10. Hegel’s Revolution in Philosophy

Incidentally, it is not difficult to see that our time is a time of birth and of transition to a new period. Spirit has broken with the previous world of its life and ideas, and is on the point of submerging it in the past; it is at work on its own transformation. Indeed, spirit is never at rest but always engaged in moving forward. But just as the first breath drawn by a child after its long, quiet nourishment breaks the gradualness of merely quantitative growth – a qualitative leap – and now the child is born, so the spirit that cultivates itself matures slowly and quietly into its new shape, dissolving bit by bit the structure of its previous world, whose instability is indicated only by isolated symptoms; the frivolity and boredom that infest the established order, the vague foreboding of something unknown, are heralds of approaching change. This gradual crumbling that did not alter the physiognomy of the whole is interrupted by the sunrise which, like lightning, all of a sudden reveals the contour of the new world.^[1]

HEGEL’S ‘VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY’

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was born in Stuttgart in 1770. In his youth he was a follower, and then a collaborator of Schelling, whose radical views gained him a certain notoriety, until he made his peace with the Prussian authorities in later life. But Hegel soon moved on from his early efforts. Hegel’s original contribution to philosophy begins in 1807 with the publication of The Phenomenology of Spirit. The period under consideration was one of storm and stress. France had erupted in revolution when he was a nineteen-year-old student. The French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars set an indelible stamp on the entire epoch. In Hegel’s own words, the “composition of the book was concluded at mid-night before the battle of Jena.”

This work, which Hegel describes as his voyage of discovery was received with coldness and dissatisfaction by those who had previously been his teachers and friends.

The Phenomenology traces the development of thought through all its phases, proceeding from the lowest, most general and abstract, to the highest form, which he calls the Notion. Each form of knowledge is examined within its own conditions and limits, bringing out its dialectical relation to other forms of thought. Here, Hegel’s method illustrates the importance of philosophy: it alone must consider and justify its own conceptions, unlike mathematics, which proceeds from given axioms which are accepted uncritically. Philosophy presupposes nothing, not even itself.

For the modern reader, the writings of Hegel present considerable difficulties – Abstract and abstruse, Engels called them. This is certainly true of The Phenomenology. At times, one has the impression that Hegel is being deliberately obscure, that he is challenging the reader to penetrate the complex and difficult edifice of dialectical thought. A large part of the difficulty, in fact, stems from the fact that Hegel was an idealist and that, therefore, the dialectic appears here in a mystified form. The Phenomenology is a good example of this.

Here, historical development appears in an idealistic fashion, as the development of self-conscious mind (or spirit). Nevertheless, it is possible to read Hegel, as Marx did, from a materialist point of view, bringing out the rational kernel of his thought. In The Phenomenology, ‘self-consciousness’ reveals its activity in many ways, through sensation and perception, as well as through ideas. In all this, it is possible to perceive the dim outline of real processes that take place in nature, society, and the human mind. In contrast with previous idealist philosophies, Hegel displayed a lively interest in the facts of nature, human nature, and human history. Behind his abstract presentation, there lies a wealth of knowledge of all aspects of history, philosophy and contemporary science. Marx described him as the most encyclopaedic mind of the day.

Behind the ‘abstract and abstruse’ language, once the idealist mystification is stripped away, we see before us a fully fledged revolution in human thought. The Russian radical democrat Herzen referred to the Hegelian dialectic as “the algebra of revolution.”^[2] In an algebraic equation it is necessary to fill in the missing quantities. This was later achieved by Marx and Engels, who rescued the rational kernel of Hegel’s philosophy after his death, and, by placing it on a materialist basis, gave it a scientific character. Commenting on Hegel’s philosophy, Engels writes:

This new German philosophy culminated in the Hegelian system. In this system – and herein is its great merit – for the first time the whole world, natural, historical, intellectual, is represented as a process, i.e., as in constant motion, change, transformation, development; and the attempt is made to trace out the internal connection that makes a continuous whole of all this movement and development. From this point of view the history of mankind no longer appeared as a wild whirl of senseless deeds of violence, all equally condemnable at the judgement-seat of mature philosophic reason and which are best forgotten as quickly as possible, but as the process of evolution of man himself. It was now the task of the intellect to follow the gradual march of this process through all its devious ways, and to trace out the inner law running through all its apparently accidental phenomena.^[3]

HEGEL TODAY

Hegel was a genius who was far ahead of his time. Unfortunately, the level of the natural sciences at the beginning of the nineteenth century did not furnish enough information to allow him to apply his revolutionary new method to full effect, although he had some brilliant insights. Engels applied this method to science in Dialectics of Nature, a masterpiece of dialectical writing. But in our own time, science has furnished a wealth of material which shows the correctness of Hegel’s fundamental ideas. It is a tragedy that the twentieth century lacked a Hegel to provide the necessary insights into these great discoveries.

Nowadays, many scientists adopt a contemptuous attitude towards philosophy, which they regard as superfluous to their requirements. They consider that the actual progress made by science places them far above philosophy. In reality, however, they are far below philosophy at its most primitive level. It is said that nature abhors a vacuum. In the absence of a consistent and worked-out philosophy, they fall prey to all kind of prejudices and false ideas which they unconsciously imbibe from the prevailing tendencies and mood in society in which they live. This flotsam and jetsam, together with a few confused recollections of bad philosophy they picked up at university, provide the sum total of the intellectual baggage of many supposedly educated people, including scientists. As Hegel humorously observed, these are “perfect equivalent of this journey and as good a substitute for it as chicory is reputed to be for coffee”.^[4]

For the last century-and-a-half, Hegel has been sadly neglected. The dominant schools of Western philosophy, Postmodernism, analytic philosophy and logical positivism (the latter of which was born partly as a reaction against Hegelianism), have treated Hegel rather as extreme Protestants treat the Pope of Rome. In turn, the views of this philosophical sect has influenced many scientists. One of the very few modern scientists in the West who has been prepared to give Hegel his due is the Belgian Ilya Prigogine, who has developed the theory of chaos and complexity, a line of thinking which has much in common with dialectics. It is a very simple matter to dismiss Hegel (or Engels) because their writings on science were necessarily limited by the actual state of science of the day. What is remarkable, however, is how advanced Hegel’s views on science actually were.

In their book Order out of Chaos, Prigogine and Stengers point out that Hegel rejected the mechanistic method of classical Newtonian physics, at a time when Newton’s ideas were universally sacrosanct:

The Hegelian philosophy of nature systematically incorporates all that is denied by Newtonian science. In particular, it rests on the qualitative difference between the simple behaviour described by mechanics and the behaviour of more complex entities such as living beings. It denies the possibility of reducing those levels, rejecting the idea that differences are merely apparent and that nature is basically homogeneous and simple. It affirms the existence of a hierarchy, each level of which presupposes the preceding ones.^[5]

Prigogine and Stengers refer to the unjust neglect from which Hegel has suffered, precisely at a time when his criticisms of Newtonian mechanism had been shown to be correct:

In a sense Hegel’s system provides a consistent philosophic response to the crucial problems of time and complexity. However, for generations of scientists it represented the epitome of abhorrence and contempt. In a few years, the intrinsic difficulties of Hegel’s philosophy of nature were aggravated by the obsolescence of the scientific background on which his system was based, for Hegel, of course, based his rejection of the Newtonian system on the scientific conceptions of his time. And it was precisely those conceptions that were to fall into oblivion with astonishing speed. It is difficult to imagine a less opportune time than the beginning of the nineteenth century for seeking experimental and theoretical support for an alternative to classical science. Although this time was characterised by a remarkable extension of the experimental scope of science and by a proliferation of theories that seemed to contradict Newtonian science, most of those theories had to be given up only a few years after their appearance.^[6]

There are only a couple of things that need to be added to this. Firstly, what was valuable in Hegel’s philosophy was not his system, but the dialectical method. Part of the reason why Hegel’s writings are obscure is precisely that he tried to force the dialectic – which he developed brilliantly – into the straitjacket of an arbitrary idealist philosophical system. When it did not fit, he resorted to all manner of subterfuges and peculiar modes of reasoning which make the whole thing extremely convoluted and obscure.

