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method of argument for resolving disagreement

Dialectic (Ancient Greek: διαλεκτική, romanized: dialektikḗ; German: Dialektik), also known as the dialectical method, refers originally to dialogue between people holding different points of view about a subject but wishing to arrive … Wikipedia
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Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Dialectic
Dialectic - Wikipedia
2 days ago - Dialectic resembles debate, but the concept excludes subjective elements such as emotional appeal and rhetoric; the object is more an eventual and commonly-held truth than the 'winning' of an (often binary) competition. It has its origins in ancient philosophy and continued to be developed in the Middle Ages. Hegelianism refigured "dialectic" to no longer refer to a literal dialogue.
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A stab at a legit ELI5: ‘Hegel’s “dialectic” is a way of describing what it means to think about or do anything at all. It can be hard to understand, because its such a big idea. Sometimes its good to tackle big ideas like that with an example. Here’s how it works. Let’s imagine you have a friend. You want to be the best friend you can. You are totally, 10,000% into being their friend. So you do all the stuff you think a friend should do. You say hi to them whenever you see them, you give them big hugs, you give them presents, you tell them how nice they are. And you do this all the time. You even hog your friend, and don’t want them to play with other people! You pour yourself into it, completely [Entäußerrung] Eventually your friend doesn’t want to be around you because they feel like you don’t give them any room to be themselves. You tried hard to be the best friend you could be, but you ended up being the opposite of a good friend. You did the best you could, and you ended up with the opposite of what you wanted. What would you do? Would you decide to start picking on your friend and calling them names? No that would be silly. You wouldn’t say “everything I ever thought about being a good friend was TOTALLY wrong.” You would see that what you were doing was partially right. But it was just one little piece of the “Big Picture” of what being a good friend is all about—which includes lots of other stuff like respecting your friend’s space, and letting them be themselves. So now, you have a bigger, better understanding of what it means to be a good friend. [Aufhebung] Hegel thinks everything we can do and everything we can think is like this. There’s no getting around it. And it can be painful! [Verzweiflung, Zerissenheit, Opfer] But that is how we learn who and what wr are and can be—in fact it is how people have always learned, all throughout history (even when they didn’t quite realize it!) [The cunning of reason]’ [Edit: a couple words]
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The simplest way I can summarize it: in order for change to take place something old must give way. The old and the new aren't two separate moments in opposition but rather one whole movement in constant unending development. There is a thing, that thing slowly decays, something new emerges. The decay (negation) of the first thing was a necessary step (literally the 'condition of possibility') for the new thing. From the second paragraph of the preface to the phenomenology: "The bud disappears when the blossom breaks through, and we might say that the former is refuted by the latter; in the same way when the fruit comes, the blossom may be explained to be a false form of the plant’s existence, for the fruit appears as its true nature in place of the blossom. These stages are not merely differentiated; they supplant one another as being incompatible with one another. But the ceaseless activity of their own inherent nature makes them at the same time moments of an organic unity, where they not merely do not contradict one another, but where one is as necessary as the other; and this equal necessity of all moments constitutes alone and thereby the life of the whole."
Discussions

What is a Hegelian dialectic?
As I understand it, the dialectic for Hegel isn't necessarily an argumentative tool, or even the same as the method of reasoning of the same name, in the way it was used by Greeks like Socrates. I think the best examples of the dialectic come from Hegel's Science of Logic, where he uses this method in an attempt to, from what I recall, develop a system of Logic (in a kind of metaphysical way, a logic that says things about being) that uses no presuppositions - not even things like the principle of identity that we normally apply in formal logic (i.e. something cannot be A and not-A at the same time). Essentially, I think, Hegel ends up with a kind of system in which positing something, like Being, always ends up also positing its negation, in this case Nothingness, and there is a sort of moment - and here my understanding is fuzzy and could do with elaboration, I'm still learning here - where the original position and its negation are sublated into a new position which both entails and exceeds the prior two. More on reddit.com
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Caesar's interpretation of the Hegelian Dialectic in action in Fallout 4?
Someone likes Shoddycast lol I like your interpretation, but I don’t think the BoS’ changes had a lot to do with the Enclave. The Brotherhood was focused solely on eradicating them, not “synthesizing” with them as Caesar would. The Outcasts, in the other hand, probably had a lot to do with that, seeing as they merged with the BoS again sometime before 2287. The Outcasts are basically the conservative extreme of the Brotherhood - with Lyons being the liberal extreme. - and it’s likely that with the death of the Lyons and the reunion of the entire East Coast BoS the two sides “synthesized” into Maxson’s Brotherhood. Still a great post imo. More on reddit.com
🌐 r/falloutlore
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Hegelian Dialectic: A framework for guiding thoughts and actions into conflicts that lead to synthetic solutions which can only be introduced once those being manipulated take a side that will advance the predetermined agenda | Walter Veith

Check this out, too. Yuri Bezmenov, KGB defector discussing psychological warfare:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3qkf3bajd4

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🌐 r/conspiracy
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November 4, 2013
Can someone explain Hegel's dialectics, like I am 5-years-old?
