressed in analyzing the coming to be
of opposites and in the long run, finding answers between extremities. Hegel
uses contradictions, especially the negative to move forward. The same with Lao
Tzu though his is more of mystical in the sense since he puts into few words
and just lays out the contradictions without deliberately or exhaustively
explaining it. Unlike Hegel who wrote monumental volumes, Lao Tzu’s dialectics
teases the reader to find in himself the resolution between laid
contradictions. Unlike to Heraclitus, who cannot find a unity between
contradictions other than God, he makes use of teasing the mind in finding
unity. Lao Tzu says:
The
name that cannot be named
Is
not the constant name.[34]
He is
referring to an entity which when defined is not what it is. Therefore to name
it is simply contradicting it for the name is not the name. Question then stirs
then what is this that which we attempt to name is but nowhere near it, or is
it? To logic, this is incomprehensible and there is but nothing. As also
follows, Lao Tzu says:
Thus
something and Nothing produce each other;
The
difficult and the easy complement each other;
The
long and the short offset each other;
The
high and the low incline towards each other;
Note
and sound harmonize with each other.[35]
Again, Lao Tzu mentions in a certain
respect to a unity, that both are related to each other in their
“separatedness”. But still again what do they point at? There are opposites but
why does Lao Tzu speaks in a manner that they are joint? He is referring to
something that is far beyond comprehension, because comprehension deals with
logic but logic cannot find unity between contradictions. He is referring to
nothing or that is but empty, as he says “the way is empty, yet use will not
drain it”.[36]
The way is this name that cannot be named, ultimately it is unnamed, but
recognizes that there are manifestations of it. He says:
Hence
always rid yourself of desires in order to observe its secrets;
But
always allow yourself to have desires in order to observe its manifestations.[37]
That
the way is something when man is driving his consciousness at it or desiring it
and when man desires it not, it reveals itself. Again nothing here is the
result of the analysis. Another, he says:
Bent
but straight
Hollow
but full
Worn
then new[38]
Then
again Lao Tzu uses contradictions to best describe the ideal being or the way,
but language has only “nothing” as the word that bests fit the meeting of
opposites. Lao Tzu is referring to nothingness. Nothingness which is the
canvass of everything, empty, void is what is the mother of myriad creatures.
But to conceive of nothing is an arduous task or it might end up in nominalism,
that for the sake of naming.
Of these philosophers that used the
power of contradiction. All of them ended up in a mystical union or unity that
reason has arduously tried to comprehend but the end is but merely the union of
everything. Mystical in the sense that logic is transcended because there is
unity of contradictions. Heraclitus calls his as God, Hegel calls his as
Absolute, Lao Tzu arbitrarily calls it Tao. All of them use contradictions as
the way to view reality that again could not be possible without the thinker.
Heraclitus mentions of “logos”, but it cannot be without the “nous” or mind,
Hegel made mention of the ego or “I” as the source of negative and Lao Tzu
inexplicably posits man in which his mention of the Tao eventually leads to the
idea of man. All of these three philosophers are common, yet varies in the
means of explanation. Hegel uses rigorous language, while Heraclitus’ was lost
in time and dissolved into God, and Lao Tzu of the less-speech attitude. All of
them view reality as having contradictions, and viewed the end of it as
something mystical, whether it be God, Absolute or Tao, that is because
language has nothing else to offer but Nothing as the temporary and approximate
understanding of the unity and connection between contradictions. Though they
are unified and can be resolved, but the resolution is mysterious which
displays the cunningness of reason.
[1] Aristotle defines
efficient cause as that which is responsible, like a sculptor to a statue, personifying
the Absolute.
[2] Rosen Stanley. G.W.F. Hegel: An Introduction to the Science
of Wisdom. London: Yale University Press. 1974. p. 24.
[3] Alexander Kojeve. Introduction to the Reading of Hegel.
New York:Basic Books Inc.1969. p. 169.
[4] Samuel Stumpf &
James Fieser. Socrates to Sartre and
Beyond: A History of Philosophy 8th Edition. Boston: Mc.
Graw-Hill. 2008. p. 14.
[5] Ibid. p. 13.
