THE UNITY OF IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCE AS THE ...

4) Hegel’s Methodological Reflections on the Nature of the Dialectic
In the Science of Logic and the first volume of the Encyclopedia, Hegel presents
important remarks about the nature of the dialectic, remarks that raise serious textual
challenges for an interpretation of the dialectic as a transcendental argument. In the
Science of Logic, Hegel explains the progression of the dialectic in terms of the process
of sublation or “Aufhebung.” He says that the later stages of the dialectic sublate the
earlier ones. The German term “Aufhebung,” the term translated into English as
sublation, has two distinct meanings. It means both “to preserve, to maintain, and equally
it also means to cause to cease, to put an end to.” 302 The process of sublation involves
both of these meanings. In one sense, the earlier dialectical stages are negated or rejected
as the dialectic progresses, but in another sense they are retained or preserved.
I would suggest that in order to make sense of the twofold nature of sublation, we
must grasp the progression of the dialectic as a kind of hermeneutic process, as a process
closely akin to the movement of thought from part to whole that occurs in
interpretation. 303 Because of the finite and discursive nature of the human mind,
interpretation always moves from part to whole. Before we can grasp a situation, theory,
or work of art in its entirety, we must first carefully consider each of its parts in light of
certain minimal guiding assumptions about the whole. As we consider the parts, our once
vague and tentative guiding assumptions about the whole become richer and more
concrete. As our interpretation progresses, we retain the parts within our conception of
the whole, though their nature, significance, and import often changes radically.
302 Science of Logic, p. 97.
303 For a detailed discussion of Hegel’s philosophical method as a hermeneutic procedure, see Sections 5.4
and 5.5 of Chapter Three as well as Section 5.7 of the Appendix to Chapter Four. Also, see Paul Redding’s
book, Hegel’s Hermeneutics, particularly Chapter Two.
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