Ontology

Dialectical Method in Ontology: A Critical Reflection

In conclusion to our brief exploration of the issues surrounding ontology, it is pertinent to touch upon another aspect that is closely linked to Ukrainian philosophical thought. This pertains to the so-called "dialectical materialism," the foundations of which have been studied by hundreds of thousands of students as a compulsory discipline. Without delving into historical questions, it is worth noting that this current continues to exert some influence, if only because many individuals associate philosophy with what they once learned at university.

Let us, however, endeavor to examine the ontological core of this doctrine impartially and critically. In most of its components, it coincides entirely with the materialistic realism that characterizes the prevailing naturalistic stance in the modern scientific worldview, which we previously described as a common-sense perspective. It must be stated that Marxist-Leninists fundamentally equated the concepts of being, matter, objective reality, and natural existence, thereby drastically simplifying ontology into the schema of "primary (matter) — secondary (reflection or idea)." Yet, dialectical materialism possesses two distinctive features in contrast to naturalism in a broad historical sense: (1) consistent atheism (the conviction that God does not exist and that belief in His existence contradicts the physical picture of the world), and (2) the so-called "dialectical method" as the foundation of philosophy (hence the name of this current). It is noteworthy that consistent naturalists are predominantly agnostics, asserting that the existence of God cannot be proven or disproven by any rational evidence; thus, this matter of belief and personal volitional decision remains solely at their own risk. It is also essential to emphasize that faith or disbelief in the existence of God and trust in the church as a mediator between Him and humanity are logically unrelated. From the fact that God exists, nothing can be inferred regarding whether He grants any church the authority to promise something on His behalf.

Let us now delve deeper into what dialectics signifies in the Marxist-Leninist understanding. But first, two clarifications are needed.

First. It is necessary to state that originally the term "dialectic," which literally means "through words," referred to the skill of analyzing the content of words during a debate and thus resolving the subject of contention by reaching a consensus on the matter. An alternative to dialectics in this understanding is any number of disputes in which opponents seek to impose their beliefs on one another at any cost or simply argue for the sake of attracting attention, to provoke, or for other reasons (argument for argument's sake). In this context, dialectics is a thoughtful examination of a contradictory question, with an emphasis on efforts to eliminate contradictions through logical means (rather than facts). However, dialectics here is neither a method nor a doctrine; it is rather a characteristic of the style and orientation of the thought process. In this sense, dialectics coincides with philosophy, as philosophers indeed seek to build their views through thoughtful examination of challenging questions, paradoxes of thought, in which conflicting positions appear equally well-argued. Today, however, the term "dialectics" in its original sense is seldom employed.

In dialectical materialism, this original meaning of the term "dialectics" has been replaced by another. Dialectics has come to denote a general theory of development, which in turn is interpreted as the foundation of the theoretical apparatus of philosophy. Development is understood to refer to any qualitative transformations of an object, the successive changes of something that becomes something else while retaining its foundational essence. Something unique, singular, whole, and distinct from other objects acquires other, non-identical qualitative characteristics (quality is what denotes the uniqueness of the whole formation). Since materialists regard the world as unified in its essence—everything that is real is reduced to a material principle—the fundamental problem of understanding the universe lies in clarifying how the vast diversity of phenomena and objects arises and the direction of these changes. Thus, it is logical that a general theory of development underpins such an understanding. However, why do they call this dialectics?

The issue is that Marxist-Leninists attempted to construct their theory of development based on the "dialectical method" of G.W.F. Hegel, which was reinterpreted in a materialistic vein by F. Engels. Therefore, dialectical materialism represents one version of the theory of development based on a rethought materialistic interpretation of Hegelianism, which Marxists simultaneously sought to integrate with the achievements of natural scientific thought.

What, then, is the essence of the so-called "dialectical method" of G.W.F. Hegel? For the German thinker, classical logic—the kind upon which mathematics and natural sciences rely, which underlies the analysis of the evidentiary basis in a fair judicial process—seems applicable only in limited contexts. The limited reason of G.W.F. Hegel is contrasted with what he terms "speculative" reason, capable of encompassing the infinity of the universe as a holistic "absolute" and as an active reason simultaneously. Hegel himself compares this to a mystical insight. Thus, dialectical logic for him serves as both a method of philosophical contemplation of reality and the universal "spirit" in action.

