Contradiction (dialectic)

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The term contradiction or antagonism ( neologism from ancient Greek ἀντί antí "against" and ἀγωνισμός agonismós "competition") is a philosophical term of the Hegelian as well as the Marxist dialectic . In the context of the dialectic, the term is, however, not in the sense of the principle of contradiction used, but in the sense, polar opposed opposites and contradictions of phenomena , concepts , ideas , but also of historical forces and developments.

Used by Hegel

For Hegel, following on from Kant, reason is inherently contradictory. In every development there is first of all a contradiction which arises from the movement of the thing. Hegel conceives the movement itself as the existing contradiction. He describes it metaphorically in the preface to the phenomenology of the mind as the moment in a developing plant that leads to change. Through the dialectical movement of reason it is, or has always been, abolished in the absolute . Hegel's speculative approach sees itself as a representation of the idea of ​​the spirit that develops through the contradictions.

Use in Marx

Karl Marx and his successors adopted the Hegelian term and applied Hegel's dialectics on a materialistic basis as a method of investigation for social and economic processes (cf. Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism ). The contradiction between labor and capital or between the use value and the exchange value of a commodity is particularly well known . Marx too did not use the term “contradiction” in the sense of the principle of contradiction, but just like his successors in the sense of “opposition”, also synonymous with enmity of the social classes in the class struggle and in the revolution .

Others

There are also approaches to express or formalize the elimination of contradictions in a different way:

See also

literature