Dialectics is a philosophical method based on the development of an idea through contradiction, examining a given thesis and its antithesis to reach a synthesis. Hegel reinterprets dialectics to imagine an idea capable of overcoming its own internal contradictions, which he then applied to the study of history. Marx and Engels would later adopt this method, distinctly pairing it with materialism.
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The timeline below shows where the term Dialectics appears in The German Ideology. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Vol. 1, Part 3: Saint Max, Section 2
...Stirner’s history is little more than an unsophisticated copy of Hegel. Moreover, it lacks the dialectics that make Hegel’s flawed philosophy worth examining.
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Vol. 2, Part 4: The Historiography of True Socialism
...critiques of Proudhon’s theories (which are themselves flawed) because Proudhon is attempting to adapt Hegel’s dialectics. In order to critique this project, one needs to actually understand Hegel’s method, something the...
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