Hegel's Dialectics explained according to Žižek & Dolar: "Substance is Subject"
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 Published On Jun 24, 2021

The philosophical concept most often associated with Hegel is none other than dialectics. It is the basic idea underlying all of Hegel's thought. Dialectic is multiform. Hegel thinks aesthetics, history and science through it.
In this video I will explain what dialectic means in Hegel. In doing so, I will explain dialectics in its ontological and epistemological aspects, according to the interpretation of the Ljubljana School, which includes philosophers such as Slavoj Žižek, Mladen Dolar and Alenka Zupančič. These aspects are the most important, because Hegel's dialectic is a reaction to Kant's epistemology, which he describes in the Critique of Pure Reason.
Dialectics is often divided into three concepts: Thesis, Antithesis and Synthesis. This is completely wrong. Hegel does not use these terms to describe dialectics in any of his texts. In his Lecture on History, Hegel even accuses Kant of thinking too schematically according to thesis, antithesis and synthesis.
In the preface to "The Phenomenology of Spirit" (1807) - Hegel's first major work - he sums up his thinking quite differently in the following sentence:
"In my view, which must be justified by the exposition of the system itself, everything hangs on apprehending and expressing the true not as as substance, but just as much as subject ." If we are to understand dialectics in Hegel, we must grasp the meaning of this proposition.
In order to understand this sentence, I will explain the dialectical relation of Being and Nothingness from the beginning of Hegel's "Science of Logic", relate it to Kant and contextualist this by giving a short history of the substance-debate in philosophy.

☞ CONTENTS:
0:00 - Introduction
0:49 - Kant's thing-in-itself
2:23 - What does substance mean in philosophy?
4:22 - Hegel's reaction to Kant: "Substance is subject".
6:10 - Dialectics using the example of Being & Nothingness
12:58 - Retroactivity according to Mladen Dolar
16:22 - Retroactivity according to Slavoj Zizek
20:44 - Hegel's epistemology and the thing-in-itself
24:38 - Summary

☞ SOURCES:
G.W.F. Hegel: "Die Phänomenologie des Geistes." 1807. (http://www.zeno.org/nid/2000917723X)
G.W.F. Hegel: "Die Wissenschaft der Logik". 1812. (http://www.zeno.org/nid/2000917656X)
Slavoj Žižek: "Sex and the Failed Absolute". Bloomsbury Academic. (2019) (https://ia903106.us.archive.org/21/it...)
Slavoj Žižek: "Less Than Nothing: Hegel And The Shadow Of Dialectical Materialism." Verso. 2013.
Mladen Dolar: "SUBSTANCE IS SUBJECT". Vortrag an der Europäischen Universität in St. Petersburg. 04.12.2018 (   • SUBSTANCE IS SUBJECT, Mladen Dolar, E...  )

Production and text by Maximilian Kostka

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