Hegel Myths

Thom Brooks over at The Brooks Blog has a post here on Hegel's first name and the thesis-antithesis-synthesis myth. Thom credits Fichte, as do others, with a thesis-antithesis-synthesis dialectic, which might be right. Fichte certainly uses these terms, but his synthesis never seems to be a true synthesis in which two things are unified. Think of how the I and not-I are "synthesized" in Fichte's development of his three principles. The not-I can't be unified with the I, at least not in any absolute sense, as that would leave us without an I or not-I. Rather, the two are limited, and that is in some respect the synthesis. I have always found these issues somewhat opaque, so if anyone has thoughts on Fichte's notion of synthesis they are more than welcomed.

In terms of the Hegel myth about the thesis-antithesis-synthesis dialectic, Marx should be credited, as far as I know, with its origination. In his The Poverty of Philosophy, a work on the anarchist Proudhon, Marx writes:

If we had M. Proudhon's intrepidity in the matter of Hegelianism we should say: it is distinguished in itself from itself. What does this mean? Impersonal reason, having outside itself neither a base on which it can pose itself, nor an object to which it can oppose itself, nor a subject with which it can compose itself, is forced to turn head over heels, in posing itself, opposing itself and composing itself — position, opposition, composition. Or, to speak Greek — we have thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. For those who do not know the Hegelian formula: affirmation, negation and negation of the negation. That is what language means. It is certainly not Hebrew (with due apologies M. Proudhon); but it is the language of this pure reason, separate from the individual. Instead of the ordinary individual with his ordinary manner of speaking and thinking we have nothing but this ordinary manner in itself — without the individual....

All things being reduced to a logical category, and every movement, every act of production, to method, it follows naturally that every aggregate of products and production, of objects and of movement, can be reduced to a form of applied metaphysics. What Hegel has done for religion, law, etc., M. Proudhon seeks to do for political economy.

So what is this absolute method? The abstraction of movement. What is the abstraction of movement? Movement in abstract condition. What is movement in abstract condition? The purely logical formula of movement or the movement of pure reason. Wherein does the movement of pure reason consist? In posing itself, opposing itself, composing itself; in formulating itself as thesis, antithesis, synthesis; or, yet, in affirming itself, negating itself, and negating its negation. (Chapter 2)

That this characterization of Hegel was to become so popular makes some sense when we realize its source is in Marx's at times unfair take on Hegel. Unfortunately, this schema played a prominent role in the film Half Nelson, where it was beaten into the heads of school children and unsuspecting filmgoers, though I don't remember it being credited to Hegel or Marx in the film.