3 Answers

  1. Dialectic is any logic that operates with potentially untrue statements. Theories and hypotheses. That is, unlike Stoic logic(formal logic, mathematical logic), dialectics does not seek the truth of the relation of words or statements, but directly evaluates systems of interacting objects or scientific facts.

    That is why one of the main features of dialectics is the search for contradictions of facts, words, and ideas . Posuti svoi dialektiki(regardless of the dialectic variant) consider contradictions to be the subject of study . If there are two theories-one that water is solid, and the other that water flows-the dialectician will refer to the concept of water two contradictory forms of the existence of water and synthesize a conclusion (which strongly depends on the school of dialectics, for the dialectical materialist this will be a contradiction creating the concept of temperature, for the idealist it will be the idea of metamorphosis that is embodied in the eyes of the observer).

  2. One student asks for another. Explain to me what logic, dialectics and philosophy are. You see two men walking, one clean, the other dirty, says the explanatory. Which one goes to the bathhouse? I don't know the first one answers. Dirty, that's why he goes to the bathhouse, because he's dirty, and why is the bathhouse clean?..that's the logic. I see, says the first one. You see two men walking, the second one continues, one clean and the other dirty. Which one goes to the bathhouse. Don't know. Clean. He's clean because he goes to the bathhouse, but the other one doesn't, so he's dirty. This is dialectic. Clear. And you see there are two men coming, clean and dirty. Which one goes to the bathhouse. Don't know. But this, brother, is already a philosophy))))

  3. A good, meaningful answer to this question can be found in Ludwig von Mises, an outstanding thinker and author of the epistemology of liberalism, in his work “Theory and History” (1957). Although Mises does not speak much about the dialectical method itself, and even more so does not touch on the history of the development of the concept of dialectics from Heraclitus to Hegel, he gives dialectics a very precise definition and brilliantly reveals its content through a critique of Marxism, which distorted the essence of dialectics and gave rise to one of the most absurd epistemological errors – unfortunately, not the only one:

    “The dialectical materialism of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels is the most popular metaphysical doctrine of our era. Today it is the official philosophy of the Soviet Empire and of all schools of Marxism beyond its borders. It dominates the ideas of many people who do not consider themselves Marxists, and even many authors and parties who consider themselves anti-Marxists and anti-communists. This is what most of our contemporaries mean when they refer to materialism and determinism.

    During Marx's youth, German thought was dominated by two metaphysical doctrines, the teachings of which were incompatible with each other. One was Hegelian spiritualism, the official doctrine of the Prussian state and the Prussian universities. The second was materialism, the doctrine of an opposition bent on a revolutionary overthrow of Metternich's political system and Christian orthodoxy. Marx tried to combine them into a single compound in order to prove that socialism must come with “the inexorability of a natural law.”

    In Hegel's philosophy, logic, metaphysics, and ontology are essentially identical. The process of real becoming is an aspect of the logical process of thinking. By grasping the laws of logic through a priori thinking, the mind gains an accurate knowledge of reality. There is no road to truth other than that provided by the study of logic.

    A specific principle of Hegel's logic is the dialectical method. Thinking moves in a three-part way. From thesis to antithesis, i.e., to the negation of the thesis, and from antithesis to synthesis, i.e., to the negation of negation, the same threefold principle manifests itself in real becoming. For the only real thing in the universe is the Geist (mind or spirit). Material things have no existence for themselves. The substance of matter is outside of it, the spirit is in itself being. What is called reality-apart from reason and divine action – is, in the light of this philosophy, something rotten or stagnant (ein Faules), which may appear, but is not in itself real.

    There can be no compromise between Hegelian idealism and any kind of materialism. Captivated by the prestige of Hegelianism in Germany in the 1840s, Marx and Engels were wary of deviating too radically from the only philosophical system with which their fellow citizens were familiar. They were not brave enough to completely reject Hegelianism, as was done a few years later, even in Prussia. They preferred to appear as successors and reformers of Hegel, rather than as iconoclasts and schismatics. They boasted that they had transformed and improved Hegelian dialectics, turned it inside out, or rather turned it upside down. They did not understand that it was pointless to detach dialectics from its idealistic basis and transplant it into a system called materialistic and empirical. Hegel was consistent in assuming that the logical process is accurately reflected in the processes occurring in what is commonly called reality. It does not contradict itself by applying a logical a priori to the interpretation of the universe. But a doctrine based on naive realism, materialism, and empiricism is quite different. Such a doctrine would be of no use to a scheme of interpretation that is derived not from experience, but from a priori reasoning. Engels said that the dialectic is the science of the General laws of motion of the external world and of human thought; two of a number of laws that are essentially identical, and its expression is different only insofar as the human mind can apply them consciously, while in nature, and still for the most part in human history, they are making their way unconsciously, in the form of external necessity among an infinite number of seeming coincidences. He himself, says Engels, never had any doubts in this respect. His intensive studies in mathematics and the natural sciences, to which he confesses to have devoted eight years, were stimulated, as he claims, by the desire to test in detail the validity of the laws of dialectics by concrete examples. These studies led Engels to startling discoveries. Thus, he found that ” all geology is a series of negations of negations.” Butterflies ” are born from the testicle by negating it… and again they are denied, i.e. they die, ” etc. The normal life path of barley is as follows: “The barley grain… is negated and displaced by the plant, the negation of the grain. It's growing … it is fertilized and finally produces barley grains again, and as soon as the latter ripen, the stem dies, which in turn is negated. As a result of this negation of negation, we have here again a grain of barley, but not just one grain, but ten, twenty, thirty times as many grains.”

    Engels didn't think he was just juggling words. Applying the terminology of logic to the phenomena of reality is a waste of time. You can confirm or deny statements about phenomena, events, or facts, but not the phenomena, events, or facts themselves. But if one is committed to such inappropriate and logically flawed metaphorical language, it is no less reasonable to call a butterfly a confirmation of a larva than to call it a denial. Isn't the appearance of a butterfly a self-affirmation of the larva, the maturation of its inner purpose, the completion of its merely transitory existence, the unfolding of all its potentials? However, there is no need to expatiate at length on the fallacy of integrating Hegelian dialectics into a philosophy that does not share Hegel's fundamental principle… For in essence dialectics plays only the role of framing the constructions of Marx and Engels and does not significantly influence the course of reasoning.”

    In summary order:

    dialectics is a method of logical thinking, not a mechanism of real events and phenomena.

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