https://www.reddit.com/r/hegel/comments/1aioz60/what_drives_the_dialectic_hegels_transition_from/
created by bubibubibu on 04/02/2024 at 14:23 UTC*
4 upvotes, 3 top-level comments (showing 3)
Trendelenburg's criticism of Hegel's dialectic centers on the claim that Hegel's transitions rely on intuition rather than pure thought, thereby violating the presuppositionless nature that Hegel claims for his method. Basically, Hegel's claim that logic deals with pure thought seems at odds with the apparent reliance on more than *pure negation* in his dialectical method.
A brief look at Trendelenburg's criticisms of Hegel will illustrate the epistemological framework in which Trendelenburg formulates his own - rather Hegelian - criticisms of traditional formal logic. Hegel claims that logic studies thought independent of intuitive content. (Käufer, 2005: 259-280)
AFAIK Hegel does indeed claim that logic is free from intuitive content. In SL Hegel argues that logic deals with the pure forms of thought, independent of any specific content derived from sensory experience or intuition.
However, Trendelenburg argues, Hegel's dialectic procedure depends on intuition at every turn. What Hegel calls "determinate negation," i.e., transition from a concept to its opposite, is not a movement of pure thought. For instance, Hegel's dialectic starts with the concept "being" and shows it to be essentially related to its opposite, "nothing." Trendelenburg points out that pure logical negation of being yields the content-less "not being." Hegel, however, derives the "nothing" which has positive significance, akin to "lack" or "absence." This positive content springs from an intuition hidden in the putatively pure dialectic (LU1, p. 45). (Käufer, 2005: 259-280)
In this context, it seems that Trendelenburg criticized the "determinate negation," which plays a crucial role in facilitating the transition from "being" to "nothing". Basically Trendeleburg sees the constructive aspect of determinate negation as being sourced from intuition, thus making the logic not-pure.
The dialectic confuses pure negation with real opposition. Trendelenburg argues that all steps in Hegel's logic betray a similar reliance on intuition. Pure thought cannot drive the Hegelian dialectic. (Käufer, 2005: 259-280)
The question arises: **what determines the nature of this negation?** While Trendelenburg implicates intuition as the source, what are other alternative determinants? What other factors contribute to the determination of a negation (since it is not pure)? How does Hegel respond?
My question really is, then, how can someone (how does Hegel, other Hegelians - - didn't get a chance to look at Mctaggart's commentary) deal with this "*pure thought cannot drive the Hegelian dialectic*" attack of transitions from Trendelenburg? If this is true, then how can Logic be the science of pure thought?
Comment by nickdenards at 04/02/2024 at 15:54 UTC
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Reason
Comment by thenonallgod at 04/02/2024 at 20:33 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
This wasn’t a question Hegel had in mind.
Comment by iunoionnis at 05/02/2024 at 11:04 UTC*
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
It’s driven by the contradiction that occurs when we compare the category to the content of the definition provided by the understanding alongside the principle of determinate negation (that contradiction/negation does not reduce to a nullity, but is a nothing that results). The latter is what Trendelenburg is saying is based off the experience of motion, iirc.
Hegel seems to think that determinate negation is self-evident from any number of examples, including examples that are not spatio-temporal. trendelenburg iirc says it depends on experience, like the experience of motion. So if it is an intuition for Hegel, it’s more of a Cartesian style logical intuition than a spatio-temporal intuition.
Being as indeterminate immediacy *is* nothing, its opposite, which is a contradiction. Likewise with nothing. That very contradiction is the concept of becoming: the transition where being is nothing and nothing is being.
I think some of Hegel’s students actually do respond to Trendelenburg, Rosenkranz I believe for sure, although idk which work.
I’d say more but it’s early and I just woke up.
McTaggart’s commentary sucks, don’t bother with it.
Edit:
The commentator seems to be talking about the move from being to nothing, not from the contradiction to becoming, which I’m not sure is a fair representation of Hegel and is possibly misrepresenting Trendelenburg as well.
So there are two moves that need to be justified:
1. Why is being nothing rather than just not-being?
2. Why does the contradiction “being is nothing” (and vice-versa) produce “becoming,” a new positive concept?
In my view these are justified in the following ways:
1. This is justified by the meta-logical commitments about negation and disjunction where we can infer that whatever in no way is is nothing. It has to do with the idea that disjunction determines the entire space of possibilities and that we can infer contraries from a negative. This was taken for granted by Hegel and Kant, yet isn’t an assumption of 20th century formal logic, so you have to retrofit your logic.
2. Hegel says this is “self-evident” if you consider any number of dialectical examples. Of course, Trendelenburg wants to say that we need to draw off the experience of the real contradictions in motion (a point that Engels seems to follow him on), yet Hegel thinks it’s our ability to recognize the logic of certain self-sublating contradictions with reason itself. So like, if I tell you Socrates knows that he knows nothing, therefore he is wise because he knows one thing, viz. that he knows nothing, you recognize that the order of these negations make it so that the “nothing” is both canceled out by Socrates knowing and preserved. You grasp this with reason, not based on spatio-temporal intution.