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Ideas for 'Parmenides', 'Logic (Encyclopedia I)' and 'Second Treatise of Government'

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5 ideas

2. Reason / C. Styles of Reason / 1. Dialectic
Older metaphysics became dogmatic, by assuming opposed assertions must be true and false [Hegel]
     Full Idea: The older metaphysics became dogmatism because, given the nature of finite determinations, it had to assume that of two opposed assertions (of the kind that those propositions were) one must be true and the other false.
     From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §32)
     A reaction: While dialethism in logic looks very dubious to me, I have every sympathy with Hegel when it comes to the reasonings of ordinary language. There it is much harder to know whether you are addressing truly opposed assertions.
Plato's 'Parmenides' is the greatest artistic achievement of the ancient dialectic [Hegel on Plato]
     Full Idea: Plato's 'Parmenides' is the greatest artistic achievement of the ancient dialectic.
     From: comment on Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Georg W.F.Hegel - Phenomenology of Spirit Pref 71
     A reaction: It is a long way from the analytic tradition of philosophy to be singling out a classic text for its 'artistic' achievement. Eventually we may even look back on, say, Kripke's 'Naming and Necessity' and see it in that light.
Dialectic is seen in popular proverbs like 'pride comes before a fall' [Hegel]
     Full Idea: In the domain of individual ethics, we find the consciousness of dialectic in those universally familiar proverbs 'pride goes before a fall' and 'too much wit outwits itself'. ...Joy relieves itself in tears, and melancholy can be revealed in a smile.
     From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §81), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 02 'The Method'
     A reaction: 'Too clever by half' is the English version. Hegel's dialectic suggests that each concept somehow implies its opposite, rather than a mere mercurial drift from one extreme to the other. Most pride doesn't lead to a fall.
Dialectic is the moving soul of scientific progression, the principle which binds science together [Hegel]
     Full Idea: The dialectical constitutes the moving soul of scientific progression, and it is the principle through which alone immanent coherence and necessity enter into the content of science. ..[Add 1] It is the principle of all motion, of all life.
     From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §81)
Socratic dialectic is subjective, but Plato made it freely scientific and objective [Hegel]
     Full Idea: It is in the Platonic philosophy that dialectic first occurs in a form which is freely scientific, and hence also objective. With Socrates, dialectical thinking still has a predominantly subjective shape, consistent with his irony.
     From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §81 Add1)
     A reaction: I don't understand how dialectic can be 'objective', given that it is a method rather than a belief. Plato certainly seems to elevate dialectic into something almost mystical, because of what is said to be within its power.