However, we are firmly convinced that the main reason for the shameful conspiracy against Hegel has nothing to do with the obscurity of his style. That did not worry the university professors 100 years ago. Moreover, the obscurity of Hegel is nothing compared to the senseless linguistic meanderings of the logical positivists, who are held up as models of ‘coherent thought’, though nobody quite knows why. No, the real reason why Hegel became converted into a non-person is because it was realised that his dialectical philosophy was the point of departure for the revolutionary ideas of Marx and Engels. Poor old Hegel, conservative in real life, has been tried in his absence and found guilty by association.

The fear of Hegel’s ideas is neither accidental nor mistaken. Even in the nineteenth century, the danger posed by the dialectic was clear to some. James Stirling, a prominent English ‘Hegelian’, wrote in 1867: “This dialectic, it appears to me, has led to much that is equivocal both in Hegel and in others, and may become a pest yet.”^[7] Even during his lifetime, the revolutionary implications of Hegel’s philosophy began to disturb the Prussian authorities. The defeat of the French in 1815 ushered in a period of reaction all over Europe. The so-called Carlsbad decrees of 1819 subjected the universities in all areas under Prussian jurisdiction to inquisitorial control. The slightest non-conformity was looked upon as subversion. A stifling atmosphere of petty provincialism prevailed in the lands of the ‘cabbage Junkers’, as Marx later ironically called the Prussian feudal aristocrats.

In Berlin, where Hegel taught at the university, spiteful rumours were put in circulation by Hegel’s enemies that his ideas were un-Christian, or even downright atheism. From then on, he was a marked man. Attacked by both Rationalists and Evangelicals, Hegel defended himself vigorously, pointing out that “all speculative philosophy on religion may be carried to atheism: all depends on who carries it; the peculiar piety of our times and the malevolence of demagogues will not let us want carriers.”^[8]

Such was the atmosphere of persecution that Hegel even considered moving to Belgium, as Marx later did. In 1827, he wrote a letter to his wife commenting that he had looked at the universities of Liège and Louvain with the feeling that they might one day provide him a resting place, “when the parsons in Berlin make the Kupfergraben completely intolerable for him”. “The Roman Curia”, he added, “would be a more honourable opponent than the miserable cabals of a miserable boiling of parsons in Berlin”.^[9] It is ironic that at the end of his life, the conservative and religious Hegel should be regarded as a dangerous radical. Yet there was more than a grain of truth behind the suspicions of the reactionaries. Hidden within the philosophy of Hegel was the germ of a revolutionary idea, which would transform the world. This, in itself, constitutes the most remarkable example of a dialectical contradiction!

In his History of Philosophy Hegel revealed the hidden dialectical relationship between different schools of thought, showing how different theories revealed different aspects of the truth, which do not so much contradict, as complement and complete one another. In the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences, Hegel likewise attempts to show the whole of science as an integrally collective whole. It is not merely a collection of sciences or a dictionary of philosophical knowledge but science presented as a dialectically interrelated totality. This is a very modern conception.

Hegel did not set out to deny or demolish previous philosophy, but to summarise all previous schools of thought, and arrive at a dialectical synthesis. But in so doing, he pushed philosophy to its limits. Beyond this point, it was impossible to develop philosophy without transforming it into something different. It is possible to say that, since Hegel, nothing new has really been said on the main philosophical questions. Subsequent schools of philosophy, which purport to be new and original, merely rehash old ideas, invariably in a more superficial and unsatisfactory manner. The only real revolution in philosophy since Hegel was the one effected by Marx and Engels, which passes beyond the limits of philosophy as a merely intellectual exercise, and carries it into the realm of practice and the struggle to change society.

Hegel says in the History of Philosophy that “the being of mind is its act, and its act is to be aware of itself.” But in Hegel, thinking is not merely a contemplative activity. The highest form of thought, reason, does not merely accept the given facts, but works upon them and transforms them. The contradiction between thought and being, between ‘subject’ and ‘object’, is overcome in Hegel through the process of knowledge itself, which penetrates ever deeper into the objective world. From a materialist point of view, however, thinking is not an isolated activity, but is inseparable from human existence in general. Mankind develops thought through concrete, sensuous activity, not merely intellectual activity. By transforming the material world through labour, men and women also transform themselves, and, in so doing, develop and extend the horizon of their thinking. In embryo, the elements of this dialectical conception are already present in Hegel. What Marx did was to strip it of its idealist disguise, and express it in a clear and scientific manner.

THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE

As we have seen, one of the fundamental problems of philosophy is the relation between thought and being. What is the relation between consciousness (knowledge) and the objective world? Kant claimed that there was an unbridgeable gap between the thinking subject and the unknowable Thing-in-Itself. Hegel poses the question differently. The process of thinking is the unity of subject and object. Thought is not a barrier separating man from the objective world, but, on the contrary, is a process linking (‘mediating’) the two. Taking as its starting point the reality immediately given in sense-perception, human thought does not merely passively accept, as Locke imagined, but sets to work, transforming this information, breaking it down into its component parts, and putting it together again. Man uses rational thought to go beyond immediate reality. Dialectical thought, in analysing a given phenomenon, divides it into its component parts and demonstrates those contradictory features and tendencies which give it life and movement.

Scientific knowledge does not consist of a mere catalogue of particular items. If we say ‘all animals’, that is not yet zoology. Above and beyond the facts, it is necessary to discover laws and objective processes. It is necessary to uncover the objective relations between things, and explain the transitions between one state and the other. The history of science, like that of philosophy, is a permanent process of affirmation and negation, a ceaseless process and development, in which one idea negates another, and, in its turn, is negated in a never-ending process of deepening our knowledge of ourselves and the universe. A similar phenomenon may be seen in the mental development of the infant.

Hegel’s great merit was to show the dialectical character of the development of human thought, from its embryonic phase, passing through a whole series of stages, and finally arriving at the highest stage of reason: the Notion. In Hegelian language, it is the process from being ‘in itself’ to being ‘in and for itself’, that is to say, from undeveloped, implicit being to developed and explicit being. The human embryo is, potentially, a human being, but it is not a human being in and for itself. In order to realise its full potential, a whole period of development is necessary, in which infancy, adolescence and middle age constitute necessary stages. The thought of a child evidently has an immature character. But even a correct idea expressed by a youth does not have the same weight as the same idea expressed by an old person, who has experienced life, and consequently has a deeper understanding of what these words actually mean.

In Hegel, the real development of human beings is presented in a mystical form, as the development of spirit. As an idealist, Hegel had no real conception of the development of society, although there are some brilliant anticipations of historical materialism in his writings. Thought appears here as an expression of the Absolute Idea, a mystical concept about which the only thing we learn, as Engels ironically put it, is that he tells us absolutely nothing about it. In reality, thought is the product of the human brain and nervous system, inseparable from the human body, which, in turn, depends upon food, which, in turn, presupposes human society and productive relations.

Thought is a product of matter that thinks, the highest achievement of nature. Inanimate matter possesses the potential to produce life. Even the lowest forms of life possess sensibility, irritability, which has the potential to produce, in higher animals, a nervous system and a brain. Hegel’s ‘self-consciousness’ is merely a fantastic way of expressing the historical process by which real human beings gradually become conscious of themselves and the world in which they live. This does not come about easily or automatically, any more than the individual human being automatically acquires consciousness in the transition from infancy to adulthood. In both cases, the process takes place through a prolonged and often traumatic series of stages. The development of human thought, as reflected in the history of philosophy and science, and of culture in general, reveals itself as a contradictory process, in which one stage supersedes another, and, in its turn, is superseded. It is not a straight line, but one that is continuously interrupted, with periods of stagnation, faltering and even reversals, which, however, merely prepare the ground for new advances.

