Dialectic: The Pulse of Freedom
Dialectic is now widely regarded as a classic of contemporary philosophy. This book, first published in 1993, sets itself three main aims: the development of a general theory of dialectic, of which Hegelian dialectic can be seen to be a special case; the dialectical enrichment and deepening of critical realism, viz. into the system of dialectical critical realism; and the outline of the elements of a totalizing critique of Western philosophy.\ The first chapter clarifies the rational core of...
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Dialectic is now widely regarded as a classic of contemporary philosophy. This book, first published in 1993, sets itself three main aims: the development of a general theory of dialectic, of which Hegelian dialectic can be seen to be a special case; the dialectical enrichment and deepening of critical realism, viz. into the system of dialectical critical realism; and the outline of the elements of a totalizing critique of Western philosophy.The first chapter clarifies the rational core of Hegelian dialectic. Chapter two then proceeds to develop a general theory of dialectic. Isolating the fallacy of 'ontological monovalence', Roy Bhaskar then shows how absence and other negating concepts such as contradiction have a legitimate and necessary ontological employment. He then goes on to give a synoptic account of key dialectical concepts such as the concrete universal; to sketch the further dialectical development of critical naturalism through an account of what he calls four-planar social being; and following consideration of the dialectical critique of analytical reason, he moves on to the real definition of dialectic as absenting absence and in the human sphere, the axiology of freedom.Chapter three extends and deepens critical realism’s characteristic concerns with ontology, science, social science and emancipation not only into the realms of negativity and totality, but also into the fields of reference and truth, spatio-temporality, tense and process, the logic of dialectical universalizability and on to the plane of ethics, where it articulates a combination of moral realism and ethical naturalism, whereby consideration of elemental desire involves commitment to the eudaimonistic society. This is then followed by a sublime discussion of key moments in the trajectory of Western philosophy, the tradition of which can now be seen to be based on what the author calls the unholy trinity of the epistemic fallacy or the reduction of being to knowledge, primal squeeze or the collapse of structure and alethic truth, and ontological monovalence.
PrefaceAbbreviations1Introduction: Critical Realism, Hegelian Dialectic and the Problems of Philosophy - Preliminary Considerations11Objectives of the Book12'Dialectic': An Initial Orientation33Negation44Four Degrees of Critical Realism85Prima Facie Objections to Critical Realism146On the Sources and General Character of the Hegelian Dialectic157On the Immanent Critique and Limitations of the Hegelian Dialectic238The Fine Structure of Hegelian Dialectic289Epistemological Dialectic and the Problems of Philosophy332Dialectic: The Logic of Absence - Arguments, Themes, Perspectives, Configurations381Absence382Emergence493Contradiction I: Hegel and Marx564Contradiction II: Misunderstandings725On the Materialist Diffraction of Dialectic866Dialectical Arguments and the Unholy Trinity1027Dialectical Motifs: Tina Formations, Mediation, Concrete Universality, etc.1128On the Generalized Theory of the Dialectical Remark, the Failure of Detachment and the Presence of the Past1349Dialectical Critical Naturalism15210Towards a Real Definition of Dialectic1733Dialectical Critical Realism and the Dialectic of Freedom2041Ontology2042The Dialectic of Truth2143On the Emergence and Derivability of Dialecticized Transcendental Realism22441M Realism: Non-Identity23152E Realism: Negativity2386Space, Time and Tense2507Social Science, Explanatory Critique, Emancipatory Axiology25883L Realism: Totality27094D Realism: Agency27610The Dialectic of Desire to Freedom27911Dialectical Critical Realism and the Dialectics of Critical Realism2994Metacritical Dialectics: Irrealism and Its Consequences3081Irrealism3082The Problems of Philosophy and Their Resolution3143Contradictions of the Critical Philosophy3224Dilemmas of the Beautiful Soul and the Unhappy Consciousness3265Master and Slave: From Dialectics of Reconciliation to Dialectics of Liberation3306The Metacritique of the Hegelian Dialectic3367Marxian Dialectic I: The Rational Kernel in the Mystical Shell3448Marxian Dialectic II: The Mystical Shell in the Rational Kernel3489Metacritical Dialectics: Philosophical Ideologies - Their Sublation and Explanation35410The Consequences of Irrealism36511Diffracted and Retotalized Dialectics37012Dialectic as the Pulse of Freedom378Notes386Glossary392Name Index407Subject Index409
