Hegel's undiscovered thesis-antithesis-synthesis dialectics : what only Marx and Tillich understood / Leonard F. Wheat.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wheat, Leonard F., 1931-2014.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770-1831.

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich.

Dialectic.

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770-1831. Phänomenologie des Geistes.

Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770-1831. Einleitung in die Geschichte der Philosophie.

Marx, Karl, 1818-1883.

Marx, Karl.

Tillich, Paul, 1886-1965.

Tillich, Paul.

Physical Description:

444 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Amherst, N.Y. : Prometheus Books, 2012.

Summary:

For over fifty years, Hegel interpreters have rejected the former belief that Hegel used thesis-antithesis-synthesis dialectics. In this incisive analysis of Hegel's philosophy, Leonard F. Wheat shows that the modern interpretation is false. Wheat rigorously demonstrates that there are in fact thirty-eight well-concealed dialectics in Hegel's two most important works-twenty-eight in Phenomenology of Spirit and ten in The Philosophy of History. Wheat also develops other major new insights:

Hegel's chief dialectical format consists of a two-concept thesis, a two-concept antithesis, and a two-concept synthesis that borrows one concept from the thesis and one from the antithesis.

All dialectics are analogically based on the Christian separation-and-return myth: the dialectic separates from and returns to a thesis concept.

Hegel's enigmatic Spirit is a four-faceted, deliberately fictitious, non-supernatural entity that exists only as an atheistic redefinition of "God."

Spirit's "divine life" begins not with consciousness but with unconsciousness, in the prehuman state of nature-before Spirit acquires its human mind.

Hegel's concept of freedom is not a sociopolitical concept but release from bondage to religious superstition (belief in a supernatural God).

In Hegel's widely misinterpreted master-and-slave parable, the master is God, the slave is man, and the slave's gaining his freedom is man's becoming an atheist.

The standard non-Hegelian base-superstructure interpretation of Karl Marx's dialectics is false. Marx's basic dialectic is actually this: thesis = communal ownership + poverty, antithesis = private ownership + wealth, synthesis = communal ownership + wealth.

Wheat also shows that Karl Marx and Paul Tillich, who subtly used Hegelian dialectics in their own works, are the only authors who have understood Hegelian dialectics.

Thoroughly researched and richly detailed, this striking reinterpretation challenges and refutes every previous interpretation of Hegel's-and Marx's-philosophy. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Dialectics Denied 13

The Nature of the Problem 14

The Literature: Denial of Dialectics 17

The Literature: False Examples of Dialectics 27

Tillich: Genuine Examples of Thesis-Antithesis-Synthesis Dialectics 43

2 Dialectics Affirmed 47

Antithetical Concepts 48

Dialectical Terminology 60

Phenomenology's Preface 64

Phenomenology's Introduction 69

Phenomenology's Part A: Consciousness 73

3 Spirit, Unconsciousness, the Macrodialectic, and Freedom 93

Spirit: A Nonsupernatural Physical-Mental "Organism" 94

Separation and Return 108

The Trinity as "Revealed Religion" 112

Hegel's Macrodialectic: The Unconscious Stage (Thesis) 119

Hegel's Macrodialectic: The Full Dialectic 126

Freedom and Bondage 135

4 The Intermediate Dialectics and Microdialectics 145

The Intermediate Dialectics 145

The Microdialectics 153

The Message of Our Education in Dialectics 203

5 The Dialectics of History: Hegel vs. Marx 207

Hegel's History Dialectics 208

Level 1 Hegel's Two Overall-Period Dialectics 208

Level 2 Hegel's Two Subperiod Dialectics 223

Level 3 Hegel's Six Sub-Subperiod Dialectics 228

Picking and Choosing 241

Marx's History Dialectics 243

Marx's Dialectical Framework 245

Level 1 Marx's Overall-Period Dialectics 252

Level 2 Marx's Subperiod Dialectics 259

Metaphysics 264

6 False and Fuzzy Interpretations of Spirit 267

Panentheistic Interpretations 268

Pantheistic Interpretations 279

Nonsupernatural Quasi-Pantheistic Interpretations 285

Nonsupernatural Societal Interpretations 302

Five Noninterpretations 310

7 Side Issues and Conclusions 323

Forster's Hypothesis of Late Expansion of the Text 323

Solomon's Beautiful Soul Hypothesis 343

Appraising Hegel's Thought 348.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 377-434) and index.

ISBN:

9781616146429

1616146427

9781616146436

1616146435

OCLC:

793581752