HOW THOUGHT DEVELOPS

The very beginnings of human thought, mind in its immediate and primitive stage, is sense perception: primitive humans, through his senses, begins by registering and memorising the data immediately provided by his environment, without understanding the true nature, causal relationships and laws which underlie them. From observation and experience, gradually the human mind proceeds to make a number of generalisations of a more or less abstract character. This process involves a long and laborious journey lasting several millions of years, extremely slow at first, but rapidly gathering momentum in the last ten thousand years. Yet, despite the colossal strides made by thought and science, ordinary thinking remains on quite a primitive level.

When we first consider any subject, we first form a notion of the whole, without grasping all the concrete content and detailed interconnections. It is merely a general outline and a bare abstraction. Thus, the Ionic philosophers and even Buddhism intuitively grasped the universe as a constantly changing dialectical whole. But this initial notion lacks all definition and concreteness. It is necessary to go further and provide the general picture with a definite expression, analysing and specifying the precise relations of its content. It has to be analysed and quantified. Without this, science in general is impossible. This is the difference between crude, immediate, undeveloped thought and science as such.

At the dawn of human consciousness, men and women did not clearly distinguish themselves from nature, just as a newborn baby does not distinguish itself from its mother. Gradually, over a long period, humans learned to distinguish, to cognize the world, by detecting focal points in the bewildering web of natural phenomena surrounding them, to observe, compare, generalise, and draw conclusions. In this way, over countless millennia, a series of important generalisations were built up from experience, which gradually came to crystallise into the familiar forms of thought which, because we are so familiar with them, we take for granted.

Common, everyday thought relies heavily on sense perception, immediate experience, appearances, and that peculiar hybrid of experience and superficial thinking called ‘common sense’. These things are normally sufficient to carry us through life. But they are insufficient to arrive at a scientific understanding and, at a certain point, break down and become useless even for practical purposes. It is necessary to go beyond the immediate experience of sense perception, and to grasp the general processes, laws and hidden relations which lie beyond frequently deceptive appearance.

Ordinary human thought prefers to cling to what is concrete and familiar. It is easier to accept what is apparently fixed and well known rather than new ideas which challenge what is familiar and customary. Routine, tradition, custom and social convention represent a powerful force in society, akin to the force of inertia in mechanics. In normal periods, most people are reluctant to question the society in which they live: its morality, ideology and property forms. All kinds of prejudices, political ideas, ‘scientific’ orthodoxy are accepted uncritically, until some profound change in people’s lives forces them to question what is.

Social and intellectual conformism is the commonest form of self-deception. Familiar ideas are taken to be correct just because they are familiar. Thus, the notion that private property, money and the bourgeois family are eternal and unchanging features of life has sunk deeply into the popular consciousness, although it bears no relation whatsoever to the truth. Dialectics is the direct opposite of this superficial and commonplace way of thinking. Precisely because it challenges familiar ideas, it frequently arouses fierce opposition. How is it possible to challenge the law of identity, which states what seems obvious, that ‘A’ equals ‘A’? This so-called law is the logical reflection of a popular prejudice, that everything is what it is, and nothing else; that nothing changes. Dialectics, on the contrary, sets out from the opposite point of view, that everything changes, comes into being and passes away.

The empiricist thinker, who claims to take things ‘as they are’, imagines himself to be very practical and concrete. But, in reality, things are not always what they seem to be, and frequently turn out to be their opposite. This kind of immediate sensuous knowledge is the lowest kind of knowledge, like that of a baby. A really scientific understanding of reality requires us to break down the information provided by sense perception in order to get at the true nature of the things under consideration. A deeper analysis always reveals the contradictory tendencies which underlie even the most apparently fixed, solid, and immutable things, which eventually will lead to them being transformed into their opposites. It is precisely these contradictions which are the source of all life, movement and development throughout nature. In order to get a real understanding, it is necessary to take things, not just as they are, but also as they have been, and as they necessarily will become.

For simple everyday purposes, formal logic and ‘common sense’ are sufficient. But beyond certain limits it no longer applies. At this point dialectics becomes absolutely essential. Unlike formal logic, which cannot grasp contradictions and seeks to eliminate them, dialectics represents the logic of contradiction, which is a fundamental aspect of nature and thought. By a process of analysis, dialectics reveals these contradictions and shows how they are resolved. However, new contradictions always appear, thus giving rise to a never-ending spiral of development. This process can be seen in the entire development of science and philosophy, which takes place through contradictions. This is not an accident. It reflects the nature of human knowledge as an infinite process in which the solution of one problem immediately gives rise to new ones, which are in turn resolved, and so on ad infinitum.

If we set out from the most elementary form of knowledge at the level of sense-experience, the limitations of formal logic and ‘common sense’ very soon become clear. The mind simply registers the facts as we find them. At first sight, the truths of sense perception seem to be simple and self-evident. They can be confidently relied upon, but on closer examination, things are not so simple. What appears to be solid and reliable turns out not to be so. The ground begins to shift beneath our feet.

Sense-certainty sets out from the ‘here’ and the ‘now’. Of this Hegel says:

So we have to put the question to sensory certainty itself: What is the This? If we take the This in the twofold shape of its Being, as the Now and as the Here, the dialectic it has in it will receive a form as intelligible as the This itself is. To the question: What is the Now? we answer, for example: The Now is the night. In order to test the truth of this sensory certainty a simple experiment suffices. We write down this truth; a truth cannot lose anything by being written down, nor can it lose anything through our preserving it. If now, this noon, we look again at the written truth we shall have to say that it has become stale.^[10]

This comment of Hegel recalls the famous paradoxes of Zeno in relation to motion. For example, if we wish to fix the position of an arrow flying, to say where it is now, the moment that we point to it, it has already passed, and therefore the ‘now’ is not something that is, but something that has been. Thus, what initially appears to be true, turns out to be false. The reason is to be found in the contradictory nature of movement itself. Movement is a process, not a collection of separate points. Similarly, time consists of an infinite number of ‘nows’, all taken together. Likewise, the ‘here’ turns out to be not a single ‘here’, but a before and a behind, and an above and a below, and a right and a left. What is here, as a tree, the next minute is here as a house, or something else.

DIALECTICAL AND FORMAL THINKING

The correct application of the dialectical method means that the investigator must completely immerse himself in the study of the object, examining it from all sides in order to determine the inner contradictions and necessary laws of motion which govern its existence. The classical example of this method is to be found in the three volumes of Marx’s Capital. Marx did not invent the laws which govern the capitalist mode of production in an arbitrary fashion, but derived them from a painstaking dialectical analysis of all aspects of capitalism, tracing its historical development and following the process of commodity production through all its phases.

In his Philosophical Notebooks, which contain a detailed study of Hegel’s Science of Logic, Lenin points out that the first condition for dialectical thought is: “The determination of the concept out of itself (the thing itself must be considered in its relations and in its development).”^[11] Or, put another way, the dialectical method sets out from “the objectivity of consideration (not examples, not divergences, but the Thing-in-itself).”^[12]

The first and lowest form of thought is sense-perception, that is to say, the information immediately given to us by our senses – what we see, hear, touch, etc. This is followed by understanding (Verstand), which attempts to explain what is, but does so in a one-sided way, registering isolated facts. Broadly speaking, the understanding here is identical with formal logic, ordinary thinking, and ‘common sense’. We see that a thing exists, that it is itself, and nothing but itself. There seems nothing more to be said. But, in reality, there is a great deal more to be said. The understanding presents things as isolated, fixed and unchanging. Reality, however, is not like that at all.

