I confess that in all of my discussions of dialectics, I have been influenced not so much by Hegel, as by his brave revisionists Marx and Lenin. Unlike the majority of modern philosophers, I do not consider that duo either philosophically incompetent, or out of line, because, in my judgment, as I have said again and again, the most important legacy of any philosopher is not his philosophical system, but the degree of a stimulating effect he has on the generations of successive thinkers, myself not excluded.
My seeming obsession with the dialectics of “thesis and antithesis,” which I interpret as the philosophically rationalized foundation of the bipolar world order, does not gloss over the historical essence of dialectics, which is the process of gradual approximation of the truth, or the Absolute, using the questions and answers technique. This process was effectively developed by the pre-Socratics, although Socrates is often credited with inventing it.
For Hegel, dialectics at first does not seem to leave the domain of epistemology, representing the process of the acquiring of knowledge by the Spirit. It is only when he specifies the object of knowledge, in relation to the world-historical process, that Hegel’s dialectics becomes distinctive, and the notions of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis (incidentally, suggested not by Hegel, but by one of his interpreters, who borrowed these terms from Fichte) enter the picture, allowing Marx and Lenin later to jump on them.
Is there a logical sequitur within the dialectic chain between its champions dialecticians? There is a certain consistency in the progression between the Pre-Socratics and Hegel, and between Hegel the epistemologist and Hegel the philosopher of history, but the legitimacy of the transition from Hegel to Marx is questioned particularly by subsequent Western philosophers. There is no consistency breach however between Hegel’s idealism and Marx’s materialism, insofar as dialectics itself is concerned. The only strong objection to the treatment of this process by Marx and Lenin is that, in their approach, the world-historical process freezes over with the advent of communism (or, to be more modest, socialism), which undermines the principle of dialectical change without a proper justification. Indeed, even if we can imagine an arrival at the Absolute by Hegel’s self-realizing Spirit, such terminal point is only anticipated within idealistic systems, while no such conclusion of the world-historical process can be logically anticipated within the materialistic system, as professed by the classics of Marxism-Leninism. Apparently, both Marx and Lenin were closet idealists, who treated the last Communist stage of the world-historical process exactly like Hegel had envisioned the ultimate self-realization of the Spirit, only with much greater clarity and determination.
In my analysis of the fundamental nature of a stable world order, I have been contending that the stabilizing geopolitical principle of bipolarity appears to be the only logical principle of international organization. No claim, however, can be made that bipolarity is an ideal state of global affairs, because it is only a physical, only a material principle, whereas the clear dividing line between the material and the ideal remains intact in this consideration.
This is not to say that, as a material principle, bipolarity cannot have a say in our discussion of the ideal, as long as we have drawn proper conceptual lines, and are conscious about not overstepping them. Mindful of these constraints, we can nevertheless speculate about the viability of the bipolar principle in international politics and its exact position within the quasi-Hegelian dialectical chain of thesis-antithesis-synthesis.
Assuming that unipolarity is an oxymoron, and multipolarity is a transitional state, bipolarity comes out as the most natural dialectical thesis. However, being physical, rather than ideal, it can be expected to meet a perpetual challenge to its legitimacy in a variety of temporary forms, be that the illusory state of unipolarity, or the transitional reality of multipolarity. And, being the only stable state of reality, it can be expected to be recurring each time having been challenged by a fleeting antithesis, first as a synthesis, which our world is experiencing right now, and then as a new, yet familiar old thesis. Es ist eine alte Geschichte, doch bleibt es immer neu...
As I am on this subject now, I am curious about one other, consummately speculative thing: How does our recurring dialectic process fit into the causal chain? Can it be thus: Thesis is the cause of antithesis, which is the cause of the struggle between the thesis and the antithesis, then the struggle itself must be the cause of the synthesis, which right from the moment of its birth becomes the new thesis, and so on… Or, maybe, the thesis is not the cause of the antithesis, but only of the strife, generated by its appearance, a struggle against everything that is non-thesis, and now that the thesis has arrived, the antithesis takes shape from within the non-thesis crowd?
The preceding paragraph was not a vain wild exercise in speculative dialectics, but a serious and legitimate inquiry into the relationship between dialectics and causality, which is not at all obvious, and an invitation to a thoughtful contemplation of this argument’s application to the specific matters of superpower politics, bipolarity, unipolarity, multipolarity, and such. The practical questions of political science are fascinating here. So far, mind you, I have not involved into this discussion the question of the thesis and the antithesis in its application to the specific powers of the modern world. Of the two superpowers of cold war, how do they relate to each other, if at all, in the context of causality? But before getting into this some questions still remain to be discussed regarding the pure mechanics of the political world order. Such as these:
Is multipolarity a disguise for bipolarity? Will this disguise, granted, of great usefulness to the clandestine antithesis ever be discarded and the dialectic simplicity of the world order be restored? One thing, however, does not have to be asked, because the answer is obvious: There can be no such thing as unipolarity in real life, but only an arrogant chimera in the inflamed minds of the make-believe emperors of the universe, the classic case of emperors without clothes, their suspense allowed to last for a while only because the rest of the world is having such great fun at their expense and also trying to take maximum political advantage of the poor blind emperors…
My seeming obsession with the dialectics of “thesis and antithesis,” which I interpret as the philosophically rationalized foundation of the bipolar world order, does not gloss over the historical essence of dialectics, which is the process of gradual approximation of the truth, or the Absolute, using the questions and answers technique. This process was effectively developed by the pre-Socratics, although Socrates is often credited with inventing it.
