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Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: Concepts
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Hegel's dialectic process moves from the thesis to the antithesis. When considering a concept, Hegel's model requires the philosopher to determine the opposite concept. The final step is the determination of a synthesis between or derived from the two conflicting concepts. Of course it would be simple if the synthesis represented an ending point, but Hegel's triad is a continuum. A synthesis becomes the thesis in a new triad. According to professor T. Z. Lavine, the three functions of synthesis are:
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To explicate this, Hegel investigates the concept ‘being.’ The concept of being is itself not different from nothingness. As a pure abstraction, the concept of being negates being completely, and ... becomes nothingness. The concept of nothing is implicit in the concept of being, and the being negates itself and passes over to nothing, and brings the truth of the becoming, which is the unity of being and nothing. As the two opposites of being and nothing exist in the concept of being, there is a fluctuation on both sides. This fluctuation of the concept is stabilized in determinate beings where the limits are set and the universal amalgam of the two becomes particular and determinate. So the contradiction leads to the movement of one’s negation to the other, and the constant movement of the two occurs until the fluctuation is settled in determinate beings and new concept (52-55).
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Hegel believed that by studying the relationships of concrete objects, which he held to be inter-related throughout the universe, genuine "rational" truths would be discovered. Hegel taught that abstraction inherently leads to the isolation of parts from the whole until no further isolation is possible. Eventually, abstraction leads to the point where physical items and phenomenal concepts have no value. For example, the atoms that make a man are just atoms by themselves, with no inherent value. It is the whole that must be evaluated. Isolated "moments" may be recorded accurately, according to the Hegelian System, but these moments mean nothing without context.
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