A more advanced form of thinking is what Hegel (and Kant) call Reason (Vernunft). Reason attempts to go beyond the immediate facts established by understanding, to break them down, dissolve them, and behind the apparently solid exterior appearances, to reveal the inner contradictory tendencies, which, sooner or later, will lead to profound transformations. “The battle of reason”, says Hegel, “is the struggle to break up the rigidity to which the understanding has reduced everything.”^[13]

The first principle of dialectical thought is absolute objectivity. The subject matter must be approached objectively, and the final result must not be anticipated in advance. We must absorb ourselves in the subject matter, until we grasp not just a series of isolated facts, but their inner connection and lawfulness. The laws of dialectics, unlike formal logic, are not arbitrary constructions which can be applied in an external manner to any particular content. They have been derived from a careful observation of the development of nature, society and human thought.

The usual forms of thought represented by formal logic can be applied to any subject matter in an external and arbitrary fashion. Indeed, the real content of the subject matter is entirely irrelevant to it. Formal logic, as expressed in the abstract law of identity (‘A’ equals ‘A’) appears to express an indisputable truth. In reality, it is an empty tautology, “monochrome formalism”, or as Hegel says wittily, “the night in which … all cows are black – this is the naiveté of emptiness of cognition.”^[14]

The so-called law of identity is only an abstract form with no real content, incapable of movement or further development. It cannot be applied to the dynamic reality of a restless universe, in which everything constantly changes, comes into being, and passes away, and therefore cannot be considered self-equal. In the same way, the law of contradiction is false because every really existing thing contains both positive and negative. It is and it is not because it is in a constant state of movement and change. The only thing which does not change is change itself. All attempts to fix the truth as a one-sided and static thing are doomed to failure. The existence of contradiction is reflected intuitively in the popular consciousness in the form of proverbs and sayings which, however, because of their unsystematic and intuitive character, often contradict each other. For example, “One man’s meat is another man’s poison.”

In science also we see contradictions at all levels, for example attraction and repulsion, north and south in magnetism, positive and negative in electricity, action and reaction in mechanics, contraction and expansion, etc. As against formal logic, dialectics does not inflict itself on nature, but derives its categories from reality itself. Real dialectics has nothing in common with the caricature outlined by its critics, who try to present it as a subjective and arbitrary play on words. This is really the dialectic of Sophism, which, like formal logic, is also applied in an external manner to any given content with the intention of manipulating contradictions in a subjective manner. Nor does dialectics have anything in common with the gross oversimplification of the ‘triad’ (thesis, antithesis, synthesis), which was adopted by Kant and turned into a lifeless formula. Real dialectics attempts to discover, by means of a rigorously objective analysis, the inner logic and laws of motion of a given phenomenon.

HEGEL’S ‘LOGIC’

The Logic of Hegel is one of the pinnacles of human thought. It is the systematic exposition and development of all the forms of thought, from the more primitive undeveloped thought, up to the highest form of dialectical reasoning, which Hegel calls the Notion.

He sets out with the most general proposition possible – that of ‘pure being’ – something that seems to require no further proof. From this extremely abstract idea, he proceeds, step by step, along a process which leads from the abstract to the concrete.

This process of reasoning proceeds by stages, in which each stage negates the previous one. The history of thought, particularly that of philosophy and science, shows that knowledge is acquired precisely in this way, in a never-ending process whereby we obtain an increasingly precise idea of the workings of the universe. In Hegel, each stage is no sooner affirmed than it is negated, and the result is a higher, richer, more concrete idea.

In general outline, Hegel’s Logic can be divided into three main parts: The Doctrine of Being, The Doctrine of Essence (essential nature) and the Doctrine of the Notion. Hegel begins his philosophy with the most fundamental category of thought – the category of Being. Evidently, anything which we consider must exist, before anything else. This seems to be the basis of all our knowledge. But things are not so simple as that. The bare statement of existence, without further details, does not get us very far. We want to know more. But the moment we pass from the abstract idea of being in general to a more concrete idea, being turns into its opposite. Hegel shows that being in general is the same as – nothing.

This idea seems strange, but actually can be seen to be true on many different levels. If we try to eliminate all contradiction from things, and cling to the idea that they just are, we arrive at the opposite conclusion, because there can be no being without not-being, just as there can be no life without death, and no light without darkness. People who have spent a long time in the Arctic know that the effect of unrelieved whiteness is the same as that of total blackness to the human vision.

It is, in fact, an empty abstraction, since it lacks all concreteness. In reality, the dialectical unity of being and nothing is becoming, that is the process of change. This is what Heraclitus meant when he said everything is and is not, because everything is in flux. Everyone knows from experience that things are frequently not what they seem to be. Things that appear to be stable, so that we can say ‘they are’, on closer examination turn out to be unstable, and change into something else, and they ‘are not’. Moreover, this contradiction between being and not being is the basis of all life and movement.

In Hegel, the category of being represents the stage of primitive, undeveloped thought. It is thought only as a potential, like the thought of a small child, or early proto-humans. It is embryonic thought. An embryo begins as a single cell, with no clearly developed features. It is not clearly identifiable as a human being. In order to develop, it must first negate itself. Inside the cell, there are contradictory tendencies which give rise to a process of inner differentiation. When these conflicting tendencies reach a certain point, the cell divides in two. The original, undifferentiated cell has ceased to exist. It has been cancelled, negated. Yet at the same time, it has been preserved, and carried onto a higher level. The process is repeated many times, giving rise to increasing organisation and greater complexity, with more clearly distinguishable features, eventually giving rise to a fully-fledged human being.

The point is that, in real life, the negative side of things is equally as important as the positive. We are accustomed to look upon life and death as completely opposite poles. But in practice, they are two parts of the same process, and are inseparable. The process of life, growth and development can only take place through the constant renewal of all the cells of the organism, some dying, others coming into being. Even on the most primitive level, life involves constant change in which the organism constantly absorbs food from its surroundings and uses it to build itself, while getting rid of waste matter. Therefore, every living thing is and is not at the same time, because everything is in a constant state of flux. To be without contradiction is to lack all inner differentiation, to have no movement, to be in a state of static equilibrium – in a word, to be dead.

In the words of Prigogine and Stengers:

The living cell presents an incessant metabolic activity. There thousands of chemical reactions take place simultaneously to transform the matter the cell feeds on, to synthesise the fundamental biomolecules, and to eliminate waste products. As regards both the different reaction rates and the reaction sites within the cell, this chemical activity is highly coordinated. The biological structure thus combines order and activity. In contrast, an equilibrium state remains inert even though it may be structured, as, for example, with a crystal.^[15]

At first sight, these observations may seem like pointless subtleties. In point of fact, they are extremely profound reflections, which are not only applicable to thought, but also to nature. And, although it is not always obvious, the same is true of inanimate nature also. Indeed, Hegel considered that the two were inseparably linked. “Everything flows and nothing stays”, said Heraclitus. “We step and we do not step into the same stream”.^[16] Hegel here is saying the same thing. At the heart of this philosophy is a dynamic view of the universe; a view which deals with things as living processes, not dead objects; in their essential interrelations, not separate bits and pieces, or arbitrary lists; as a whole, which is greater than the sum of the parts.

QUANTITY AND QUALITY

Everything can be seen from two points of view – quality and quantity. The fact that the world consists of a sum total of processes which are constantly changing does not mean that real things do not have a definite form of existence, an identity. However much an object changes, it remains, within certain limits, a qualitatively distinct form of existence, different from another. It is this qualitative definiteness which gives things stability, differentiates them, and makes the world so rich and boundlessly varied.

