The dialectical method of cognition considers all phenomena and processes in interconnection, development and interdependence. Dialectics, as a science, initially emerged as the art of debate: it is this phenomenon in translation that means the word “dialectics”. The dialectical method of knowing the world was founded by Socrates and was further developed through sophists. Dialectics as a method of cognition and analysis of reality was first proposed by Heraclitus (everyone knows his famous expression “Everything flows, everything changes”), and subsequently developed by Zenon, Kant and other followers. But it was Hegel who gave an absolutely complete and perfect form to the dialectic. Therefore, the dialectical method of cognition in the form in which we know it, developed and presented by Hegel, is called the Hegelian dialectic.
According to Hegel, the dialectical method of cognition is the “moving soul of true cognition”, and is based on the principle that introduces the necessity and connection into the content of any science.
Hegel, developing the dialectical method of research, analyzed all the most important and basic categories of philosophy, and formulated the three basic laws of dialectics.
The first law is the law of the transition of quantity into quality and vice versa. This law describes and defines the mechanisms of self-development. In order to freely use the concepts of “quality”, “quantity” and “measure”, Hegel gave them definitions and called them three forms of being ideas. The founder of dialectics called quality the internal certainty of an object or phenomenon that generally characterizes this object or phenomenon. The qualitative diversity of the phenomena of life and objects represents their specificity, that which makes it possible to distinguish one object (phenomenon) from another, gives uniqueness and characteristic features.
Hegel argued that the qualitative characteristic of any object is expressed by its properties, and called the properties of an object the ability to combine, interact and relate to other phenomena or objects in a certain way.
Pointing to the transition of quantitative characteristics into qualitative ones, Hegel focused on the reverse process: the transition of quality into quantity. The endless transitions from one to another do not at all deny the presence of certain properties of objects or phenomena, but only indicate that at a certain point in time a specific property of an object can be replaced by another quality, which means the emergence of a new measure - that is, the unity of quality and quantity. This transformation gives the opportunity to appear a new quality of the subject, which, in turn, will lead to a transition to a new quantitative dimension.
The second law of dialectics is called the law of unity and struggle of opposites (the law of interpenetration). Describing the second law, Hegel appeals to the concepts of "identity", "difference", "contradiction", "opposite." Any phenomenon, according to Hegel, is the result of internal contradictions and the negation of parties and trends. Therefore, in Hegel’s dialectic, the sides of the whole are opposites, which are in a state of interconnection and interdependence.
The third law of dialectics is referred to as the “negation of negation”. It characterizes the universal result and direction of evolution. The law is based on the denial of everything old when the new appears, the transition from one quality to another. But at the same time, a triune condition must be maintained: overcoming the old, then continuity in development, and, finally, the approval of the new.
The dialectic method of cognition is based on these three pillars — the basic laws.