It's been many years since I published this video and I think that it's time to add an important correction regarding the Hegel component. For Hegel, the dialectic does not refer so neatly to the thesis-antithesis-synthesis triad that I describe here; rather, Hegel's dialectic is a process of collapsing such neat distinctions, not in the form of a synthesis, but in a recognition of the ways that thesis-antithesis are not really opposites at all. To illustrate this, we can take the example of experience. Every one of us has our own experiences -- we engage with the world through our senses that are uniquely our own. We can never access the experiences of anyone else. Hegel takes this point to make a radical claim: we might all be isolated in our own capacities to experience, but we are united in that experience of being 'alone' or 'isolated' with our specific capacities to experience the world. So, he says that we are joined by precisely what separates us. This is what he calls 'negating the negation.' The particular (our individual experiences) is then united with the universal (the totality of everyone's capacity to experience). The distinction is then revealed to not be a distinction at all, but forms the totality of experience altogether. The individual and the whole are then not separated as thesis and antithesis, but are joined as the common expression of the movement of Spirit as the reconciliation of Self and Other, or the positive and the negative, or thesis and antithesis. For a video explanation, you can follow this link : https://www.instagram.com/p/DdBoF_1Oj2T/?hl=en

"and kant is just sitting there watching" now thats a scary thought

only philosophers can take 2500 years to understand how conversations work

I'll just try and undo this classical misunderstanding of the etymology of the word dialectic (and the same for dialogue): dia- comes from Ancient Greek διά (diá) and it does NOT mean "two"!!!! "Two" in Ancient Greek would be "δύο" (dýo). Diá means "through". "Lectic" comes from λεκτικός (lektikós), which, among lots of other meanings, is "the art of speaking". Dialectic would be litterally "(that which is attained) through the art of speaking". As for dialogue, it comes from Ancient Greek διάλογος, composed by διά (through) and λόγος (lógos, that is, discourse, speech, but also reason). Dialogue is litterally "(that which is attained) through speech/discourse/reason".

Great video, thanks!

Me hearing Kant's thought experiment: "That's the stupidest shit i have ever heard"
Hegel's thought experiment: "Hold my beer"

"And so the dialectic progresses."

My man went out and interpreted Marx’ materialist reconstruction of Hegelian dialectic as if Marx just didn’t have the patience for it. Respect.

Just taught my first week of Marx, going to send this to my students. Hope you are well Dave! -Julian

@6:32 “Some infinities are bigger than other infinities,” - Immanuel Kant, The Fault in Our Stars

The format here is short, and I respect that. If I were to add something it's this: Hegel was a speculative idealist, which means he believes that ideas transform the physical world. This part of Hegel comes from Hermeticism/alchemy, and it's definitely a form of mysticism.  

Marx on the other hand turned Hegel's dialectic on it's head and formulated the dialectical materialism. He believed that the environment would shape the people and their conciseness.

Also of crucial importance to make this relevant to today I would have mentioned the following: Hegel and Marx believed in historicism, that is that history has a goal (telos) and that the dialectic is the engine making history happen.

The reason Hegel was the flashpoint is that he's credited as the first to USE the dialectic. That is, according to his crazy followers he took the reins of the dialectic and now directed history to faster approach the eschaton where object and subject becomes the same.

Let me rephrase the last part: "the end of history" is where man as creator has removed all contradictions, and then God would finally reach full awareness of himself and fully realize himself.

It's actually a religion with a competing metaphysics, morality, ontology etc compared to standard Enlightenment rationality and Christianity (the usual one most of us run on).

Christianity and most metaphysics we use posit that God/physical reality exists as opposed to God continuously Becoming as a result of humans acting with dialectical knowledge (gnosis).

I do wish this would have extended into a marx-IST understanding of the dialectic, like with Engel's "Ludwig Feuerback, and the end of german classical philosophy" and Mao's "on contradiction" which more clearly break from this teleological, "two combine into one," or "thesis-antythesis-synthesis" notion of dialectics, which is nonetheless revealed in Marx's use of dialectical categories in "Capital" where in which material phenomena reveal their capacity to be identical to, or to becoming their opposite.

How mad Hegel would have been that Marx turned his religious idealism into atheist materialism!

Thesis: your microphone lead is connected to the victorian style beaded hexagonal scallop bell rose red lamp on the book shelf behind you and is transmitting the information directly into my consciousness.
Anti-Thesis: reality sucks.
Synthesis: comment for the algorithm, thanks for the great video, and hits the like button.

I loved your explanation, I am new to learning philosophy and this was a great starting point to developing my concept of dialectic. Thank you so much <3

Hegel makes much more sense after reading Sartre’s “Being and Nothingness” LOL

This was perfect for me as I am learning the basics.
Thank you

Correction: "Di" can mean two in Attic greek, as in "dialogue," or "two people speaking." However,  "Dia" also refers to "through" or "across" also,  so "dialektos"also implies "talking through"  something to resolve it. For Plato, however, dialectic, often enough, did not resolve itself into a logical, finite conclusion, but rather arrived often at an "aporia"--an impasse arriving from an unresolvable antinomy or paradox.  This is very different from the Hegelian dialectic.

I would say that for Plato dialectic is first about people agreeing to seek public truth, not truth "in" each of us. The capacity to know is in us, but the object of dialectical conversation is an objective truth that we might together grasp.

The Classical Music Crescendo at the End!


I think that was Peer Gynt or The Four Seasons Suite ....

Interesting how the two dialectics themselves from another dialectic.