Comparison of Hegel and Dooyeweerd
==== To be written. It will be a summary of the paper 'Engines of Dialectic', A. Basden, 1999, Philosophia Reformata, which will suggest that dialectic may be seen in aspectual terms, and that what Hegel called 'Divine' or 'Spirit', which develops, may be understood and re-interpreted as the whole of created reality, which is 'opened up'.
# Add in: Hegelian contradiction is not conflict but rather, as it has been put, "things that should not be able to work together actually do." Contradiction is rife in everyday experienced reality and it is theory that does not understand how they work together. The example has been given: We have the power to feed the world yet there is starvation. Dooyeweerd would explain this as follows:
- Theory focuses on a single aspect, e.g. the biotic and economic aspects of food production.
- There are also other aspects at play, e.g. the juridical (of laws and policies) and ethical (whose negative is selfisness and greed).
- The aspects are irreducibly distinct in their meaningfulness and the laws by which reality operates, but they also cohere, in the sense that no aspect is in conflict with others, each contains echoes of the others and each depends on the others.
- The appearance of contradiction is because we think in terms of certain aspects and ignore others.
- The possibility of 'contradiction' lies in the inter-aspect irreducibililty.
- The absence of conflict lies in inter-aspect coherence.
This page is part of a collection of pages that links to various thinkers, within The Dooyeweerd Pages, which explain, explore and discuss Dooyeweerd's interesting philosophy. Email questions or comments would be welcome.
Copyright (c) 2005 Andrew Basden. But you may use this material subject to conditions.
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Created: 11 July 2005
Last updated: 25 April 2024 contradiction.