Dialectical method of cognition according to Hegel

The dialectical method of cognition considers all phenomena and processes in interrelation, development, and interdependence. Dialectics, as a science, first arose as the art of conducting a dispute: it is this phenomenon in translation that denotes the word "dialectic". The dialectical method of cognizing the world was founded by Socrates and was further developed by the Sophists. Dialectics as a method of cognition and analysis of reality was first proposed by Heraclitus (everyone knows his famous expression "Everything flows, everything changes"), and subsequently developed by Zeno, Kant and other followers. But Hegel gave absolutely finished and perfect form to dialectics. Therefore, the dialectical method of cognition in the form in which we know it, developed and presented by Hegel, is called Hegelian dialectics.

According to Hegel, the dialectical method of cognition is the "driving soul of true knowledge," and is based on the principle that makes the content of any science an inner necessity and connection.

Hegel, developing the dialectical method of investigation, analyzed all the most important and basic categories of philosophy, and formulated three basic laws of dialectics.

The first law is the law of transition of quantity to quality and vice versa. This law describes and determines the mechanisms of self-development. In order to freely operate with the notion of "quality", "quantity" and "measure," Hegel gave them definitions and called the three forms of being ideas. The founder of dialectics called quality the internal certainty of an object or phenomenon, which as a whole characterizes this object or phenomenon. The qualitative variety of the phenomena of life and objects represents their specificity, what makes it possible to distinguish one object (phenomenon) from another, gives uniqueness and characteristic features.

Hegel asserted that the qualitative characteristic of any object is expressed by its properties, and called the properties of an object a certain ability to combine, interact and correlate with other phenomena or objects.

Pointing to the transition of quantitative characteristics to qualitative ones, Hegel focused on the reverse process: the transition of quality to quantity. Infinite transitions from one to another do not at all deny the existence of certain properties of objects or phenomena, but only indicate that at a certain point in time a particular property of an object can be replaced by a different quality, which means the appearance of a new measure - that is, the unity of quality and quantity. This transformation makes it possible to appear a new quality of the object, which, in turn, will lead to a transition to a new quantitative dimension.

The second law of dialectics is called the law of unity and struggle of opposites (the law of interpenetration). Characterizing the second law, Hegel appeals to the concepts of "identity", "differences", "contradictions", "opposition". Any phenomenon, according to Hegel, is the result of internal contradictions and negation of sides and trends. Therefore, in the dialectic of Hegel, the sides of the whole are opposites that are in a state of interconnection and interdependence.

The third law of dialectics is referred to as the "negation of negation". It characterizes the universal result and direction of evolution. The law is based on the denial of everything old when a new one appears, a transition from one quality to another. But the triune condition must be preserved: overcoming the old, then continuity in development, and, finally, the assertion of the new.

On these three pillars, the basic laws, the dialectical method of cognition is based.