[6] Metaphorically
understanding why Heraclitus equates God and reason to fire is that of the
nature of fire. The Greeks understood the motion of fire as upward (Aristotle’s
cosmology) and also its nature of dividing or changing things. Though fire
changes things by destroying them or taking them apart it is the same with
Reason especially in dealing with logic, wherein logic tackles into the
contradictions and henceforth follows the “principle of non-contradiction”,
primarily by establishing that there are contradictions. But as fire’s motion
is upward, it metaphorically states a unity something that is above, the burned
entities in fire are united and made visible by that upward movement of smoke
or air. The motion represents the unity, going upwards, a status that is
divine, going up, going to God. Fire at a level below tends to compartmentalize
things, but raised tends to unite them. Fire perfectly fits the symbol of
Reason and moreover the notion of fire will poetically assist anyone in
understanding Hegel’s dialectics even further.
[7] Plato. Dialogues
of Plato Trans. by Benjamin Jowett. New York: Simon & Schuster
Paperbacks. 1950. p. xv.
[8] Samuel Stumpf & James Fieser. Socrates to Sartre and Beyond: A History of
Philosophy 8th Edition. Boston: Mc. Graw-Hill. 2008. p. 33.
[9] G.W.F. Hegel. The Phenomenology of Spirit .Trans. by.
A.V. Miller. Oxford: Clarendon Press.1962. p. 18.
[10] Alexander Kojeve. Introduction to the Reading of Hegel.
New York:Basic Books Inc. 1969. p. 169.
[11] G.W.F. Hegel. The Phenomenology of Spirit .Trans. by.
A.V. Miller. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 11.
[12] G.W.F. Hegel. Hegel’s Science of Logic. Trans. by W.H.
Johnston & L.G. Struthers. London: George Allen & Unwin LTD. 1929. p.
15.
[13] G.W.F. Hegel. The Phenomenology of Spirit .Trans. by.
A.V. Miller. Oxford: Clarendon Press.1962. p. 2.
[14] Ibid. p. 1.
[15] Alexander Kojeve. Introduction to the Reading of Hegel.
New York:Basic Books Inc.1969. p. 180.
[16] Ibid. p. 183.
[17] G.W.F. Hegel. The Phenomenology of Spirit .Trans. by.
A.V. Miller. Oxford: Clarendon Press.1962. p.13.
[18] Ibid. p. 13.
[19] Ibid. p. 2.
[20] Ibid. p. 2.
[21] Rosen Stanley. G.W.F. Hegel: An Introduction to the Science
of Wisdom. London: Yale University Press. 1974. p. 25.
[22] G.W.F. Hegel. The Philosophy of Hegel .Ed. by Carl
Friedrich. New York: The Modern Library. 1953. p. 25.
[23] Ibid. p. xxviii.
[24] G.W.F. Hegel. The Phenomenology of Spirit .Trans. by.
A.V. Miller. Oxford: Clarendon Press.1962. p. 27.
[25] Analysis is not totally what is meant of it.
Analysis means here that the moment that the negative is known which is already
inherent in an entity. With respect to Kant, analytics is not a creation of new
knowledge but that which is something already in the idea itself and that is
the negation. But further in analysis (the determining of the inherent
negative), it becomes dialectical when there is already the meeting of the
contradictions that in turn creates the positive rational or with respect to
Kant as synthetic or new knowledge.
[26] G.W.F. Hegel. The Phenomenology of Spirit .Trans. by. A.V. Miller. Oxford:
Clarendon Press.1962. p. 18.
[27] G.W.F. Hegel. The Philosophy of Hegel .Ed. by Carl
Friedrich. New York: The Modern Library. 1953.
p. xxix.
[28] G.W.F. Hegel. The Phenomenology of Spirit .Trans. by.
A.V. Miller. Oxford: Clarendon Press.1962. p. 19.
[29] G.W.F. Hegel. The Philosophy of Hegel .Ed. by Carl
Friedrich. New York: The Modern Library. 1953. p. xxv.
[30] Rosen Stanley. G.W.F. Hegel: An Introduction to the Science of Wisdom. London: Yale
University Press. 1974. p. 13.
[31] Alexander Kojeve. Introduction to the Reading of Hegel.
New York:Basic Books Inc. 1969. p. 187.
[32] Ibid. p. 187.
[33] Ibid. p. 187.
[34] Lao Tzu. Tao Te Ching. Trans by D.C. Lau. New
York: Penguin Group. 1963. p.3.
[35] Ibid. p. 4.
[36] Ibid. p. 6.
[37] Ibid. p. 3.
[38] Ibid. p. 24.
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