Can the determination degree of a concept

be interpreted as an order relation in

Hegel's dialectical logic?

Eduardo Daniel Dib

Universidad Nacional de Río Cuarto
ORCID ID: 0000-0001-8802-3781

Abstract: By the beginning of the 19th century, Hegel's dialectic turned contradiction
(conceived as unity of a concept with its determined negation) into distinguished inference.
In the course of 20th century, Hegel's idea of Logic as an unfolding of concepts ordered by the
degree of "determination" reached at every step of the process, was put aside.
We attempt to recover the importance of that idea for the hegelian concept of "logical
necessity", adding that it might play the role of an order relation for dialectical inference.

Keywords: Dialectic. Contradiction. Negation. Determination. Order. Logical necessity

Introduction: Contradiction and determination in Hegel's dialectic

After its beginning in classical Greek times, mainly with Plato's dialogues, dialectic has been
rebuilt by Hegel in two fundamental works, Phenomenologie des Geistes (1807) and
Wissenschaft der Logik (1812-1816), where contradiction — understood as the unity of a
concept with its determined negation — becomes the only inference that really matters:

Indem das Resultierende, die Negation, bestimmte Negation ist, hat sie einen Inhalt. Sie ist
ein neuer Begriff, aber der höhere, reichere Begriff als der vorhergehende; denn sie ist um
dessen Negation oder Entgegengesetztes reicher geworden, enthält ihn also, aber auch mehr
als ihn, und ist die Einheit seiner und seines Entgegengesetzten. – In diesem Wege hat sich
das System der Begriffe überhaupt zu bilden …1

"Since the resultant, the negation, is determined negation, it has a content. It is a new
concept, but higher and richer than the previous one, because it has been enriched by its
negation or opposite, so containing it, but also [containing] more than it, and it is the unity
of itself and its opposite. The system of the concepts has to be constructed in this way"

Inferences of any other kind would no longer matter, since they cannot proceed according to
"the thing itself". 2
Leaving behind this metaphysical commitment, paraconsistent logic formalized dialectic in the
20th century, by including contradiction into the contemporary paradigm of truth preservation.
So, the paraconsistent inference would not solely be led by contradiction anymore. Also, it

1
Hegel 2008 Wissenschaft der Logik, pp 38-39.
2
See ibid., p 39
would not longer be a system of concepts ordered by the degree of "determination"
(Bestimmtheit) reached at every step.
We want to investigate the viability of recovering this "determination" as an order relation,
structurally comparable to the standard relation of truth-preserving logical consequence, but yet
retaining the ability, required by Hegel, to follow just the thread of contradictions.

Our problem: ¿Is it possible to recover Hegel's concept of "determination" as an order relation,
suitable for contemporary logic?

Our method

We have just seen in our Introduction that:

1) For Hegel, the increasing determination of a concept is the necessary result of contradiction,
which is understood as its determined negation.

2) And that dialectic inference must follow just the thread of contradiction, being ordered by the
degree of determination reached at every step.

We need now to show that:

3) Determination is fundamentally linked to logical necessity, which is a central dialectical

concept.

4) And that Hegel's concept of determination can be reflected on a formal treatment of concepts
in a contemporary style, allowing to present determination as an order relation susceptible, in
principle, to formalization itself.

Dialectic of consciousness in Phenomenologie des Geistes

Even when Hegel takes as a starting point Plato's dialectic, he points out that this, being "only
negative", stops in the refutation of the adversary's statement, while he seeks "positive" results,
requiring a new concrete aseveration to be reached as the necessary result of the original
negation.3
What is it for him to gain in this ancient dialectic, then? According Gadamer, it is the chaining
and development of the ideas, the thesis that truth is in no isolated idea to be found, but in the
complete discursive development where they articulate with each other.4
For Hegel, such chaining is a natural phenomenon, a "movement" resulting from the
unavoidable entanglement of consciousness in contradiction5, which is determined by necessity.
He finds the source of such necessity in the fact that "every consciousness is self-
consciousness"6. As awareness of the object, consciousness clings to it, but as awareness of

3
See Gadamer 1971 "Hegel und die antike Dialektik", Hegels Dialektik - Fünf hermeneutische Studien, p
16
4
See Gadamer 1971 "Die Idee der hegelschen Logik", Hegels Dialektik - Fünf hermeneutische Studien, p
53
5
See Gadamer 1971 "Hegel ̶ die verkehrte Welt", Hegels Dialektik - Fünf hermeneutische Studien, pp
37-38
6
See ibid., p 32
itself, conciousness cannot avoid to notice that the contradiction in the object is also in itself,
which forces it to abandon its belief (Meinung) and move to its next form (Gestalt), in which it
holds a new belief about the object.7

Determination of a concept in Wissenschaft der Logik

In this work, Hegel leaves the belief behind, because the subject matter on discussion is now the
concept itself. 8 Thus, adding to the idea of necessity afecting consciousness, we have the
necessity with which a concept keeps always gaining determination.9 The "new belief" was just
held to be true, but the corresponding "new concept" is a further determined form of the concept
to be proved, and compared with the former ones, and ordered.