The properties of a thing are what makes it what it is. But this quality is not reducible to its separate properties. It is bound up with the object as a whole. Thus, a human being is not just an assemblage of bone tissue, blood, muscles, etc. Life itself is a complex phenomenon which cannot be reduced to the sum total of its individual molecules, but arises from the interactions between them. To use the modern terminology of complexity theory, life is an emergent phenomenon.

The relation of whole and parts was dealt with at length by Hegel, who wrote:

The limbs and organs, for instance, of an organic body are not merely parts of it: it is only in their unity that they are what they are, and they are unquestionably affected by that unity, as they also in turn affect it. These limbs and organs become mere parts, only when they pass under the hands of the anatomist, whose occupation, be it remembered, is not with the living body but with the corpse. Not that such analysis is illegitimate: we only mean that the external and mechanical relation of whole and parts is not sufficient for us, if we want to study organic life in its truth.^[17]

It is interesting to note that the latest ideas which have caught the imagination of an important section of the scientific community – the theories of chaos and complexity – were anticipated long ago by Hegel and, in many respects, received a much more comprehensive treatment in his hands. A case in point is his explanation of the transformation of quantity into quality, whereby an accumulation of small changes brings about a sudden change in quality.

In addition to the quality which defines the essential features of an object, all things possess quantitative features – a definite magnitude, number, volume, speed of its processes, degree of development of its properties, and so on. The quantitative side of things is that which permits them to be divided (actually or mentally) into their constituent parts and put together again. In contrast to quality, changes in quantity do not alter the nature of the whole, or cause its destruction. Only when a definite limit is reached, which is different in each case, do changes of quantitative character cause a sudden qualitative transformation.

In mathematics, the quantitative aspect of things is separated from their content and regarded as something independent. The extremely wide field of applicability of mathematics to spheres of natural science and technology with very different contents is explained by the fact that it deals purely with quantitative relations. Here, it is claimed, it is possible to reduce quality to quantity. This is the fundamental error of which Marx and Engels referred to as the metaphysical mode of thought, and which nowadays is termed reductionism. There is nothing in the real world that consists only of quantity, just as there is nothing which is pure quality. Everything in reality consists of the unity of quantity and quality, which Hegel called Measure.

Measure is the organic unity of quantity and quality. Every qualitatively distinct object, as we have seen, contains quantitative elements which are mobile and variable. Living organisms grow at a certain rate. Gases and liquids are affected by variations in temperature. The behaviour of a water droplet or a heap of sand is determined by its size, and so on. These mutations, however, are necessarily bounded by definite limits, which are different in each case, but in practice can usually be discovered. Carried beyond this limit, quantitative changes bring about a qualitative transformation. In its turn, the qualitative change brings about a change in its quantitative attributes. There are not only changes of quantity to quality, but also the opposite process, where a change in quality causes a change in quantity. The critical points of transition from one state to another are expressed as nodal points in Hegel’s nodal line of measurement.

ESSENCE

The Doctrine of Essence is the most important part of Hegel’s philosophy, because it is here that he explains the dialectic in detail. Human thought does not stop at what is immediately given in sense perception, but seeks to go beyond it and grasp the thing-in-itself. Beyond appearance, we look for the essence of a thing. But this is not immediately accessible. We can see the sun and moon, but we cannot ‘see’ the laws of gravity. In order to go beyond appearance, the mind must be actively brought into play, to break down what we earlier learned through understanding. If the understanding is positive, asserting that a given thing ‘is’, dialectical reasoning is essentially negative, in that it dissolves what ‘is’, and reveals the inner contradictions, which will inevitably destroy it.

The contradiction which lies at the heart of all things is expressed as the idea of the unity of opposites. Dialectically, what seem to be mutually exclusive phenomena are actually inseparable, as Hegel explains:

Positive and negative are supposed to express an absolute difference. The two however are at bottom the same: the name of either might be transferred to the other. Thus, for example, debts and assets are not two particular, self-subsisting species of property. What is negative to the debtor is positive to the creditor. A way to the east is also a way to the west. Positive and negative are therefore intrinsically conditioned by one another, and are only in relation to each other. The north pole of the magnet cannot be without the south pole, and vice versa. If we cut a magnet in two, we have not a north pole in one piece, and a south pole in the other. Similarly, in electricity, the positive and the negative are not two diverse and independent fluids.^[18]

In the process of analysis, Hegel enumerates a series of important stages: positive and negative; necessity and accident; quantity and quality; form and content; action and repulsion; and so on. One of the central features of Essence is that it is relative – everything is related to something else, in a universal web of interaction. The basic law of elementary knowledge (understanding) is the law of identity (‘A’ = ‘A’). This is generally considered as the basis of all that we know. Up to a point, this is correct. Without the law of identity, coherent thought would be impossible. We ascertain the basic fact of existence, and focus our attention on a particular thing. However, identity presupposes difference. A cat is a cat, because it is not a dog, a mouse, an elephant, and so on. In order to establish identity, we must compare something to another.

In real life, nothing is purely itself, as implied by the law of identity, despite its apparently absolute character. Everything is determined by everything else. In that sense everything is relative. As Engels remarks:

The true nature of the determinations of ‘essence’ is expressed by Hegel himself (Enzyklopädie, I, paragraph 111, addendum): “In essence everything is relative” (e.g., positive and negative, which have meaning only in their relation, not each for itself).^[19]

Not only that. Nothing is simple, as also implied in the law of identity. As we saw in relation to the simple cell or embryo, concrete being, as opposed to the purely abstract being of mere ‘identity’, must contain inner differentiation. Moreover, this differentiation contains the seeds of contradiction. In order to develop, in order to live, the cell must contain the tendency toward self-dissolution, towards division, towards negation. This inner tension is, in fact, the basis of all life. But it is also found in non-living objects, such as the phenomenon of surface tension in a drop of water, which holds the molecules in a certain order, and innumerable other examples.

The attempt to banish contradiction from thought has been an obsession of logicians for centuries. Hegel was the first one to show that, in fact, contradiction lies at the heart of everything that really exists. If we attempt to think of the world without contradiction, as traditional formal logic tries to do, all that we achieve is to introduce insoluble contradictions into thought. This was the real meaning of Kant’s ‘antinomies’. To separate identity and difference, to attempt to deny the existence of contradiction, leads thought into a barren and empty formalism.

APPEARANCE AND ESSENCE

Most people realise that ‘appearances are deceptive’. However, this is only relatively true. In order to arrive at an understanding of the essence of a thing, we must begin by a thorough acquaintance with precisely these ‘appearances’, that is, with all the physical features, properties and tendencies we can observe. In the course of such an analysis, it will become clear that certain facts can be omitted as ‘unessential’ and, gradually, we will arrive at the most fundamental characteristics of the object under consideration.

It is very common to say about somebody: “Yes, but he’s not really like that.” The implication is that people are not what they seem to be. Appearance is one thing, but essence is supposed to be completely different. However, this is not quite true. If we only have a slight acquaintance with a person, then it is true that we cannot form an accurate impression of him or her on the basis of their conduct. It may be completely untypical. But if we have known people for a long time, we have sufficient reason to believe that we know them as they are. We precisely base ourselves on ‘appearances’ because there is nothing else to base ourselves on. The Bible says “by their fruits shall you know them”,^[20] and that is correct. As a man or woman lives and acts, so they are. There is nothing else to look for.

This was the fundamental error of Kant, when he tried to draw a line between appearances and some mysterious ‘thing’ that lay beyond experience which was supposed to be forever beyond human knowledge. In fact, once we know all the properties of a thing, we know the thing itself. We may be limited at any given moment in time by lack of information, but, in principle, there is nothing which is forever barred to human knowledge, except one thing – to know everything about an infinite universe. This is no real limitation, but simply an expression of the dialectical relation between the finite nature of individuals, and an infinite universe, which is constantly revealing new secrets. And although the particular knowledge of one person is finite, from one generation to another, the sum-total of knowledge and understanding of humanity increases. The process of learning is never-ending. Precisely in this lies its fascination and its beauty.

