Dialectics in philosophy is a way of thinking in which things and phenomena are considered in their formation and development, in close interconnection with each other, in the struggle and unity of opposites.
In antiquity, the sensually perceived world was presented as an eternal formation and movement in which opposites coexist and remain in unity. The early Greek philosophers saw the infinite variability of the world around them and at the same time said that the cosmos is a beautiful and complete whole that is at rest. Their dialectic was formed as a description of this movement and peace, as well as a reflection of the continuous transformation of one element into another, one thing into another.
For sophists, the dialectical method boiled down to pure denial: paying attention to the continuous change of ideas and concepts that disproved each other, they came to the conclusion that human knowledge was relative and limited in general, and believed that it was impossible to comprehend the truth.
Fruitful struggle
a ba of opposing ideas is what the dialectical
method of Socrates, the ancient Greek philosopher, who set forth his ideas about the world not in treatises, but verbally, not even monologically, is based. He conducted conversations with the inhabitants of Athens, in which he did not state his position, but asked his interlocutors questions by which he sought to help them free themselves from prejudice and come to a true judgment on their own.
Most of all, the dialectical method was developed by
Georg Hegel, a German philosopher of the 19th century: his main idea is that opposites mutually exclude and at the same time mutually assume each other. For Hegel, a contradiction is an impulse to the evolution of the spirit: it makes the thought move forward, from a simple to a complex and increasingly complete result.
Hegel sees the main contradiction in the very
idea of the absolute: it cannot simply resist the non-absolute, the finite, otherwise it would limit
moose they would not be absolute. Therefore, the absolute must contain a limited or other. So, in
absolute truth lies the unity of opposing particular and limited ideas, which, complementing each other, come out of their inertness and acquire a new, more true form. This movement embraces all particular concepts and ideas, all parts of the spiritual and physical world. All of them exist inextricably linked with each other and with the absolute.
Hegel's dialectical method is a process of self-improvement of a concept. Dialectics is both a method and the content of his philosophy.
Marxist philosophy also used the dialectical method, but it is closely connected with the materialistic concept of being and man and is therefore more practical: it considers, first of all, social, and not purely philosophical contradictions.
The dialectical method was used not only in Western, but also in Eastern philosophy: for example, in China it is the concept of Yin and Yang - two different sides of a single reality that turn into each other.
The dialectical method is the opposite of the metaphysical, which addresses the origins of being as such, to the search for the original nature of reality.