Date/Time
22/03/2025 (Saturday)
2.00 - 5.00 pm
Location
The Adelaide
A Saturday School with Meade McCloughan
A striking feature of much modern European philosophy has been its insistence on the importance of the dialectic. But what is the dialectic? To its advocates, it can seem as if it functions like algebra; but to its opponents, it is closer to alchemy. At the most basic level, it involves the idea of the interplay of contradiction and transformation in both thought and reality. The best way to get a handle on the idea is by looking at its history. We will therefore examine the origin of the modern conception of the dialectic in Kant, where it plays a negative role, then its positive transformation by Fichte and Schelling, leading to Hegel’s development of a thoroughly dialectical philosophy. We will conclude by indicating some of the ways in which this idea of dialectic is developed, criticized and radicalized by subsequent philosophers.
Meade McCloughan has been studying philosophy for nearly 40 years and has taught at University College London and Birkbeck College London. He is on the organising group of the Marx and Philosophy Society.