To grasp Hegel's intent, it is worth briefly outlining the essence of "standard" reasoning logic, beyond which the thinker strives to extend. Classical logic's sequence in thought—concerning the use of terms, definitions, judgments, and inferences—boils down to several rules. The rule of identity demands that when employing a term in reasoning, it must always be used with the same meaning, thus not substituting meanings during the discourse. Furthermore, the requirement of non-contradiction regards as impossible any objects or states in which, in the same relationship, some attribute is simultaneously ascribed and denied. For instance, if traffic rules prescribe not exceeding a speed of 60 km/h and simultaneously allow exceeding it, this indicates that no definite rule exists; two contradictory prescriptions negate each other. Finally, an attribute (meaning) may either be ascribed to a relevant object (that is, one to which the ascription of this attribute is meaningful) or it may not; a third option does not exist. This requirement also defines the operation of negation: if the absence of an attribute is asserted, then negating this absence means the presence of that attribute. For example, centaurs either exist or they do not. If the assertion that centaurs do not exist is denied, this is equivalent to the assertion that they do exist.

What, then, does Hegel perceive as the limitation of classical logic? Let us consider a fragment of the thinker's reasoning to comprehend the essence of dialectical logic in action. Hegel views the discursive activity of thought as the capacity to abstract from individual and concrete sensory images and to introduce general definitions into discourse. Thus, reason generates a diversity of conceptual thoughts. However, the world picture constructed through the means of reason is static; it is as if it is fragmented into separate cells, giving rise to contradictions. When thinking most abstractly, we abstract from any specific determinate object and retain in thought only an indeterminate something, fixating solely on existence as such. Yet, since this indeterminate something is nothing specific, it is tantamount to nothingness, that is, non-existence. Something and nothing mutually negate each other, but the thought of something always generates a contradiction, which is necessary for the thought of this something to persist in consciousness when we consider this most general notion. In eliminating this contradiction, we must simultaneously retain it. Hegel employs the term "Aufheben," which encompasses this dual meaning: the preservation of something and the negation of something.

In domestic philosophy, this term is translated as the “sublation” of contradiction. Thus, dialectical logic can be interpreted as a logic that retains contradictions in the transition from one determination to another. However, it is precisely this negation of negation and the preservation of contradictions within the content of the synthesized concept that Hegel perceives as essential to any change, wherein something becomes something else, and this transition occurs, in his view, with logical necessity. Dialectical thinking has its correspondence in the object. Hence, the sublation of contradiction serves as a means of thinking motion, but the actual movement itself consists of such logical transitions. For Hegel, the thought reality is rationally ordered, and this is tantamount to it being thought itself. The World Spirit engenders the thought reality, which possesses its opposite in the dialectical unity—the actual world of nature, the knowledge of which is self-knowledge of the spirit.

According to Hegel, the initial thought contradiction of something (indeterminate existence) and nothing is resolved in the concept of becoming. Becoming encompasses two contradictory aspects of any movement, the sublation of which is now something definite—an actual thing existing in its determination.

Here is another example that may clarify Hegel's reasoning (though it is not from Hegel). If someone accepts another's words on faith, this is naivety, but naivety paired with the person's confidence in something. However, if doubts arise, then doubt appears as an internal contradiction between a thesis (that in which the person was initially convinced), for instance, that gods exist, and its negation (that gods do not exist)—the antithesis. This contradiction is equivalent to uncertainty, indeterminacy.

In their judgment, a person seeks to rid themselves of it by posing a question of choice: either God exists, or He does not. Hegel uniquely interprets this negation of the thesis: the antithesis opposes the thesis in content, but it is simultaneously necessary for the determination of the thesis. They are logically and necessarily united as opposites. In our initiated example, the doubter experiences uncertainty, but this doubt is understood only as a negation of something definite—what someone initially believed in naively. The opposite of this negation is not the initial naivety, but the negation of the negation itself, that is, the sublation of the contradiction, which is preserved (Aufheben) and simultaneously removed (negated). Note that in the first stage of thought, the opposite of naive faith is doubt, hesitation. Similarly, the opposite of doubt is confidence in learning, belief. However, in the second stage of negation, it pertains not to either of these two connected concepts but to the contradiction between them. The contradiction itself is negated. What, then, constitutes such a negation of the contradiction in doubt?—Conviction in something as the eliminated basis of doubt. This conviction is no longer naive; it seems to encompass the overcome contradiction. Thus, we have the classical dialectical triad: thesis—antithesis—synthesis (the sublated contradiction that elevates the thesis to a new level).

