by Corry Shores
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[Priest, “Dialectic and Dialetheic”, entry directory]
Collected Brief Summaries for
Graham Priest
“Dialectic and Dialetheic”
Dialectics Requires Dialetheism
Priest will argue that Hegel’s and Marx’s dialectics were based on dialetheia, that is, on true contradiction.
Why It Is Necessary to Argue This
Many scholars argue that Marx’s and Hegel’s dialectics involve a non-logical notion of contradiction or that contradiction is conceptual and does not obtain in reality. Priest, however, will argue that the logical sense of contradiction is fundamental to their philosophies of dialectic.
The Argument Against this Interpretation
The main argument against reading Hegel and Marx as dialetheists is that it goes against the basic restriction of classical logic that you cannot have contradictions. But this restriction is based on an assumption and is thus not a necessary one.
Dialetheic logic is just like orthodox logic except that it allows for true contradictions, and when there are true contradictions, we cannot infer from them any other proposition we want.
One way we can illustrate how dialetheic logic can apply to dialectics is by accounting for motion in a Hegelian way. An object in motion is at a certain point at a certain instant, but since it is in motion, in that instant it is already leaving that point. Thus it is both true and false that the object is at that point in that instant.
The History of Hegel’s Dialectic
If we look at three of Hegel’s influences – Neo-Platonists, Kant, and Fichte – we see that Hegel borrowed self-contradictory ideas from each of them. Thus Hegel is a dialetheist, that is, he believes that true contradictions exist.
Contradiction in Hegel’s Dialectic
In Hegel’s dialectical movement, contradictory categories result from one another and are conjoined. It is in this ways that Hegel is a dialetheist [someone who thinks that there exist true contradictions].
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Contradiction in Marx’s Dialectic
Hegel’s dialectic takes the form of identity in difference, formulable as (a=b)&(a≠b). This is a variation on the dialetheic formulation A&~A.
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Dialectics and Epistemology
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Conclusion
Priest, Graham. “Dialectic and Dialetheic.” Science & Society 53, no. 4 (1990): 388–415.
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