A stab at a legit ELI5: ‘Hegel’s “dialectic” is a way of describing what it means to think about or do anything at all. It can be hard to understand, because its such a big idea. Sometimes its good to tackle big ideas like that with an example. Here’s how it works. Let’s imagine you have a friend. You want to be the best friend you can. You are totally, 10,000% into being their friend. So you do all the stuff you think a friend should do. You say hi to them whenever you see them, you give them big hugs, you give them presents, you tell them how nice they are. And you do this all the time. You even hog your friend, and don’t want them to play with other people! You pour yourself into it, completely [Entäußerrung] Eventually your friend doesn’t want to be around you because they feel like you don’t give them any room to be themselves. You tried hard to be the best friend you could be, but you ended up being the opposite of a good friend. You did the best you could, and you ended up with the opposite of what you wanted. What would you do? Would you decide to start picking on your friend and calling them names? No that would be silly. You wouldn’t say “everything I ever thought about being a good friend was TOTALLY wrong.” You would see that what you were doing was partially right. But it was just one little piece of the “Big Picture” of what being a good friend is all about—which includes lots of other stuff like respecting your friend’s space, and letting them be themselves. So now, you have a bigger, better understanding of what it means to be a good friend. [Aufhebung] Hegel thinks everything we can do and everything we can think is like this. There’s no getting around it. And it can be painful! [Verzweiflung, Zerissenheit, Opfer] But that is how we learn who and what wr are and can be—in fact it is how people have always learned, all throughout history (even when they didn’t quite realize it!) [The cunning of reason]’ [Edit: a couple words] More on reddit.com
🌐 r/hegel
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Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
plato.stanford.edu › entries › hegel-dialectics
Hegel’s Dialectics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
June 3, 2016 - Inoue Kazumi also argues that dialectical contradiction in the Hegelian sense does not violate the law of non-contradiction (Inoue 2014: 121–123), and he rejects Popper’s claim that Hegel’s dialectical method is incompatible with good science.
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Medium
medium.com › higher-neurons › hegelian-dialectic-for-dummies-84ab5ba2fd67
Hegelian Dialectic for Dummies
October 10, 2025 - This cycle continues, driving progress and change through continuous refinement and adaptation. In essence, the Hegelian Dialectic is a framework for understanding how ideas evolve and how conflicts can lead to progress.
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Dictionary.com
dictionary.com › browse › hegelian-dialectic
HEGELIAN DIALECTIC Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com
Hegelian dialectic definition: an interpretive method, originally used to relate specific entities or events to the absolute idea, in which some assertible proposition thesis is necessarily opposed by an equally assertible and apparently ...
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Way of Life
wayoflife.org › database › hegelian_dialectics_devils_winning_tool.html
Hegelian Dialectics: The Devil's Winning Tool
April 23, 2008 - He rejected the Bible and proposed that man is on an evolutionary journey and that human history is the record of a process of conflict and synthesis that he referred to as the dialectical process of Spirit, believing that man would eventually reach his highest state, ultimately arriving at “the Absolute Idea” which would be so perfect it could not be challenged or synthesized. The Hegelian system is described as follows: “It was Hegel’s view that all things unfold in a continuing evolutionary process whereby each idea or quality (the THESIS) inevitably brings forth its opposite (the ANTITHESIS).
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Encyclopedia Britannica
britannica.com › philosophy & religion › philosophical issues
Dialectic | Hegelian, Synthesis & Antithesis | Britannica
October 9, 2025 - More recently, Immanuel Kant denoted ... Hegel identified dialectic as the tendency of a notion to pass over into its own negation as the result of conflict between its inherent contradictory aspects....
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YouTube
youtube.com › watch
Hegel’s Dialectical Process - YouTube
What effect do ideas have on the way civilizations develop and history unfolds? In this brief clip, R.C. Sproul explores G.W.F. Hegel’s philosophy of “the di...
Published   October 2, 2021
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The Intrinsic Perspective
theintrinsicperspective.com › p › the-end-of-online-history
Hegelian dialectics for the 21st Century - by Erik Hoel
March 26, 2024 - Francis Fukuyama must think this ... the first half of it is simply a Hegel explainer. In particular, Fukayama makes use of the notion of a “Hegelian dialectic,” a process that describes the back-and-forth between cosmic and ultimate forces....
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YouTube
youtube.com › dr. jordan b cooper
The Hegelian Dialectic Explained Simply - YouTube
Our website: http://www.justandsinner.orgThis is a brief explanation of Hegel's dialectic, which is one of the most popular topics in philosophical discussion.
Published   December 8, 2023
Views   24K
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Marxists.org
marxists.org › reference › archive › hegel › help › easy.htm
Hegel For Beginners
Hegel's different way of thinking has become known as dialectical thinking. What makes dialectical thinking so difficult to explain is that it can only be seen in practice.