Yet, a legitimate question arises: how is the dispute resolved? Do gods exist, or do they not? Hegel's mistake lies in the fact that the negation of contradiction, in and of itself, resolves nothing substantively, while the preservation of contradiction does not yield a logically necessary conclusion. In our example, naive faith transforms into non-naive conviction through overcoming doubt. But what should this conviction substantively entail? If gods either exist or do not exist, then removing doubt in conviction is only possible by sufficiently eliminating one of the two, substantiating one's resolution. However, from “dialectical” logic, this sufficient basis does not follow.

Consequently, while contemplating substantial existence or becoming, we cannot derive anything from these concepts. On the contrary, pure existence as an indeterminate something does not exist precisely because it is nothing. We do not arrive at conceptions of determined objects—such as tables, trees, and girls—from the concept of nothing, but the concept of nothing is generated as the boundary of applying the operation of negation to all objects: not this, not that,... thus—nothing. Therefore, to think nothing, one must first think something definite; to think something indefinite is equivalent to thinking nothing at all. Hegel's dialectical logic is fundamentally flawed.

Marxists, however, assert that they have turned it right side up. For this, the initial indeterminate something has become eternally existing matter, which Marxists understand as objective reality in all its potential actual states. Matter is capable of self-development, and this is its defining characteristic (that is, it is postulated). This self-development falls under the influence of three most general “laws” of dialectics.

However, what does the term “law” mean here? It is also important to understand what problem they were attempting to solve “dialectically.” We previously asserted that the variability and orderliness of the manifested reality of the world are exceedingly certain, and it is impossible to deny this without reaching absurdity. Yet why does everything occur precisely as it does, rather than otherwise, and why does anything happen at all? How can one think of the necessity of such an order and such changes? Philosophers understood that it is impossible to derive this answer from facts: in this way, we only indicate what this order is but not why it is precisely like this. Throughout the events of the world, people have always been inclined to see the will of someone: things happen because someone desires them to happen in this manner and enacts it through their will. Whose will—this is the reality. The weak will of man does not allow them to produce events by their desires; they must follow the rules of the game that the gods have set for the world. The opposite style of explanation was to conceptualize these rules of the game as something inherently present in the world and not determined by anyone (at least in its origins). For such an explanation, the key concept is that of nature as an objective order and possible changes of a given object for the given conditions. Nature consists of those rules of the game that determine worldly events and limit possible transformations, the “lawgiver” of the world.

We call a law a prescription that establishes order (a norm, a rule of action) and obliges someone to adhere to this order. It is essential to note that a law in this understanding can be violated; this rule is not an objectively alternative-free state of affairs. The law, in other words, is a prescription that objectively limits the possible through subjective establishment. The power of the law here is determined by its ability to motivate human behavior and the inevitability of punishment in the case of deviation from the proper course. This is how the law is understood in moral, political-legal, and divine contexts. When speaking of natural reality, it is considered in terms of regularities manifested in experience, namely, a certain connection of sequences of events, the regular reproduction of such sequences, which thereby become predictable. In a figurative sense, such rules that describe this revealed order are called “laws of nature,” emphasizing that this order is thought not only as inherent to known data but to the entire universe at all times and places, that is, as a highly generalized regularity that applies to any possible experience. The term “law” here, however, has an inverse logic compared to the first understanding. This “law” cannot be violated; it is conceived as objectively necessary (although subjectively we can err in our generalizations and mistake what is not a “law” for a law). In other words, the “law of nature” merely describes the objective conditioning of some events by others.

It is not entirely appropriate to refer to these conditions as laws, but this has become the custom, for the first empirical natural scientists (such as Newton) tended to formulate revealed regularities as “commands” in the spirit of divine ordinances. In mathematics, such objective conditions are generally referred to as theorems rather than laws.

However, in logic, when speaking of laws of thought, we refer to a prescription that regulates the thought process according to certain rules.

Violating these rules, which is possible, objectively leads to a loss of meaning, for ambiguity within the sign system engenders uncertainty.