For Hegel, dialectics at first does not seem to leave the domain of epistemology, representing the process of the acquiring of knowledge by the Spirit. It is only when he specifies the object of knowledge, in relation to the world-historical process, that Hegel’s dialectics becomes distinctive, and the notions of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis (incidentally, suggested not by Hegel, but by one of his interpreters, who borrowed these terms from Fichte) enter the picture, allowing Marx and Lenin later to jump on them.
Is there a logical sequitur within the dialectic chain between its champions dialecticians? There is a certain consistency in the progression between the Pre-Socratics and Hegel, and between Hegel the epistemologist and Hegel the philosopher of history, but the legitimacy of the transition from Hegel to Marx is questioned particularly by subsequent Western philosophers. There is no consistency breach however between Hegel’s idealism and Marx’s materialism, insofar as dialectics itself is concerned. The only strong objection to the treatment of this process by Marx and Lenin is that, in their approach, the world-historical process freezes over with the advent of communism (or, to be more modest, socialism), which undermines the principle of dialectical change without a proper justification. Indeed, even if we can imagine an arrival at the Absolute by Hegel’s self-realizing Spirit, such terminal point is only anticipated within idealistic systems, while no such conclusion of the world-historical process can be logically anticipated within the materialistic system, as professed by the classics of Marxism-Leninism. Apparently, both Marx and Lenin were closet idealists, who treated the last Communist stage of the world-historical process exactly like Hegel had envisioned the ultimate self-realization of the Spirit, only with much greater clarity and determination.
In my analysis of the fundamental nature of a stable world order, I have been contending that the stabilizing geopolitical principle of bipolarity appears to be the only logical principle of international organization. No claim, however, can be made that bipolarity is an ideal state of global affairs, because it is only a physical, only a material principle, whereas the clear dividing line between the material and the ideal remains intact in this consideration.
This is not to say that, as a material principle, bipolarity cannot have a say in our discussion of the ideal, as long as we have drawn proper conceptual lines, and are conscious about not overstepping them. Mindful of these constraints, we can nevertheless speculate about the viability of the bipolar principle in international politics and its exact position within the quasi-Hegelian dialectical chain of thesis-antithesis-synthesis.
Assuming that unipolarity is an oxymoron, and multipolarity is a transitional state, bipolarity comes out as the most natural dialectical thesis. However, being physical, rather than ideal, it can be expected to meet a perpetual challenge to its legitimacy in a variety of temporary forms, be that the illusory state of unipolarity, or the transitional reality of multipolarity. And, being the only stable state of reality, it can be expected to be recurring each time having been challenged by a fleeting antithesis, first as a synthesis, which our world is experiencing right now, and then as a new, yet familiar old thesis. Es ist eine alte Geschichte, doch bleibt es immer neu...
As I am on this subject now, I am curious about one other, consummately speculative thing: How does our recurring dialectic process fit into the causal chain? Can it be thus: Thesis is the cause of antithesis, which is the cause of the struggle between the thesis and the antithesis, then the struggle itself must be the cause of the synthesis, which right from the moment of its birth becomes the new thesis, and so on… Or, maybe, the thesis is not the cause of the antithesis, but only of the strife, generated by its appearance, a struggle against everything that is non-thesis, and now that the thesis has arrived, the antithesis takes shape from within the non-thesis crowd?
The preceding paragraph was not a vain wild exercise in speculative dialectics, but a serious and legitimate inquiry into the relationship between dialectics and causality, which is not at all obvious, and an invitation to a thoughtful contemplation of this argument’s application to the specific matters of superpower politics, bipolarity, unipolarity, multipolarity, and such. The practical questions of political science are fascinating here. So far, mind you, I have not involved into this discussion the question of the thesis and the antithesis in its application to the specific powers of the modern world. Of the two superpowers of cold war, how do they relate to each other, if at all, in the context of causality? But before getting into this some questions still remain to be discussed regarding the pure mechanics of the political world order. Such as these:
Is multipolarity a disguise for bipolarity? Will this disguise, granted, of great usefulness to the clandestine antithesis ever be discarded and the dialectic simplicity of the world order be restored? One thing, however, does not have to be asked, because the answer is obvious: There can be no such thing as unipolarity in real life, but only an arrogant chimera in the inflamed minds of the make-believe emperors of the universe, the classic case of emperors without clothes, their suspense allowed to last for a while only because the rest of the world is having such great fun at their expense and also trying to take maximum political advantage of the poor blind emperors…
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