Hegelian dialectic refers to a binary
thesis
+ antithesis
→ synthesis,
but can it also refer to
thesis 1 + thesis 2 + thesis 3 + … + thesis n
→ synthesis,
or is it strictly binary?
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You may consider the union of "thesis 1 and ... and thesis n" a new THESIS. Similar the antitheses combine to a new ANTITHESIS. Then "THESIS + ANTITHESIS = synthesis" reproduces what you called a binary dialectic.– Jo WehlerCommented Oct 26 at 3:18
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@JoWehler I removed "antithesis" (which doesn't make sense in the n-ary case).– GeremiaCommented Oct 26 at 4:09
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1"While Hegel was clearly influenced by Fichte’s work, he never adopted Fichte’s triadic “thesis—antithesis—synthesis” language in his descriptions of his own philosophy... this general pattern might describe some of the transitions from stage to stage, but there are many more places where the development does not seem to fit this pattern very well" SEP. Hegel's conceptual progression is supposed to flow out of "the inner life and self-movement" without falling under any one "lifeless schema", triadic or n-adic.– ConifoldCommented Oct 26 at 4:33
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The dialectic is neither binary nor ternary. To put it briefly, a thesis provokes a reaction, the antithesis and these are both resolved in a synthesis which then again, considered as a thesis provokes an antithesis and so on. We can consider it to a be a form of dualism.– Mozibur UllahCommented Oct 26 at 5:58
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1 Answer
I think it's best to see the dialectic a kind of an evolutionary process: a thesis is confronted by another thesis in the intellectual ecosystem, and the two theses adapt to produce some more 'fit' thesis. The linear (binary-ish) description is a pedagogical artifact. Hegel would have surely realized that in philosophical arenas a thesis may confront oppositions, competitions, and/or alterations in the world, singular or multiple. The various theses still have to synthesize to something more robust (or risk failing), but the process is always ongoing. Of course Hegel believed there was an ultimate goal to the process, where evolution is normally cast as a-teleological, but that was Hegel's zeitgeist.
I'm not suggesting any philosophical connection, by the way. Hegel died the year Darwin set out on the Beagle; Darwin would almost certainly have read Hegel, but Hegel was likely unaware of Darwin's existence.
