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31

|37| The method according to which the Concept develops itself out of itself in science, and which is only an immanent progression and production of its determinations—a progression that does not happen through the assurance that various relations exist, nor through the application of the universal to such material taken up from elsewhere—is here likewise presupposed from Logic.1

The moving principle of the Concept, as not only dissolving but also producing the particularizations of the universal, I call Dialectic—dialectic, therefore, not in the sense that it dissolves, confuses, or leads back and forth an object, proposition, etc., given to feeling or to immediate consciousness in general, and is concerned only with deriving its opposite—a negative mode such as frequently appears even in Plato. It may regard the opposite of a representation as its final result, or, like the ancient Skepticism, its contradiction, or even, in a duller fashion, an approximation to the truth—a modern half-measure. The higher dialectic of the Concept consists in not merely producing and grasping the determination as a limit and opposite, but in producing and grasping the positive content and result out of it; for through this alone is it development and immanent progression. This dialectic, then, is not the external doing of a subjective thinking, but the own soul of the content, which organically puts forth its branches and fruits. Subjective thinking, as such, merely looks on at this development of the Idea as the proper activity of its reason, without adding any ingredient of its own. To consider something rationally does not mean to bring a reason to the object from the outside and thus to work upon it, but rather the object is rational for itself; here it is spirit in its freedom, the highest peak of self-conscious reason, which gives itself reality and generates itself as an existing world; the only business of science is to bring this proper work of the reason of the matter to consciousness.

  1. Hegel gives no reference. What is meant is the speculative method: the determinations are not brought to the object from outside but issue from it; the moving principle of this advance Hegel calls, in the next sentence, dialectic (Encyclopaedia, 3rd ed. § 79–83 and § 238–242). – See The Grammar of Logical Concepts: The one movement that carries everything. ↩︎

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  1. Hegel (Simple) Avatar
    Hegel (Simple)

    § 31: How we proceed

    How do we get from one thought to the next? This is the question of method.

    What we do not do:

    We do not say: There simply are property, contracts and punishments. We do not then take a general principle and apply it to them. That is how people work with material they have picked up from somewhere.

    What we do:

    We watch how the concept unfolds itself. Each step comes out of the one before. We call what drives this movement dialectic.

    What is dialectic?

    There is a weak form. It takes an opinion and shows that it is not correct. Then only confusion remains. Or doubt about everything. Or the convenient answer that the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Even Plato often proceeds this way.

    The strong form goes further. It shows where a thought is too narrow. And from exactly this narrowness it gains the next, richer thought. The lack already shows what is missing. In this way something new arises, and nothing disappears.

    We do not make this movement. It is the life of the thing itself. We are like someone who watches a plant grow. The plant puts forth its branches and fruits out of itself. We do not pull on the leaves.

    So the thing itself is rational. Here it is freedom, which creates a world for itself. We only bring to consciousness what freedom itself does.

    Summary: We do not apply ready-made rules to material from outside. We watch how the concept unfolds. The next step grows out of every limit.

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