We set out from what is known, in order to discover what is not known. One thing leads to another. A doctor, basing himself on all his knowledge of medical science and past experience, carefully examines all the available symptoms and arrives at a diagnosis. A sailor will study the wind and tides in order to guess the possibilities of putting to sea. In this way, essence is manifested through appearance, although it requires a certain skill and understanding to pass from the one to the other.

One of the greatest errors it is possible to commit when dealing with the processes that occur in society is to approach them as static and fixed – that is to say, from the standpoint of formal logic. One frequently comes across this kind of thing – narrow-minded prejudice masquerading as ‘practical wisdom’. It is said that ‘people will never change’, ‘things will always be as they are’, and ‘there is nothing new under the sun’. This kind of superficial thought pretends to be profound, but really only reveals the kind of ignorance which is content with itself. No rational reason is given for such assertions. Occasionally an attempt is made to give it a biological basis, with vague references to something called ‘human nature’, from which we instantly deduce that the individual in question knows nothing whatsoever about humans or their nature.

This kind of mentality is strictly limited to its own narrow experience of the world of appearance in the most superficial sense. It is very much like a man who is constantly skating on the surface, without bothering to inquire about the thickness of the ice. Such a person may get away with it nine times out of ten. One day, however, he finds himself drowning in icy water. At that precise moment, he begins to realise that maybe the ice was not as solid as it looked.

‘A’ is ‘A’. You are you. I am myself. People are people. A dollar is a dollar. Society is society. The trade unions are the trade unions. Such sentences seem reassuring, but in fact are empty of all content. Insofar as they express anything at all, it is the idea that everything is itself, and nothing changes. However, experience tells us something different. Things are constantly changing and, at a critical point, small quantitative changes can produce massive transformations.

FORM AND CONTENT

There are many contradictions in things. For instance, the contradiction between form and content. Every gardener knows that a seed carefully planted in a pot will produce a plant. Initially, the pot protects the young plant and helps it to thrive. But at a certain stage, the roots become too big for the space allowed. The gardener must remove it from the pot, or it will die. Similarly, the human embryo is protected by the mother’s womb for nine months. At this point, a critical stage is reached in which, either the baby is separated from the mother’s body, or both will perish. These are examples of the contradiction between form and content which are readily understood. Another example would be the way in which the forces which accumulate beneath the earth’s crust eventually produce an earthquake.

Similar forces build up within society, which also has its ‘fault-lines’. The action of these forces is no more visible than those that cause an earthquake. To the superficial observer, nothing is happening. Everything is ‘normal’. The skilled observer, however, is able to detect the symptoms of subterranean activity in society, just as a competent geologist can read a seismograph. Trotsky once defined theory as the superiority of foresight over astonishment. It is the fate of superficial and empirical thought to be constantly astonished, like the man who fell through the ice. It is the price one pays for confusing appearance with essence and form with content.

The essence of a thing is the sum total of its most fundamental properties. The task of dialectical analysis is to determine these. In each case it will be found that there is a potential contradiction between the present state and tendencies which are tending to dissolve it. In classical mechanics, the idea of a perfect equilibrium plays a central role. Things tend to return to equilibrium. That is, at least, in theory. In real life, a perfect equilibrium is a rarity. Whenever equilibrium is reached, it tends to be temporary and unstable. Development and change presuppose this. In the intensive ward of a hospital, when a heart monitor reaches a state of ‘equilibrium’, i.e., a straight line, this signifies death of the organism.

When referring to the properties of a thing, it is customary to use the verb ‘to have’: fire has the property of burning; a human being has the properties of breathing, thinking, eating, etc. This gives the wrong idea. A child has an ice-cream. A woman has a dog. The relationship here is accidental and external, since the child and the woman could equally well not have these things, and still be a child and a woman. A thing does not ‘have’ properties – it is the sum-total of its properties. Take these away, and we are left with nothing, which is what Kant’s Thing-in-Itself really was. This is an extremely important idea, which is only now beginning to be understood by scientists. The whole cannot be reduced to the sum of its parts, because in entering into a dynamic relationship, the parts themselves become transformed, and give rise to an entirely new situation, governed by qualitatively different laws.

This phenomenon can be seen in society. Trotsky pointed out that the working class, without organisation, is only “raw material for exploitation.”^[21] This fact is starkly revealed in periods like the present, when trade unions are eliminated or undermined in many workplaces. Historically, the movement of the workers to organise themselves brings about a complete transformation of the situation. Quantity becomes transformed into quality. Whereas individual workers are powerless, the class organised as a class has colossal power, at least potentially. Not a wheel turns, not a telephone rings, not a light bulb shines without the kind permission of the working class. In Hegelian language, the working class before it is organised, is only a class ‘in itself’ – that is, an unrealised potential. Once it becomes organised and conscious of its power, it becomes a class ‘for itself’. Of course, Hegel was far from drawing such explicitly revolutionary conclusions from his dialectical method. Being an idealist, his main concern was to present the dialectic as the process of development of the Spirit. Real relations are stood on their head, and the real world is presented in a mystified form. But the real content constantly finds its way through the dense fog of idealism, like shafts of sunlight through the clouds.

In essence, everything is relative; that is to say, everything stands in relation to an Other, which conditions it, and in turn, is conditioned by it. Things are what they are thanks to their interrelations with other things. This also can be seen in society. Things which are commonly believed to be real entities are, in fact, the product of particular relationships, which have sunk so deeply into people’s consciousness that they acquire the force of prejudice. Such a thing is the institution of monarchy:

Naive minds think that the office of kingship lodges in the king himself, in his ermine cloak and his crown, in his flesh and bones. As a matter of fact, the office of kingship is an interrelation between people. The king is king only because the interests and prejudices of millions of people are refracted through his person. When the flood of development sweeps away these interrelations, then the king appears to be only a washed-out man with a flabby lower lip. He who was once called Alfonso XIII could discourse upon this from fresh impressions.

The leader by will of the people differs from the leader by will of God in that the former is compelled to clear the road for himself or, at any rate, to assist the conjuncture of events in discovering him. Nevertheless, the leader is always a relation between people, the individual supply to meet the collective demand. The controversy over Hitler’s personality becomes the sharper the more the secret of his success is sought in himself. In the meantime, another political figure would be difficult to find that is in the same measure the focus of anonymous historic forces. Not every exasperated petty bourgeois could have become Hitler, but a particle of Hitler is lodged in every exasperated petty bourgeois.^[22]

NECESSITY AND ACCIDENT

In further analysing the nature of being in all its different manifestations, Hegel deals with the relation between potential and actual, and also between necessity and accident (‘contingency’). In relation to this question, it is important to clarify one of Hegel’s most famous (or notorious) sayings: “What is rational is actual; and what is actual is rational.”^[23] At first sight, this statement seems mystifying, and also reactionary, since it seems to imply that all that exists is rational, and therefore justified. This, however, was not at all what Hegel meant, as Engels explains:

Now, according to Hegel, reality is, however, in no way an attribute predicable of any given state of affairs, social or political, in all circumstances and at all times. On the contrary. The Roman Republic was real, but so was the Roman Empire, which superseded it. In 1789 the French monarchy had become so unreal, that is to say, so robbed of all necessity, so irrational, that it had to be destroyed by the Great Revolution, of which Hegel always speaks with the greatest enthusiasm. In this case, therefore, the monarchy was the unreal and the revolution the real. And so, in the course of development, all that was previously real becomes unreal, loses its necessity, its right of existence, its rationality. And in the place of moribund reality comes a new, viable reality – peacefully if the old has enough common sense to go to its death without a struggle; forcibly if it resists this necessity. Thus the Hegelian proposition turns into its opposite through Hegelian dialectics itself: All that is real in the sphere of human history becomes irrational in the course of time, is therefore irrational by its very destination, is encumbered with irrationality from the outset; and everything which is rational in the minds of men is destined to become real, however much it may contradict existing apparent reality. In accordance with all the rules of the Hegelian method of thought, the proposition of the rationality of everything which is real is dissolved to become the other proposition: All that exists deserves to perish.^[24]

A given form of society is ‘rational’ to the degree that it achieves its purpose, that is, that it develops the productive forces, raises the cultural level, and thus advances human progress. Once it fails to do this, it enters into contradiction with itself – that is, it becomes irrational and unreal, and no longer has any right to exist. Thus, even in the most apparently reactionary utterances of Hegel, there is hidden a revolutionary idea.

