Dialectic: Difference between revisions

According to the German philosopher [[Walter Kaufmann]]: <blockquote>"Fitche introduced into German philosophy the three-step of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, using these three terms. Schelling took up this terminology. ''Hegel did not.'' He never once used these three terms together to designate three stages in an argument or account in any of his books. And they do not help us understand his ''Phenomenology'', his ''Logic'', or his philosophy of history; they impede any open-minded comprehension of what he does by forcing it into a scheme which was available to him and which he deliberately spurned...The mechanical formalism...Hegel derides expressly and at some length in the preface to the ''Phenomenology.''<ref>Hegel: A Reinterpretation, 1966, Anchor Books, p.154)</ref><ref>G.E. Mueller's "The Hegel Legend of 'Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis" 166ff</ref></blockquote>

 

 

To describe the activity of overcoming the negative, Hegel also often used the term [[Aufheben|''Aufhebung'']], variously translated into English as "sublation" or "overcoming," to conceive of the working of the dialectic. Roughly, the term indicates preserving the useful portion of an idea, thing, society, etc., while moving beyond its limitations. ([[Jacques Derrida]]'s preferred French translation of the term was ''relever''.)<ref>See 'La différance' in: ''Margins of Philosophy''. Alan Bass, translator. University of Chicago Books. 1982. p. 19, fn 23.</ref>