Hegel claims also that the continuous increase of determination is co-related with a
corresponding decrease of generality.10 We will be back with this interesting inverse relation, in
time to explain its potential to define an order relation in dialectical inference.

Contradiction, determination and experience

Martin Heidegger gave a classical view on how Hegel conceives the relationship between the
contradictory experience of consciousness and the progressive determination of a concept, by
comparing it with a walk in the forest:

Experience is transition. Let's say we have taken our representation of what a tree is from our
previous intuitions of trees with round leaves. Then we come to a new tree with a different kind
of leaves. This new object destroys our former representation, by showing its inadequacy. So,
the new experience with its truth is made upon the untruth of the former. 11

Contradiction "destroys" the current representation with respect to a particular category of note,
in this case, the form of the leaves. The result is not the destruction of the concept itself, but its
enrichment with the new characteristic.
The point is that the new note found in an instance of the concept was not yet contained in it,
and so contradicts it. This is a purely formal condition: just the category of the note, and the fact
of being different, not its perceptual content, is relevant for a general formulation of this
process. Next, we will show a principle for its formalization.

Concepts as sets of notes

Mario Bunge takes the well-known distinction between intension and extension as a criterium to
characterize and compare concepts to each other.

7
See ibid., p 34
8
See Gadamer 1971 "Die Idee der hegelschen Logik", p 57
9
See ibid., p 52
10
See ibid., p 56
11
See Heidegger 2005 "Erläuterung der „Einleitung“ zu Hegels Phänomenologie des Geistes", Hegel, p
232
Every concept has an intension, given by its definition, and an extension or range, given by the
set of the objects to which it applies.12
So, intension implies the set of the notes contained in a concept as predicates, and it bears an
inverse relation with respect to the corresponding extension: the more notes are contained in the
concept, the less objects to which it applies there will be. 13
So, by identifying determination with intension, and generality with extension, we should find
also here the inverse relation between determination and generality detected by Hegel.
Such identifications make possible to formalize concepts, to compare them by their degree of
determination and to order them accordingly: when we find in a given concept all the predicates
already contained in another concept, plus any other new predicate, we will say that it is more
determined tan the other one, containing all its predicates and someone else. So, it will be less
general, since it will apply to less objects.

Conclusion

1) We have seen that for Hegel the increase of the determination of a concept is the necessary
result of contradiction, taken as its determined negación.

2) We have seen that dialectical inference must follow just the thread of contradiction, being
ordered by the degree of determination reached at every step.

3) We have seen the connection between determination and logical necessity in two respects:
chaining and development of the ideas, and inverse relation between determination and
generality of a concept.

4) We have seen that both, the ordering criterium of the chaining, and the inverse relation
between determination and generality, can be reflected in a formal treatment of the concepts
given in Bunge's contemporary style. Such possibility has been established by showing the
correspondence between determination and intension of a concept as it emerged from our
interpretation of Heidegger's passage, as well as the correspondence between generality and
extension, since both designate the range of objects satisfaying the set of predicates that defines
the intension of the concept.

Final word for the possible application of this idea: even being too short the length granted to
this paper for a detailed description, it seems feasible and fruitful an application to the modeling
of cognitive systems where contradiction plays a significant role.

12
See Bunge, M. 1987 La investigación científica - Su estrategia y filosofía, Ed. Ariel, Barcelona, p 84
13
See ibid., p 85
 Bibliography

Bunge, M. 1987 La investigación científica - Su estrategia y filosofía, Ariel, Barcelona

Gadamer, H-G. 1971 Hegels Dialektik - Fünf hermeneutische Studien, J.C.B. Mohr (Paul
Siebeck), Tübingen

Hegel, G.W.F. 2008 Wissenschaft der Logik, Felix Meiner Verlag, Hamburg

Heidegger, M. 2005 Hegel, Prometeo Libros, Buenos Aires