All that exists evidently does so out of necessity. But not everything can exist. Potential existence is not yet actual existence. In The Science of Logic, Hegel carefully traces the process whereby something passes from a state of being merely possible to the point where possibility becomes probability, and the latter becomes inevitable (‘necessity’). In view of the colossal confusion that has arisen in modern science around the issue of ‘probability’, a study of Hegel’s thorough and profound treatment of this subject is highly instructive.

Possibility and actuality denote the dialectical development of the real world and the various stages in the emergence and development of objects. A thing which exists in potential contains within itself the objective tendency of development, or at least the absence of conditions which would preclude its coming into being. However, there is a difference between abstract possibility and real potential, and the two things are frequently confused. Abstract or formal possibility merely expresses the absence of any conditions that might exclude a particular phenomenon, but it does not assume the presence of conditions which would make its appearance inevitable.

This leads to endless confusion, and is actually a kind of trick which serves to justify all kinds of absurd and arbitrary ideas. For example, it is said that if a monkey were allowed to hammer away at a typewriter for long enough, it would eventually produce one of Shakespeare’s sonnets. This objective seems too modest. Why only one sonnet? Why not the collected works of Shakespeare? Indeed, why not the whole of world literature, with the general theory of relativity and Beethoven’s symphonies thrown in for good measure? The bare assertion that it is ‘statistically possible’ does not take us a single step further. The complex processes of nature, society and human thought are not all susceptible to simple statistical treatment, nor will great works of literature emerge out of mere accident, no matter how long we wait for our monkey to deliver the goods.

In order for potential to become actual, a particular concatenation of circumstances is required. Moreover, this is not a simple, linear process, but a dialectical one, in which an accumulation of small quantitative changes eventually produces a qualitative leap. Real, as opposed to abstract, possibility implies the presence of all the necessary factors out of which the potential will lose its character of provisionality, and become actual. And, as Hegel explains, it will remain actual only for as long as these conditions exist, and no longer. This is true whether we are referring to the life of an individual, a given socioeconomic form, a scientific theory, or any natural phenomenon. The point at which a change becomes inevitable can be determined by the method invented by Hegel and known as the ‘nodal line of measurement’. If we regard any process as a line, it will be seen that there are specific points (‘nodal points’) on the line of development, where the process experiences a sudden acceleration, or qualitative leap.

It is easy to identify cause and effect in isolated cases, as when one hits a ball with a bat. But in a wider sense, the notion of causality becomes far more complicated. Individual causes and effects become lost in a vast ocean of interaction, where cause becomes transformed into effect and vice versa. Just try tracing back even the simplest event to its ‘ultimate causes’ and you will see that eternity will not be long enough to do it. There will always be some new cause, and that in turn will have to be explained, and so on ad infinitum. This paradox has entered the popular consciousness in such sayings as this one:

For the want of a nail, a shoe was lost;

For the want of a shoe, a horse was lost;

For the want of a horse, a rider was lost;

For the want of a rider, a battle was lost;

For the want of a battle, a kingdom was lost;

…And all for the want of a nail.

The impossibility of establishing a ‘final cause’ has led some people to abandon the idea of cause altogether. Everything is considered to be random and accidental. In the twentieth century this position was adopted, at least in theory, by a large number of scientists on the basis of an incorrect interpretation of the results of quantum physics, particularly the philosophical positions of Werner Heisenberg. We have dealt with this matter at length before.^[25] Suffice it here to say that Hegel answered these arguments in advance, when he explained the dialectical relation between accident and necessity.

Hegel explains that there is no such thing as true causality, in the sense of an isolated cause and effect. Every effect has a counter-effect, and every action has a counter-action. The idea of an isolated cause and effect is an abstraction taken from classical Newtonian physics, which Hegel was highly critical of, although it enjoyed tremendous prestige at that time. Here again, Hegel was in advance of his time. Instead of the action-reaction of mechanics, he advanced the notion of Reciprocity, of universal interaction. Everything influences everything else and is, in turn, influenced and determined by everything. Hegel thus re-introduced the concept of accident which had been rigorously banned from science by the mechanist philosophy of Newton and Laplace.

At first sight, we seem to be lost in a vast number of accidents. But this confusion is only apparent. Order emerges out of chaos. The accidental phenomena which constantly flash in and out of existence, like the waves on the surface of an ocean, express a deeper process, which is not accidental but necessary. At a decisive point, this necessity reveals itself through accident.

This idea of the dialectical unity of necessity and accident may seem strange, but it is strikingly confirmed by a whole series of observations from the most varied fields of science and society. The mechanism of natural selection in the theory of evolution is the best-known example. But there are many others. In the last half century, there have been many discoveries in the field of chaos and complexity theory which precisely detail how ‘order arises out of chaos’, which is exactly what Hegel worked out one and a half centuries earlier.

‘Classical’ chemical reactions are seen as very random processes. The molecules involved are evenly distributed in space, and their spread is distributed ‘normally’ i.e. in a Gauss curve. These kinds of reactions fit into the concept of Boltzmann, wherein all side-chains of the reaction will fade out and the reaction will end up in a stable reaction, an immobile equilibrium. However, in recent decades chemical reactions were discovered that deviate from this ideal and simplified concept. The most famous examples are the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction, and the Brussels model devised by chaos theorist Ilya Prigogine.

Linear thermodynamics describes a stable, predictable behaviour of systems that tend towards the minimum level of activity possible. However, when the thermodynamic forces acting on a system reach the point where the linear region is exceeded, stability can no longer be assumed. Turbulence arises. For a long time, turbulence was regarded as a synonym for disorder or chaos. But now, it has been discovered that, what appears to be merely chaotic disorder on the macroscopic (large-scale) level, is, in fact, highly organised on the microscopic (small-scale) level.

Today, the study of chemical instabilities has become common. Of special interest is the research done on the phenomenon of the ‘chemical clock’ in Brussels under the guidance of Ilya Prigogine. The study of what happens beyond the critical point where chemical instability commences has enormous interest from the standpoint of dialectics. The Brussels model (nicknamed the ‘Brusselator’ by American scientists) describes the behaviour of gas molecules. Suppose there are two types of molecules, ‘red’ and ‘blue’, in a state of chaotic, totally random motion. One would expect that, at a given moment, there would be an irregular distribution of molecules, producing a ‘violet’ colour, with occasional flashes of red or blue. But in a chemical clock, this does not occur beyond the critical point. The system is all blue, then all red, and these changes occur at regular intervals.

Such a degree of order stemming from the activity of billions of molecules seems incredible and indeed, if chemical clocks had not been observed, no one would believe that such a process is possible. To change colour all at once, molecules must have a way to “communicate”. The system has to act as a whole. We will return repeatedly to this key word, communicate, which is of obvious importance in so many fields, from chemistry to neurophysiology. Dissipative structures introduce probably one of the simplest physical mechanisms for communication.^[26]

The phenomenon of the ‘chemical clock’ shows how in nature order can arise spontaneously out of chaos at a certain point. This is an important observation, especially in relation to the way in which life arises from inorganic matter.

