In this article dialectic is taken to mean that way of considering the development of thought and reality theorized by Hegel and later reconsidered and discussed by Marx; even today the dialectic concept of reality is an important theme in modern Marxism. As for Marx, some people hold that he turned the Hegelian concept of dialectic back to front, shifting its accent and basis from the Idea to real and concrete man, seen in his social relations; but there is no doubt that, thanks to this reversal, or rather thanks to a varied and complex attitude to dialectic (in some ways more positive and more directly fruitful than the Hegelian logical instrument, in others more polemical and detached), Marx never abandoned his determination to preserve its validity even in a context more or less radically different from Hegel's. Although, within the sphere of modern Marxism, beside the more orthodox school of thought that makes the dialectic concept of reality one of its doctrinal bastions, there is also the school that attempts to limit its doctrine to the field of historical reality and the world of man, relinquishing every pretension to a more generalized metaphysical perspective; one must not forget that even the latter does not believe it possible to form an adequate concept of the development of history without any reference to the dialectic concept; whether the whole of reality or only history are considered, it does not seem possible to leave the dialectic theory of development out of a consideration of either point of view.

Material reality, constantly variable and constantly in movement, dialectic in its nature, is reflected in the sciences which at specific stages of their development possess an univocal form: the results of knowledge are expressed in a language which uses terminology and symbolism, its ideas and its statements have a precise and definite sense.

In the intellectual history of the West and the East the words “experience” and “dialectic” have been used in various senses. Their respective roles in knowledge have been differently conceived—depending invariably on the meanings given to the words “knowledge” and “experience.” The problem of the mutual relationship between experience and dialectic is at bottom that of the relation between experience and reason. Reason can be understood in a static sense and a dynamic sense. It may stand for that human capacity which apprehends formal logical relations between certain propositions and deduces conclusions from given premises. Or it may refer to that dynamic effort of the human mind to articulate, to grapple with and render intelligible the immediately felt experience. In this latter sense reason is involved in a dialectical and dramatic process which aims at recapturing, as it were, the felt unity and totality of experience. That is why underlying the diverse uses of “dialectic” one can discern in the concept a common flavor which is a unique combination of the rational and the dramatic, the intellectual and the imaginative, the discursive and the non-discursive. Failure to understand the proper relation between experience and dialectic has given rise either to “insoluble paradoxes” or to grandiose, “metaphysical,” over-all solutions which are hardly convincing. In this paper I intend to bring out, what seems to me, the proper way of understanding their relation through a critical consideration of the dialectics of the famous Mādhyamika dialectician Nāgārjuna, of ancient India, interspersed with incidental remarks on some Western dialecticians.

We have been going through a period in the philosophy of science in which it has been dominated by the theory of the dematerialization of matter. From Eddington in 1927 to Hanson in the present day, this theory, in one formulation or another, has been maintained. Its adherents suppose that matter upon examination can be resolved into mental constructs of every description, from organized sets of sense impressions to mathematical equations. The idealists are so dazzled by the conditions under which the mental recognition of the extra-mental world occurs that they end by doubting the genuineness of the extra-mental world. But there are reasons to suspect that the idealistic interpretation is not the correct one, and I shall attempt here to present (though not to prove) the counter position. The materialist considers the extra-mental world genuine, but, as we shall see, it is not simply the case of an old materialism confronted with new evidence by the idealists. There is evidence for a new materialism as well. Thus what we have perhaps is an ancient controversy under fresh guises, a new idealism confronted by a new materialism.

Is there a specific form of dialectic reason as distinct from reason in the strict classical sense? It is very doubtful, and dialectic reason is very probably a myth. I will not discuss this point here. But there is no doubt that dialectic aspects of conscience do exist; they exist not only in the conscience of the scholar, but in conscience in general which, according to Gonseth, is always open, ever ready to revize itself, to doubt its provisional principles, to abandon the positions it had taken up.

In the Biblical story of the creation we read (Gen. II): “The Lord in the exercise of His power created from the soil all the wild animals of the field and all the birds (and other animals) that fly in the sky. He brought to the Man to see what name he would give it. Whatever the Man called a living soul, that would be his name. The man gave names to all the domestic animals and to the birds of the sky and to all the wild animals of the field; but there was not found a helpmate appropriate to Man.” An early medieval commentary (Midras Beresit Raba, quoted from ed. Levin-Epstein, Jerusalem, 5712 = 1951/2) reports the following explanation (xvii, 4): “The students asked Rabi Yohanan ben Zarai: It is written (Gen. 1, 24), ‘And God said, let the earth bring forth living souls according to their species…’ What, then, is the meaning of the verse, ‘The Lord created from the soil…?’ He said to them: The first verse (1, 24) relates to the creation, whereas the second mention (II, 19) refers to the power of the humans over the animal kingdom. This can be seen from the verse (Deut. xx, 19): ‘If you will use your power against a city…’.” (This means that the word wayser should not be derived from the root ysr, to create, but from the root swr, to behave in an inimical fashion. The best translation of the verse would then be: “The Lord in the exercise of His power forced from the soil all the animals of the field… and brought them under the power of the Man under condition that he would name them.” It is to be noted that the word “he created” appears previously in II, 7 as applied to the creation of Man. There it is spelled wyysr, seemingly to exclude a derivation from swr. This is similar to the massoretic treatment of wyr’, he saw, and wyyr’, he feared. The first root is r'h, the second yr’. Naturally, biblical scholarship cannot take notice of these remarks since it must believe in a theory of sources.) The attitude underlying this commentary is that the knowledge of the right name gives power over the bearer of that name. This attitude is a well-known principle of magic in all its forms. It can be found in folk-tales like that of Rumpelstilzchen. J. G. Frazer, in The Golden Bough (quoted from 2nd ed., vol. 1, London, 1900) has made a classical study of this kind of magic. He writes of the Egyptians (p. 446): “For it was believed that he who possessed the true name possessed the very being of god or man, and could force even a deity to obey him as a slave obeys his master.” For the same reason, we are told (p. 447): “The city of Rome itself had a secret name which it was unlawful to divulge.”

Before bringing out the relationship between dialectic and logic, we must define as precisely as possible the sense in which we shall use these terms. It is well known that the words “dialectic” and “logic” have taken on very different meanings in the history of philosophical and logical thought. This ambiguity is also characteristic of their use in contemporary publications.

It is true that all ideas begin with experience, in a factual, temporal sense. It is also true that the validity of many ideas does not depend upon the observations of natural experience. “Experience” is used therewith in two different senses of the term, which cannot be fused by calling them different modes of experience. The difference between the inductive and the deductive, or the empirical and the formal, is involved. It has been one of the supports for the doctrine of a priori knowledge. The difference between direct experience, in which one is “at the mercy of the object,” and reflective experience, which is regarded by some philosophers as more adequate and independent, has also been prominent. It has led to the doctrine of transcendental knowledge, in response to the understandable wish to be emancipated from the natural conditions of experience. Curiously, it does not seem to be realized that an emancipation from nature would also involve independence from all conditions of human culture. That the direction of flight is away from the limitations of the natural world is evident. Not so evident is the goal, which hardly offers the desired haven of refuge in a nonnatural world that is devoid of culture as we know it.