Rephrased, will dialectics always exist?

Have fun, because I sure don’t.

edit: if it helps your thinking process a bit, consider this:

  • Dialectics explains the process of contradictions. So, does dialectics go through its own contradictions?
  • If so, that means dialectics has a process of its own and describes its own process as well. It’s a bit like the “does a set of all sets contain itself” question.
  • But if the laws of dialectics are eternal and dialectics does not go through its own process and contradictions, then it would be eternal. Is that possible though?
  • And finally of course what are the implications of all of that?
  • Majenrobe@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
    8·
    7 days ago

    I’ve always felt like this was needless philosophizing, but if one wants to do it, then go right ahead. It’s similar to liberal college philosophy professors saying that Heraclitus’s idea of “change is the only constant” is paradoxical when in reality they just fail to understand it. Basically, it’s probing for a reduction question to things that aren’t meant to be reduced. We have to stop reducing at some point, and “change being the only constant” is one place where dialectics can stop.

    Dialectics, just like all philosophies, is interpretive, meaning that it takes in information and tries to make sense of it. Of course, some interpretations require a priori assumptions about the universe, but these are just metaphysical quackery. All materialisms, physicalisms, realisms, etc. must begin at the a posteriori stage (otherwise they’re just like the metaphysical philosophies), and only then can interpretations make sense with the observations which we have. Dialectical materialism, I believe, has done this relatively well, especially because a core concept in it requires that it adapts to scientific observation instead of making dogmatic, eternal assumptions of the universe and forming itself around that.

    Other comments claiming that “dialectics doesn’t exist” are essentially correct. “Objects” or “concepts” as we know them through social interactions do not meaningfully exist in the universe, but only attain meaning when we particularize them to a certain context. A “tree” doesn’t exist, but that tree does. It ceases to become an abstract “tree” when applied to a tree in a real context.

    I will admit that I’m still in active research of these things, and I’m open to criticism on things here because I’m certainly no expert. I have found articles such as this and this which have helped me in understanding these concepts, and I recommend them (and all of their articles, really) to anyone wanting to learn philosophy.