“Order through fluctuations” models introduce an unstable world where small causes can have large effects, but this world is not arbitrary. On the contrary, the reasons for the amplification of a small event are a legitimate matter for rational inquiry.^[27]

We must remember that Hegel was writing at the beginning of the last century, when science was completely dominated by classical mechanical physics, and half a century before Darwin developed the idea of natural selection through the medium of random mutations. He had no scientific evidence to back up his theory that necessity expresses itself through accident. But that is the central idea behind the most recent innovative thinking in science.

This profound law is equally fundamental to an understanding of history. As Marx wrote to Kugelmann in 1871:

World history would indeed be very easy to make, if the struggle were taken up only on condition of infallibly favourable chances. It would on the other hand be of a very mystical nature, if “accidents” played no part. These accidents themselves fall naturally into the general course of development and are compensated for, again, by other accidents. But acceleration and delay are very dependent upon such “acci­dents” which include the “accident” of the character of those who at first stand at the head of the movement.^[28]

Engels made the same point a few years later in relation to the role of ‘great men’ in history:

Men make their history themselves, but not as yet with a collective will or according to a collective plan or even in a definitely defined, given society. Their efforts clash, and for that very reason all such societies are governed by necessity, which is supplemented by and appears under the forms of accident. The necessity which here asserts itself amidst all accident is again ultimately economic necessity. This is where the so-called great men come in for treatment. That such and such a man and precisely that man arises at that particular time in that given country is of course pure accident. But cut him out and there will be a demand for a substitute, and this sub­stitute will be found, good or bad, but in the long run he will be found.^[29]

THE NOTION

In Hegel’s dialectic the supreme achievement of thought is the Notion. The development of the Notion is described by Hegel as a process which proceeds from abstract to concrete. It signifies a deepening of knowledge, and a development from a lower to a higher degree of understanding, of the development from potential to actual. At the beginning, the Notion is referred to as ‘in itself’, or implicit. It is later developed, and becomes the Notion ‘for itself’, or explicit. In its highest form it is the union of both these aspects, ‘in and for itself’. In the Notion the process of development reaches its highest point. What was only implicit at the beginning now becomes explicit. It is a return to the starting point, but on a qualitatively higher level.

In his main work, The Science of Logic, Hegel does not end with the Notion, but goes on to the Absolute Idea, of which all that can be said is that he tells us absolutely nothing about it. This is typical of the contradictions Hegel’s idealism landed him in. The dialectic cannot lead to an Absolute Idea, or any other final solution. To imply that there is an end to the process of human knowledge conflicts with the letter and spirit of dialectics. So the Hegelian philosophy ended up in an insoluble contradiction. This could only be solved by a radical break with all of previous philosophy.

The epoch-making quality of Hegel’s philosophy consisted in the fact that, by summing up the whole history of philosophy in such a comprehensive way, he made it impossible to proceed any further along the traditional philosophical lines. Secondly, the dialectical method, which he perfected, provided the basis for a whole new world outlook, one that did not confine itself to the analysis and criticism of ideas, but involved an analysis of the history of society and a revolutionary criticism of the existing social order. Hegel’s great contribution was well expressed by Engels in Anti-Dühring:

That [the] Hegel[ian system] did not solve the problem [it propounded] is here immaterial. Its epoch-making merit was that it propounded the problem. This problem is one that no single individual will ever be able to solve. Although Hegel was – with Saint-Simon – the most encyclopaedic mind of his time, he was limited, first, by the necessarily limited extent of his own knowledge and, second, by the limited extent and depth of the knowledge and conceptions of his age. To these limits a third must be added. Hegel was an idealist. To him the thoughts within his brain were not the more or less abstract pictures of actual things and processes, but, conversely, things and their evolution were only the realised pictures of the ‘Idea’, existing somewhere from eternity before the world existed. This way of thinking turned everything upside down, and completely reversed the actual connection of things in the world. Correctly and ingeniously as many individual groups of facts were grasped by Hegel, yet, for the reasons just given, there is much that is botched, artificial, laboured, in a word, wrong in point of detail. The Hegelian system, in itself, was a colossal miscarriage – but it was also the last of its kind. It was suffering, in fact, from an internal and incurable contradiction. Upon the one hand, its essential proposition was the conception that human history is a process of evolution, which, by its very nature, cannot find its intellectual final term in the discovery of any so-called absolute truth. But, on the other hand, it laid claim to being the very essence of this absolute truth. A system of natural and historical knowledge, embracing everything, and final for all time, is a contradiction to the fundamental law of dialectic reasoning. This law, indeed, by no means excludes, but, on the contrary, includes the idea that systematic knowledge of the external universe can make giant strides from age to age.^[30]

Hegel’s dialectic was brilliantly conceived, but ultimately deficient, because it was limited to the domain of thought. Nevertheless, it contained the potential for a major departure in thought, one that was to radically alter not just the history of philosophy, but that of the world. To paraphrase Hegel, what was present in itself (i.e. potentially) in his work became a realised idea – an idea in and for itself in the revolutionary doctrine of Marxism, where philosophy finally gives up its character as a one-sided abstract, mental activity, and enters the realm of practice.

Aristotle already explained the relationship between potential and actual. At all levels of nature, society, thought, and even the development of individual human beings from childhood to maturity, we see the same process. Everything that exists contains within itself the potential for further development, that is, to perfect itself, to become something different to what it is. The whole of human history can be seen as the struggle of humanity to realise its potential. Ultimately, the aim of socialism is to create the necessary conditions whereby this goal can be finally realised, that men and women can become actually what they always were potentially. Here, however, we have already left the dimly-lit study of the philosopher, and stepped out into the broad daylight of human life, activity and struggle.

Endnotes

[1] G. W. F Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit, p. 8.

[2] A. Herzen, My Past and Thoughts, p. 237.

[3] F. Engels, Anti-Dühring, p. 34.

[4] G. W. F. Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit, p. 31.

[5] I. Prigogine and I. Stengers, Order Out of Chaos, p. 89.

[6] Ibid., p. 90.

[7] A. Schwegler, History of Philosophy, p. 445.

[8] G. W. F. Hegel, Shorter Logic, p. xxxix.

[9] Ibid.

[10] G. W. F. Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit, p. 44.

[11] V. I. Lenin, ‘Conspectus of Hegel’s Science of Logic’, LCW, Vol. 38, p. 221.

[12] Ibid.

[13] G. W. F. Hegel, Shorter Logic, p. 53.

[14] G. W. F. Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit, p. 10.

[15] I. Prigogine and I. Stengers, Order Out of Chaos, p. 131.

[16] Quoted in Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, p. 139.

[17] G. W. F. Hegel, Shorter Logic, pp. 191-2.

[18] Ibid., p. 173.

[19] F. Engels, Dialectics of Nature, p. 216.

[20] Matthew 7:10.

[21] L. Trotsky, ‘What Next? Vital Questions for the German Proletariat’, The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany, p. 210.

[22] L. Trotsky, ‘What Is National Socialism?’, The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany, pp. 522-3.

[23] G. W. F. Hegel, Philosophy of Right, p. 20.

[24] F. Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy, MECW, Vol. 26, pp. 358-9.

[25] See A. Woods and T. Grant, Reason in Revolt.

[26] I. Prigogine and I. Stengers, Order Out of Chaos, p. 148.

[27] Ibid., p. 206.

[28] K. Marx, ‘Letter to Kugelmann, 17 April 1871’, MESC, pp. 310-1.

[29] F. Engels, ‘Letter to Starkenburg, 25 January 1894’, MESC, p. 518.

[30] F. Engels, Anti-Dühring, pp. 34-5.