KRONER ON DIALECTIC

Dialectic originally meant "conversation" or "dialogue", and Hegel's dialectic, like Plato's, might be called "the dialogue of mind with itself". Logic, like thinking, moves from opposites to opposites, posing, opposing, composing the contents of thought, transforming them into ever new concepts or categories. But it is by no means the mere application of a monotonous trick that could be learned and repeated. It is not the mere imposition of a recurring pattern. It may appear so in the mind of some historians who catalogue the living trend of thought; but in reality it is an ever changing, ever growing development. Hegel is nowhere pedantic in pressing concepts into a ready made mold. The theme of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, like the motif of a musical composiiton, has many modulations and modifications. It is never "applied"; it is itself only a poor and not even helpful abstraction of what is really going on in Hegel's logic.
(Kroner, R. Introduction to Early Theological Writings of G.W.F. Hegel, translated by T.M. Knox and R. Kroner, University of Chicago Press, Cicagor Illinois, p. 32 and cited in W. Young (1972) Hegel's Dialectical Method. Difference between reason and understanding.
Gadamer on Plato
Return to List of Social Theory Topics