Here we must reflect on whether the laws of logic can determine the laws of the cosmos. From an ontological perspective, this question can be reformulated as follows: is the existence of something logically necessary? (Note that we earlier asserted that the thought of being is a necessary condition for thought as such, but this is not the same as asserting that the fact of thinking of an object necessitates its actual existence.) Could it be that there exists neither a world nor thinkers within it? To contemplate this question, we must think about being, and the very act of thinking proves the presence of being. However, this presence does not allow us to eliminate the thought of possibilities (precisely because thinking them is self-evident in the process of mental generation of the thought of the possibility of something). Thus, if my will allowed me to convert any intention into reality, I would possess complete freedom; therefore, nothing would be objectively necessary, and all laws would merely be someone’s prescriptions. Conversely, the objective conditioning of events does not permit us to think of the logical necessity of reality, but only its possibility, which is constrained by the rule that we can derive solely from the factual presence of this reality.

In the further analysis of the "laws of dialectics," it is essential to remember that these were conceived as a logically necessary connection that objectively determines the course and direction of the world's development. This necessity is derived from the essence of the law itself; it is a law that cannot be violated merely because it is conceived.

The law of the unity and struggle of opposites has been considered an expression of the internal mechanism of development. Development is the transition of something that remains itself into a new quality. This new quality "contradicts" the previous one but exists in relation to it as two necessary sides of the same (unity). A child becomes a teenager, thus "negating" its childhood; the child and the teenager are opposing qualities, one of which cannot be conceived without the other. However, in essence, this "law" is merely a clumsy interpretation of the concept of development, and within its content, there is nothing that indicates the internal driving force of processes. It is evident that the reference to "opposites" does not, in itself, explain why any changes occur at all. Marxists, whose primary interest lay in class struggle within society, interpreted this law in such a way that the driving force of development is the conflict, the collision of contradictory processes.

However, the phrase "the struggle of opposites" creates the illusion that the description of the direction of events explains their causes. Clearly, there is no real "contradiction" between moving to the right and moving to the left. Contradiction will arise only when someone attempts to move simultaneously in both directions. This would imply that such movement is logically impossible. To explain movement through the unity and struggle of opposites in concepts is akin to stating that a person moves to the left because their rightness is weakening.

The law of the transition of quantitative changes into qualitative distinctions in the process of development posits that quantitative changes represent alterations in magnitude without any qualitative transformation of the object into something else—merely a relative increase or decrease. The smallest apple varieties are ten times smaller than the fruits of certain particularly large apple tree varieties; however, both remain apples, possessing their characteristic structure.

Marxist-Leninists interpreted development as a leap-like transition from accumulated quantitative changes into a new quality. The load on a support, such as a bridge or beam, reaches a certain critical intensity, after which the support fails. Conversely, the emergence of something qualitatively new is explained as the accumulation of quantitative changes. For example, when learning a language, a person initially acquires words, grammatical rules, attempts to imitate the sounds of phrases, and construct them meaningfully; eventually, the number of such attempts and learned language elements transcends into a new quality: the ability to converse in a language.

However, such generalization is superficial and flawed. Firstly, there is no logically necessary transition between quantitative magnitude and qualitative determination. Logically, we could scale an apple as much as desired, enlarging it to the size of the universe. What imposes limitations on quantitative changes within the bounds of one quality? Why is it that, relying solely on thought, I cannot conceive of an apple weighing 100 tons?

Yet, it is the objective connections in their qualitative determination that establish the limits within which only quantitative comparisons are possible. It is absurd to speak of an apple the size of the universe because, objectively, the sizes of apples are constrained by existing relationships. Such an enlargement does not translate into a different quality—the mentally envisioned gigantic apple still remains an apple. This connection between quantitative and qualitative characteristics—the range of quantitative changes within one quality—is termed measure. Consequently, qualitative changes, or development, involve a change of measure, not quantity. Thus, this "law of dialectics," like the previous one, possesses zero predictive power: where the measure is preserved, we can indicate the lawful consequences of quantitative changes; where the measure is transgressed, we cannot.

Quality (the objective determination of an object) establishes the quantitative range of possible changes in the real world. A change in quality also alters this range. For instance, a new wheat variety may exhibit a shorter growing season or greater yield, but one cannot assert that an increase in yield led to the emergence of a new variety. This quantitative characteristic, on the contrary, is a consequence of changes in the morphological and functional traits of wheat, which, in turn, modify its adaptive properties (drought resistance, disease resistance, stem lodging, etc.) and depend on favorable weather conditions, agronomic practices, and so forth.

