Abstract

In this paper I shall be concerned with Hegel’s reasoning in that kind of thinking which he called “dialectic,” and in particular with dialectic as it is exhibited in that work and part of a work which he entitled “Logic.” I shall be concerned with a single question about the dialectic in these writings, namely, “Can this dialectic be shown to involve a valid pattern of deductive reasoning?” The reason I have used the word “involve” in the preceding sentence needs to be made explicit. The question I wish to deal with is not whether all of the thought processes, the whole string of “transitions” from one concept to another, which Hegel outlines as the dialectic of his logic, are formal deductions. I think they are not. I only wish to ask whether Hegel’s dialectical philosophizing in his Logic does, typically, involve any deductive move. I shall argue that the correct answer to this question is “Yes.”