The University of Maryland University College Asia

David Norris, Associate Professor

English 303

Critical Approaches to Literature 

 

Dialectics

Throughout history and its various stages there is a constant and Homeric battle between opposing ideas, called by Hegel [1770-1831] dialectic idealism.  It goes something like this:  each phase in history corresponds to the manifestation of certain ideas or an idea.  It is called the thesis.  However, it includes its opposite, its antithesis.  Thesis and antithesis struggle with each other until the antithesis manages to absorb the thesis or to combine with it in one form or another.  This combination is called a synthesis, representing a new stage in history.  Every synthesis in turn becomes a thesis that suggests automatically its antithesis which comes into conflict with it to lead to a new synthesis and so forth. . .

Macridis, Roy C.  Contemporary Political Ideologies: Movements
     and Regimes.  4th ed.  Glenview:  Scott, 1989.  119.

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Dialectic:  1.  The art or practice of arriving at the truth by disclosing the contradictions in an opponent's argument and overcoming them.  2. a.  The Hegelian process of change whereby an ideational entity, a thesis, is transformed into its opposite, an antithesis, and preserved and fulfilled by it, the combination of the two being resolved in a higher form of truth, a synthesis.  b.  Hegel's critical method for the investigation of this process.  3. a.  Often dialectics.  The Marxian process of change through the conflict of opposing forces, whereby a given contradiction is characterized by a primary and a secondary aspect, the secondary succumbing to the primary, which is then transformed into an aspect of a new contradiction.  b.  The Marxian critique of this process.  4.  Dialectics.  A method of argument or exposition that systematically weighs contradictory facts or ideas with a view to the resolution of their real or apparent contradictions.  5.  The contradiction between two conflicting forces viewed as the determining factor in their continuing interaction.

Dialectical materialism:  The Marxian interpretation of reality that views matter as the sole subject of change and all change as the product of a constant conflict between opposites arising from the internal contradictions inherent in all events, ideas, and movements.

The American Heritage Dictionary.  1985 ed.

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The history of philosophy is a rehash of old truths. . . .  A philosophy is merely a bias, a chosen or preferred vantage point from which to look at life.  The history of philosophy is a story of the shifting of biases . . .

Yutang, Lin.  "To Every Man His Own Philosophy."  Forgotten
    Pages of American Literature.  Ed. Gerald W. Haslam.  New
    York: Houghton, 1970.  160-63.

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Deconstruction's Three Steps:

1.  Establish a hierarchy within the text, i.e., there is a conflict, an opposition of ideas, and one side seems to be dominant over the other.

2.  Reverse the hierarchy within the text to show that it is illusory or arbitrary.

3.  Undermine the original hierarchy, thus placing "both structures in question, making the text ultimately ambiguous."

Lynn, Steven.  "A Passage into Critical Theory."  College English
    52 (1990): 263.

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Brautigan, Richard.  "Sky Blue Pants."  The Tokyo-Montana
     Express.  New York: Delacorte, 1980.  247-48.