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Quora
quora.com › What-is-the-Hegelian-dialectic-in-simple-terms
What is the Hegelian dialectic in simple terms? - Quora
Answer: For the enemy is active and consistently creating tricks to deceive the masses. Plain and simple, Hegelian dialectic is the devils logic. Hegel’s idealism is complex so I have to break it down to a simple definition.
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Quora
quora.com › What-is-the-difference-between-a-Hegelian-and-non-Hegelian-dialectic
What is the difference between a Hegelian and non-Hegelian dialectic? - Quora
Answer (1 of 2): Well it has to be something, doesn’t it? And why do we know it has to be something? Because that’s the natural progression. There’s all these ways you can tell what you’re going to be thinking someday—each day is going to be wanting its own important role in the story, ...
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As I understand it, the dialectic for Hegel isn't necessarily an argumentative tool, or even the same as the method of reasoning of the same name, in the way it was used by Greeks like Socrates. I think the best examples of the dialectic come from Hegel's Science of Logic, where he uses this method in an attempt to, from what I recall, develop a system of Logic (in a kind of metaphysical way, a logic that says things about being) that uses no presuppositions - not even things like the principle of identity that we normally apply in formal logic (i.e. something cannot be A and not-A at the same time). Essentially, I think, Hegel ends up with a kind of system in which positing something, like Being, always ends up also positing its negation, in this case Nothingness, and there is a sort of moment - and here my understanding is fuzzy and could do with elaboration, I'm still learning here - where the original position and its negation are sublated into a new position which both entails and exceeds the prior two.
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I think it becomes easier to understand the dialectic once you understand Hegel's fundamental ontology. For him, philosophy must start by analyzing the most basic concept of all: being. Because being is the first concept, it is not determinate in any way, since determination pressuposes being. When I say "God is good", I already apply this concept to my proposition. However, once we understand being as absolutely indeterminate, it seems to dissapear into nothingness. From this movement, this back and forth from being into nothingness, we discover that they must be both aspects of one fundamental principle, which is becoming. For Hegel, neither being nor nothingness constitute the essence of reality -- it is becoming. Everything is process, and such, must be understood in those terms. Now, the becoming is this vanishing of being into nothingness and vice-versa. Then, it becomes easier to understand what the others have said. It is not a form of argument, it's a metaphysical tool for analysis. Through the dialectic we understand a thing as containing its negation within itself, just as being contains nothingness. Then, we describe it not in terms of its former purely positive aspect or the negative we discovered within; we must understand things themselves as the movement from one into the other.
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Cambridge Core
cambridge.org › core › books › abs › hegel-and-the-foundations-of-literary-theory › hegelian-dialectic › BB699BE822672E339EA77DFF0A98865B
The Hegelian Dialectic (Chapter 1) - Hegel and the Foundations of Literary Theory
Chapter 1 The Hegelian Dialectic · Chapter 2 Historical Backgrounds · Chapter 3 Hegel, Philosopher of Capitalism · Chapter 4 Hegel on Identity and Difference · Chapter 5 Hegelian Identity and Economics · Part II Literary Theory: Reading the Dialectic · Epilogue: The Futures of Theory: Towards a Dialectical Humanism ·
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Study.com
study.com › humanities courses › general humanities lessons
Dialectic Definition, Models & Examples | Study.com
However, German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel helped to refine dialectics. His work has been incredibly influential in Western philosophy, with many using his work as a basis for their own formulations. Hegel's own proposed formulation is known as the Hegelian dialectic.
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Collins Dictionary
collinsdictionary.com › us › dictionary › english › hegelian-dialectic
HEGELIAN DIALECTIC definition in American English | Collins English Dictionary
Philosophy an interpretive method in which the contradiction between a proposition (thesis) and its.... Click for pronunciations, examples sentences, video.
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Quora
quora.com › Could-someone-explain-Hegelian-dialectics-in-simple-terms-particularly-negation
Could someone explain Hegelian dialectics in simple terms, particularly negation? - Quora
Answer (1 of 3): I’ll try, but if you want Hegel’s words I recommend the Preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit, and more so the Preliminary Concepts to the first part (Logic) of the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline, especially nos. 13–16.
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TheCollector
thecollector.com › dialectic-method-hegel
What Is Hegel’s Dialectic Method? | TheCollector
June 28, 2025 - When considering Hegel’s contribution to logic, nothing is more significant than his dialectic method. The method is prevalent in almost all his works, most notably Logic, Philosophy of History, and Phenomenology of Spirit. He describes it as “the only true method” and the basic principle of all his theories.
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Narrative First
narrativefirst.com › articles › the-curse-of-the-hegelian-dialectic
The Curse of the Hegelian Dialectic - Articles - Narrative First
Hegelian Dialectic--which, interestingly enough, didn't even come from Hegel himself--is a Male Mental Sex process of solving problems.