It would be nonsensical to believe that purely quantitative changes can inevitably lead to a new quality. Of course, if one pulls out a hair, eventually the head will become bald (a new quality). But in this case, the term "bald" is initially identical to "hairless."

It is also worth noting that the "leap-like" nature of change is quite ambiguous. In real processes, the dynamics of change can be expressed as the unfolding of events in time, as well as the compression or stretching of time concerning an event. The collapse of a bridge can be interpreted as a multitude of events compressed into a short interval of time relative to other events (for example, concerning an observer who sees it). The well-known technique of speeding up or slowing down film rewinding vividly illustrates how something can be presented as leap-like (repairing an apartment or blooming a flower bud) or, conversely, how the jump of an Olympic champion, which lasts a second, can be seen as a lengthy sequence of movements.

Quantitative measures reflect the objective interconnectedness well (which makes mathematics a powerful apparatus for describing this interconnectedness), but it is unfounded to interpret qualitative transformations as a logical consequence of changes in quantity.

The law of the negation of negation has often been interpreted as a law of development in a spiral: something new negates the old (it is not old), but new concerning the new transforms the previous new into old. It now becomes "not new," that is, not-not-old. But behold! Not-not-old is the same as old (not new)! Yet it is new concerning the previous one. Thus, it repeats something past, following the previous one, but on a new turn. In the works of F. Engels, one can find rather amusing interpretations of this law. For example, a seed, upon germination, becomes not-seed (a sprout), which ultimately develops into new seed. This new seed negates the negation: seed—not-seed (sprout)—not-sprout (not-not-seed).

Upon reflection, one can discern the manner in which such "laws" are constructed: they are concepts transformed into laws, supplemented by verbal admixtures of various extraneous associations, which create the impression of some profound discovery. Taking the concept of development, its content unfolds as the "struggle" of opposites; the concepts of quantity and quality, which represent two aspects of the determination of objects in the world, are interpreted as a necessary "transition" from one to the other; the operation of negation is directly interpreted as a procedural characteristic of reality. These procedural words—struggle, transition, negation—create the illusion of explaining the mechanism of development where, in essence, it is merely a matter of stating what occurs. Usually, in the works of Soviet philosophers, dialectics was mentioned either for rhetorical flourish or to create obscurity where, fundamentally, the author had nothing certain to convey. This branch of philosophy ultimately proved fruitless: natural scientists rejected the "dialectical method" as vacuous, while in the social sciences, its application was reduced to a concept of the lawful, staged historical development of society (which underwent devastating criticism, although it still has its adherents today). At the same time, within the "dialectical logic" of Marxists-Leninists, there was indeed a positive aspect. It focused attention on the processuality of reality, on the complex interplay of contradictory tendencies, on the evolutionary dynamics of the world's components, on transitional and crisis moments. In a certain sense, "dialectics" instilled an appreciation for an evolutionary-synergistic worldview. At its roots, it was, in its own way, an intriguing and innovative attempt to make sense of the global process. The dogmatization of its tenets, which became ideological sanctities, obstructed the development of this current.

Thus, ontology is the study of what exists and what it means for something to exist. This inquiry is related to classical fundamental philosophical problems, such as proving the existence of God, interpreting the relationship between consciousness and other mental states with physical processes, the question of matter, ideal being, and so forth. The concept of being encompasses the shared characteristic of any thought, directed toward a certain object that is defined and given.

The first aspect, the determination of the object, expresses the concept of essence, while the second, the mode of given-ness, is existence. Existence, as a mode of the given-ness of the object, is conceived in five modalities: manifest reality, ideal being, objective reality, the subjective reality of a conscious individual, and imagined reality. The concept of objective reality expresses the conceived given-ness of the object as independent of its perception by the I-subject, contrasting it with the manifest given-ness of the world. The denial of objective reality is internally contradictory. There are various interpretations of objective reality, the fundamental contradiction of which boils down to defining the status of consciousness and the manifest given-ness of the world. Consciousness is the distribution of information among I-subjects, which includes the primary sensory manifestation of qualia.